OTTAWA – CACTUS has some prickly words for the CRTC.
As the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) prepares for the Regulator’s review of community TV in April, it has accused the Commission of denying Canadians access to information about the 139 cable-run community channels in Canada.
"The lack of publicity by the CRTC about this important hearing along with the absence of meaningful and objective data, together deny Canadians the opportunity to understand how $116 million dollars that cable subscribers paid for community TV in 2008 alone, were actually spent”, said spokesperson Cathy Edwards, in a statement.
Edwards said that the Commission admitted that it has never asked for programming and expenditure data for community channels, even though its own regulations require cable companies to keep this data for up to one year in order to assess how community TV policy is working.
CACTUS said that it will file an access to information request with the Commission asking it to obtain cable companies’ community-access data for the most recent programming year, and to publish it in time for the April 26th hearing.
Edwards also criticized the CRTC for denying requests to have its staff attend community meetings to inform the public about its community TV policy and the hearing.
"How can Canadians comment intelligently on this issue, when the federal regulatory agency that is supposed to be monitoring Canadian broadcasting won’t meet with Canadians where they live, doesn’t publicize the hearings, and doesn’t bother to collect basic information about communities’ access to their own channels?" Edwards asked.
