Star Ray TV

March 26, 2002 Press Release

For immediate release, Toronto:
Star Ray TV goes to Parliament

Jan Pachul, has been fighting the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for years over a licence to operate a low power community television station in the east end of Toronto. Earlier this month, Pachul, general manager and owner of Star Ray TV was invited to appear before Parliament's Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. The Committee is studying the state of the Canadian broadcasting system, as a pioneer of community television Pachul was pleased to have the opportunity to speak publicly about his frustrations with the CRTC - to the people who can recommend the changes needed to grant his community, and others like it, the right to broadcast the kind of local programming that is not available from any other source.

Pachul called for the disbanding of CRTC, referring to it as a "corrupt, wasteful, useless bureaucratic" organization. He makes the argument that a broadcasting system where five corporations own a majority of broadcasting properties nationwide is the result of the CRTC's biased policies in favour of a handful of industry elites. The CRTC denied Pachul's licence application for a new,innovative, community television station when five major broadcast organizations objected, even though the public was in total support of the station. Pachul maintains that the majority of commissioners fabricated reasons to turn down his application. "Yes, they came up with reasons right out of thin air that had absolutely no validity, " he says. Pachul believes that freedom of speech should include equal access to broadcasting frequencies for everyone, not just for a few wealthy corporate insiders.

Pachul takes issue with the majority of CRTC commissioners being lawyers or consultants and questions their qualifications to judge what stations and programming Canadian's can watch. He says, "A couch potato that watches 40 hours of TV a week would be more qualified and preferable as a CRTC commissioner than a lawyer." He proposes a broadcasting system that is competitive and responsive to new players in broadcasting. "Why is the CRTC dictating programming formats and protecting existing formats from any competition?" he asks. "The tasks needed to regulate broadcasting such as spectrum management and competition law are already done by Industry Canada. So what is the CRTC accomplishing?"

It would appear that their agenda is to maintain the same kind of bureaucratic control that has made sure that only a select few players will continue to rule the airwaves, which do after all belong to all of us. The Heritage Committee meeting will be broadcast on CPAC this Thursday, March 28th at 8:00 a.m. Please tune in to watch these vital developments.

Jan Pachul's complete speech can be found at srtv.ca/speech.html

For more information, please contact Jan Pachul directly at
Phone: (416) 693-7400, or email srtv at srtv.ca
Or visit the Star Ray web site at srtv.ca