“An open-minded, fun and accessible community ‘TV’ service, run as a forum for debate, the supply of information and promotion of local initiatives, talent and needs, has a vital role to play in multi-cultural, multi-faith C21st century Britain. Digital/cable TV and new media will be playing their part in urban regeneration and social cohesion.”
Community TV Trust has for a long time led the way in innovative ideas about community media and the ways in which engagement can be achieved. Foreseeing the rise of social media and online activity, the shift away from mainstream media access to portable screens and citizen journalism, the Trust founded and ran Southwark.TV from a pilot in April 2003 until 2014 when the site was archived.
Chris Haydon, who founded CTVT, has written a history of the project from its initial germ of an idea all the way through the rise of the Internet, OFCOM, local TV and much more.
The whole report is made available here for you to download and see the lessons learned in a decade long project that involved all sections of the community in Southwark and showed the power of putting the production of media into peoples’ hands, thereby giving them the knowledge that the one way street of broadcasting can be challenged.