The 22nd National Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Conference was held at the Manning Clark Centre, Australian National University, December 2-4, 1994. The theme for the conference was CBAA - Celebrating 20 years. Throughout the past year one of the main problems with the National coordination of community TV was the lack of consistent communication between people in the sector. The Vice President TV for the past year was Rita Freeman from ACE TV in Adelaide. All have agreed that RitaUs lack of activity in the sector has not helped in pursuing the CTV cause. Issues such as the CTV Codes of Practice, National Program Exchange and Membership issues have not yet been addressed despite the immediate need for their development before the Broadcasting Review process begins in mid to late 1995. Attendance at the Conference was heartening with all licence holders except Adelaide present and also representation from many aspirant groups. The 2 disappointing no shows were any representation from South Australia, particularly Adelaide, as well as a representative from the Sydney licence holder (CTS) only coming to one session. On the whole it appears that there are enthusiastic and keen people at the helm of CTV groups around the country. %Peter Lane continues to stress the politics and aspirations of Melbourne CTV groups as well as pushing a strategic national policy, being the CTV rep on the newly created National Community Media Council (NCMC). %Wes Tatters is no longer involved in Briz 31, Brisbane, but has ably been replaced by Simon Bunker. %Western Australian CTV is at an interesting stage. There are 2 aspirants groups vying for a license with neither wanting to join forces and become a consortium. They are marginally within the same signal range and according to the ABA share the same market. They are currently in discussion for the allocation of an additional frequency as well as the possibility of splitting the market and being allowed to both broadcast on UHF 31. CTV Perth attended the conference represented by Mandy Grubb. %The currently problems with CTS in Sydney didnUt diminish the representation from that city. The cable Community Channel was represented by Narelle Barsby, the new Station Manager, Dale Truman, Assistant Station Manager. Kate Ingham representing the Community ChannelUs license holder Metro TV was also there as was Zara Williams, a program maker with a number of Sydney community TV outlets. CTV1 was represented by Royce Sutcliff while CAT TV representatives were Matthew Arnison, John Curtis and Karina Brisby. Greg Eatock was present as a member of Parleeka TV (a non-member of the CBAA) and also as a representative for the president of CTS. Greg Hoy, Station Manager of CTS, was present at the conference for the final 2 days but only managed to turn up briefly for one workshop session. %Canberra Community TV is in the process of applying for a licence and is a loose consortium of groups including AIR TV. Bruce White attended as a member of Community Access TV Broadcasters Ltd. Thursday 1st December. The official start of the Conference was Friday but groups had decided that informal gatherings were needed the day before to prioritise discussion for the next three days. It was duly noted that there were a lot of issues to get through in a very short period of time. Issues tagged for the Conference included CTV Standing Committee and its operation, membership, permanent licensing, the CTV Codes of Practice (COP), program exchange, sponsorship, electronic communication. Friday 2nd December Opening For only the 2nd time in 22 years, the Minister for Communications did not open the Conference. This job was instead done by Brian Johns, Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA). In his speech he talked of the rapidly changing technologies in the communication sector and enthusiastically talked about community TV. The impression received from his talk on technology and CTV led some people to believe that cable TV was the preferred option for community broadcasting. The Creative Nation statement was mentioned along with the fact that $85m had been set aside for the development of multimedia and that community broadcasters should take advantage of that. He also made the announcement that the community radio Codes Of Practice (COP) had been accepted by the ABA and would come into force Jan 1, 1995. He was looking forward to receiving the CTV COP. Television Music Copyright Forum This session turned into a fairly confusing affair with no clear presentation of what was required by the 3 main copyright organisations - APRA, AMCOS, PPCA. (See attached sheet for the organisationUs purpose) Although a person from each the 3 organisations gave an outline of their organisation and their copyright coverage, it was largely aimed at license holders and not program providers. APRA and AMCOS have agreements ready to sign with license holders. The PPCA are still in negotiations as to the payment required for the use of pre-recorded CDs, records and tapes. The PPCA represent Australian record companies. It was claimed that last year they received about $1.2m in fees and returned a small fraction of it to artists. What needs to be investigated is whether program providers need to sign a deal with the 3 copyright organisations to clear itUs musical copyright for productions. If the program is broadcast