Community Broadcasting (Canada)

Community Television

Community television in Canada grew out of the National Film Board's Challenge for Change program. Born out of the 1960s social movements, Challenge for Change provided an example of how people might use video to strengthen their communities and inspired people across North America to get involved in video production.

Responding to people who wanted to take up video for community development, the CRTC encouraged cable companies to provide a community channel where these productions might be produced and aired. In 1975, the CRTC made the provision of a community channel—complete with a small studio and equipment—a license condition for most cable operators. However, as an early study by Goldberg showed, the cable licensee and its employees gradually extended their control over programming decisions, productions, and equipment use, and away from the community. The ownership structure tended to block community access and to mainstream both programs and users. This got worse in 1997 when the CRTC ruled cable companies no longer had to fund a community channel.

Recognizing that ongoing concentration of corporate media ownership had resulted in “reduced representation of local voices,” the CRTC announced a new community media policy in 2002, designed to increase public involvement and reinvigorate the community channel. Community channels run by large cable operators now had to devote 30% of the schedule to access programming, and several kinds of community television [Page 106]license were created. New licensees include independent program producers who, with varying levels of cable company support, create programs carried on a company channel and community broadcast organizations that are independent from cable companies, other than a requirement that they be carried on the local cable service. These latter organizations sometimes have their own over-the-air signal and may be carried on program distributors other than cable.

However, for the most part, control over community television generally remained with large cable companies. These companies had to contribute over C$100 million annually to the community channel. But there was no oversight as to how these funds were spent, and numerous complaints arose that companies had cut back community programming and created program formats mimicking those of commercial broadcasters. New distribution technologies also presented challenges to community television as satellite broadcasters were not required to carry a community channel.

In 2007, there were 101 English-language community channels and 11 community program services. But while cable companies appeared to be trying to turn community television to a more conventional commercial format, activist and more traditional formats persisted.

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