Editorial – Page 3 – Community TV Trust

Not Just PSB (Public Service Broadcasting) But Also PSM (Public Service Media).

– time to shift the debate

I set up Community TV Trust [CTVT] in 1997 (it was incorporated in 1999, registered as a charity 2000) in order to pursue social and community aims and personal empowerment for people on a local basis.

My career in broadcasting stood me in good stead as a facilitator and trainer, I saw I could deal with anything.

I had worked on early access TV programmes at LWT and Granada TV. Once the power and potential of community media became clear to me, the direction was obvious.

Community Radio and TV Funding

– Parliamentary Debate

On Tuesday 24th April 2007 Parliament, via Westminster Hall, debated funding strategy and Parliamentary responsibility for community media. One of the first observations made was that community media builds the individual’s self esteem, as well as encouraging social engagement, political understanding, and the acquisition of basic IT skills.

‘Our Mission’ underlines our own understanding of why this is both achievable and relevant to community media practice.

Community TV Trust [CTVT] is keen to reach policy makers and to exert influence where it can. We have been consulted by the Liberal Democrat Party and by KEA, a Brussels based organisation working for the European Commission.

CTVT applauds the broad consensus achieved across the three main parties in this debate, all seeing value in funding on a sustainable basis the range of work undertaken by the community media sector. Benefits are now being widely understood at Parliamentary level.

DDR – Digital Dividend Review Reviewed

Ofcom’s determination to auction off spectrum released by Digital Switchover has been evident for a long time.

The local TV lobby has pushed and pushed and frankly got nowhere. Ofcom’s determination to auction off spectrum released by Digital Switchover has been evident for a long time.

In recent times the CMA, Community Media Association, has engaged energetically with the world of community and TV; Community TV Trust has lined up with the CMA lobby on behalf of those promoting local TV (in the broadcast model) despite its own clear preference for the broadband option of delivery; even Parliament has started to pipe up with a growing understanding of what community media can offer to the individual … yet to no avail.

At a meeting held at Ofcom’s riverside offices in Southwark on 14th January 2008 it was clear that local TV while supported in statistics as a clear preference of the surveyed public was not to be favoured by the regulator or Government.

Whether spectrum is considered as an asset to sell for money or as a resource to treasure, share and ensure, local TV will not be supported in real terms by Ofcom.