it may be covered by the stationUs copyright agreement, but if the program is screened at a video night or released for sale on video there would be no agreement in place. National Community Media Council The National Community Media Council was set up earlier this year to be a place for greater communication between all parts of the Community Media sector. The Council is currently made up of the CBAA (2), NIMAA (2), NEMBC (2), ACB - Australian Christian Broadcasters (1), RPH - Radio for the Print Handicapped (2) and CTV (1). The Council will meet at least two times per year and has been given $16,000 by the CBF over 2 years. The activities of the Council will include the exchange of ideas, joint formulation and presentation of policies for the sector. SATURDAY 3rd December CTV: Codes of Practice (COP) This is going to be one of the most important documents for the CTV sector. In the environment of self regulation this document will govern the basic ethics of community TV broadcasting. The Community Radio Codes of Practice have already been completed and it will come into effect on January 1, 1995. The CTV COP needs to be completed by the middle of 1995. At this stage there are 9 codes. They are: 1. Responsibilities of Broadcasting To The Community, Principles of Diversity And Independence. 2. Guidelines For General Programming / Guidelines For News And Current Affairs Programming 3. Local And Australian Program Content 4. Classification 5. Sponsorship 6. Volunteers 7. Conflict Resolution 8. Handling Complaints 9. Review Of Codes Each code contains quite a few problems at this stage. Kate Ingham has been assigned the COP Co-ordinator on the CTV Standing Committee. It will be hard to mediate a COP that is acceptable to all license holders around the country. A problem that raised its head on many occasions during the entire conference was the fact that only 2 of the 6 license holders are consortiums and most documentation is unfortunately written from a consortium point of view. Another area not even opened up to discussion is the problems associated with policing the COP. Does the CBAA take it upon itself to hand out penalties for breaches of the COP? Does the sector impose penalties? Would it be up to the ABA? Another slight issue is the name of the document. For the interim period the 6th Channel license holders around the country are not classified as Community TV broadcasters. Does the document then become the Interim 6th Channel Community Narrowcasters Code Of Practice? Permanent Licensing This workshop was attended by members of the Department of Art and Culture as well as the ABA. It was a frank discussion where government official spoke off the record. Currently the narrowcasting licenses are due to run out before the review of broadcasting in 1997 begins. Peter Lane, Christina Alvarez (CBAA - CTV worker) and Mike Thompson (CBAA - Executive Officer) met with the ABA a week earlier and pushed the point that current licenses must be extended until after the review process has been completed. It would effect the stations financially, socially and politically if they were forced to stop broadcasting while the review was being held. The ABA and the Minister were going to consider this request. There was concern over the Terms Of Reference for the enquiry and the input that CTV would have over what would be looked at. It was revealed that recommendations for the terms of reference were currently on the Ministers desk but had not yet been looked at or discussed. The Terms Of Reference would likely to be released towards the end of 1995. Another issue raised was the continuation of issuing drop-through narrowcasting licenses. It was noted that a number of groups that had applied appear to have delays in being issued licenses. Another point was that the BSA (Broadcast Services Act) did not allow for Test License for CTV. The ABA off the record said that this issue would be looked into. Organisation and Membership This is a nightmare which has been gone through a number of times at local levels in CTV. Who is allowed to become a member of the CBAA and what rights do they have? Will the CTV sector only be allowed to exist for the license holders? If program providers are allowed to become members of the CBAA do they get one vote each? Will this mean that they can out vote the license holders? If program providers are allowed to become members of the CBAA and not vote, what incentive will they have to join? On From matthewa@Physics.usyd.edu.au Mon Mar 13 12:50:05 1995 Received: (from matthewa@localhost) by opticks.physics.su.OZ.AU (8.6.10/8.6.6) id MAA12028 for mra; Mon, 13 Mar 1995 12:50:05 +1000 Received: by physics.su.OZ.AU id AA14216 (5.67b/IDA-1.4.4 for matthewa); Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:09:58 +1100 Received: from aftrs.edu.au (uucperr@localhost) by tmx.mhs.oz.au (8.6.5/8.6.5) with UUCP id RAA23504 for matthewa@physics.su.oz.au; Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:08:28 +1100 From: john.curtis@aftrs.edu.au Received: by aftrs.edu.au id 0OUVP002 Wed, 28 Dec 94 17:41:40 Message-Id: <9412281741.0OUVP00@aftrs.edu.au> Date: Wed, 28 Dec 94 17:41:40 Subject: Part ii To: matthewa@physics.su.oz.au Organization: [ Australian Film Television and Radio School ] Sender: matthewa@Physics.usyd.edu.au Status: RO The following is the 2nd part of the CBAA COnference Report. I've finally sent