MAtv scales down
CRTC decision affects plans for English community TV in Montreal
For the first time in more than a decade, cable TV subscribers in Montreal are going to have access to community television in English.
But Vidéotron’s plan to turn its MAtv community TV service bilingual has been scaled down from what was originally proposed. Gone is the idea of separate community channels for each of the two solitudes. Instead, the existing MAtv channel will devote 20 per cent of its schedule to English-language programming starting this fall.
The change in plan comes after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission found in February that MAtv was not meeting its obligations to provide local and community access programming, and denied its request to get access to more funding.
CRTC rules require licensed cable TV companies to devote five per cent of their gross revenues to Canadian programming through contributions to Canadian production funds, but allow them to deduct two of that five per cent to fund a community channel. Recently, some providers in bilingual markets like Ottawa and Moncton have received permission to redirect an additional two per cent for a second community channel in the other language.
But even though a similar application from Bell Fibe was approved for the Montreal area, Vidéotron’s application was denied because the commission found that it was not meeting its obligations for the existing French channel, and because it felt that the money being redirected to MAtv in Montreal was more than adequate to fund community TV in both languages.
Without the additional funding, Vidéotron won’t fund a second community channel.
The company is also making other changes to comply with its regulatory obligations. Vidéotron has set up a citizens’ advisory board for MAtv, with nine people representing cultural, ethnic, linguistic and business communities. The board will meet to discuss programming, but its decisions are not binding.
MAtv has also cancelled some programs that the CRTC ruled did not meet the criteria of local or community-access programming.
“There was some programming we considered local because it was made in Montreal,” explained MAtv general manager Steve Desgagné. “The CRTC said it didn’t reflect the Montreal reality so it wasn’t Montreal programming.”
Open Télé, for example, is a panel discussion show about current affairs. But while the show solicited comments from the public through social media, it wasn’t a community access show. And because it was broadcast on MAtv channels throughout Quebec, it wasn’t local either.
MAtv will also be putting in place a training program for volunteers who want to work behind the camera, Desgagné said. Though most of MAtv’s programming has professional staff working in technical positions, there will be ways for volunteers to contribute behind the camera as well as in front, starting this fall.
The changes are all meant to make MAtv into a truly commu- nity-focused channel. But for a longtime advocate for communitybased TV in Canada, these changes are too little, too late.
“It’s a conventional media model, not a community media model,” said Catherine Edwards, spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations. “I don’t see that it’s going to create community the way a community channel is meant to.”
Edwards said complaints about Vidéotron’s community channel have gone back many years, and she’s disappointed the commission didn’t follow its own policy and accept an application from an independent group that wanted to start up its own community television station in Montreal.
Independent Community Television is a grassroots group that filed the complaint against MAtv that led to the CRTC decision. With Edwards’s help, it sought to take advantage of a CRTC policy that says if an existing community channel doesn’t comply with its obligations, another one can take its place (and more importantly, its funding).
But even though MAtv was found in non-compliance, the CRTC gave it until August to fix the situation.
Gretchen King, a member of ICTV’s steering committee, doesn’t think Vidéotron will meet that deadline.
“We are monitoring the development of MAtv’s programming in English, and current programming in French, to assess whether Vidéotron will comply with regulations mandating 50 per cent access programming and 60 per cent local programming by the August 2015 deadline,” King wrote to the Montreal Gazette in an email. “At this time, Vidéotron is only continuing years of non-compliance and the wasting of millions of dollars of public money earmarked for community access television programming.”
Edwards agrees that Vidéotron has been given far too much leeway, and says the current system that allows large cable companies to run their own community channels is at the heart of the problem.
“Canada is the only country in the world that recognizes a community media sector where it’s not defined automatically by non-profit citizen media ownership,” she said. The fact that the community channel is owned and managed by a cable TV provider and not by the community means that MAtv is likely to fall back on its old ways of restricting access to people who are already TV professionals.
“You can’t police it because they’re never going to take away their cable licence. There’s no stick.”
For Desgagné, the march toward a more open MAtv/MYtv continues. “We’re doing a big promotional campaign” to solicit contributions from the public, he said. And it’s been trying to get more contributions from communities that have been under-represented in the past, such as the aboriginal community. “We already have project with the aboriginal community in the works,” he said, which should be on the air next winter.
But there hasn’t been any outreach between MAtv and ICTV. Though ICTV expressed an interest in having its members appointed to MAtv’s advisory council, none were. Likening the situation between them to a war, Desgagné said he doesn’t see how the two can see eye to eye right now.
“For the moment, I don’t see an openness from ICTV to work with us,” he said. “But they’re welcome to present projects.”
MAtv/MYtv is accepting proposals from the public. People in Montreal who want to propose programming that reflects their community — talk shows, cultural magazines, documentaries or other types of non-fiction programs — can get information and submit an application at mytv.matv.ca.
I don’t see that it’s going to create community the way a community channel is meant to. CATHERINE E D WA RD S