it to you!!!! On this issue, 4 resolutions had been put up for the AGM for the CBAA membership to pass. 1. MOTION: That all sixth channel open narrowcasters licensed for non profit community and educational use be eligible for full membership for the 1994-95 year. The current CBAA constitution would not allow open narrowcasters to be members of the CBAA and thus all license holders would not be allowed membership. After thrashing the issue around for about 30 minutes, the motion was amended to include technology neutral CTV service providers such as the community cable channel and CTV1. The motion now read: That non-profit organisations providing a CTV transmission service which complies with the BSA and the sixth channel ABA access statement shall be eligible for full membership for the 1994/95 year. The motion was passed at the AGM. 2. MOTION: That community television program providers be eligible for Associate membership for the 1994-95 year. This motion was instigated as a way of increasing the CTV membership of the CBAA to make it more representative and also to increase funding though membership for all the work that needs to be done in the sector. Of major concern was the fact that Associate members have one vote. Discussion ensued about amending the motion to include no votes but after lengthy discussion just before the AGM, it was decided to withdraw that motion until the review of all CBAA membership takes place which will be in mid 1995. [The above issue is extremely relevant to CAT. At present CAT is an Associate member of the CBAA and has one vote. We are currently one of a hand full of CTV non-license holders, Associate member that have a vote. This is due to the fact that when we joined the CBAA CAT was an aspirant license holder. Since there has been no review of membership categories over the past few years, CAT has continued to have a vote eventhough it is no longer a license aspirant. Non aspirant groups that are members of the CBAA are given the category of Affiliate and have no voting rights. The fact that the above resolution was not passed means that CAT may lose its voting rights for future CBAA AGMs.] A weird anomaly that occurred at the AGM was that CTV license holders were given 2 votes from the start of the AGM as full members, eventhough the resolution for being full members was not passed until half way though the AGM. 3. MOTION: That the National Committee recommends that the Conference considers adopting the principle that eligibility for membership of the CBAA be based on technology neutral criteria, on a definition of service, rather than means of delivery or type of license. This was put forward to prepare the advancement in technologies and to try to make the CBAA become a more encompassing organisation. At present it only represents radio and TV. There is a lot of other types of community media that exist and will exist, that should have a representative body. This motion would allow such services as community computer bulletin board services to become part of the CBAA. The above motion was passed. 4. This motion was put forward by Metro TV to give cable casters full membership rights to the CBAA. As the first motion was amended to include them, this motion was withdrawn. The Awards CAT entered a number of videos in the CBAA Awards but unfortunately no CAT videos won. CTS won a prize for its Hungarian groupUs promo. The Community Cable channel was a prize winner along with RMIT in Melbourne and MAP TV for ethnic programming. Royce Sutcliff picked up a special volunteers award for his services to community tv. Sunday 4th December AGM/Plenary If only Sydney meeting were this efficient. The AGM was scheduled for one hour and guess what??!!! It went for one hour. Elections occurred by voting at the venue. Results were given out by the end of the AGM. All motion were passed, withdrawn or defeated with very little discussion. It was amazing!!!! Interesting resolution from the plenary are listed below: 4. In line with the Jan T95 registration of the Community Radio Code of Practice and the developing CTV code of practice, this plenary recommends that the CBF fund the development of a conflict resolution training package to facilitate implementation of Code 6. Passed 5. That in light of the propensity of recent male Ministers of Communication to get carried away with technological determinism in broadcasting policy development, this conference recommends to the Federal Government that the next Minister for Communications be a female. Moved: Jeff Langdon (5UV) Seconded: Ian Hill (6NR) This motion caused quite a stir. Jeff Langdon stood up to say that he and the seconder would like to withdraw the motion. According to a ruling by the President it was shown that the feeling of the meeting was that it should not be withdrawn. The motion was then put and passed. 15. That the CES recognise training of community broadcasters as part of job qualifications. Passed 18. That the ABA be asked to change guidelines for test licenses. Passed 19. That the CBAA seek tax law advice for sales tax exemption for community broadcasters. Passed CTV Standing Committee Vice President TV - Mandy Grubb (Perth CTV) Permanent Licensing - Peter Lane (MCT) Codes Of Practice - Kate Ingham (Metro TV) Access To new Technologies - Ian Slade (LINC TV) Funding - to be filled Program Exchange & Copyright - Simon Bunker (Briz 31)