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CMA and The Community Channel

Hi all,

Thought it may be useful to keep up informed about the activities of the
Community Channel. It was great to meet so many community film-makers at
the festival in Sheffield. And to find out what passion there is across
the UK for making TV that matters within and by communities.

Many of the Millennium award winners have featured or will feature on
the Community Channel – the excellent film Paying Through the Nose made
by Dean Hagan with David Hyndman’s support is screening every three
hours this week. It is a good example of a voice that isn’t been heard
anywhere else on the media.

The Community Channel is now available on three media platforms –
Satellite (Sky 684) and Cable (Telewest 233) 12 hours a day every day
form 8 am to 8pm. We’re one of just 30 channels on Freeview but have a
less impressive landing slot at 0300 until 0530. But lots of viewers are
trying to get us on daytime. Altogether we can be seen in nearly 10
million UK homes. Which means your work could be seen by a significant
audience.

The Channel, owned by the Media Trust, was set up to help charities
communicate better through TV. It has since widened its brief to cover
stories of volunteering and, more recently, to run stories about and by
people in communities that inspire others to be more active where they
live. The bums off seats approach to life.

So, if you have stories that you think should be aired and fit in with
the Channel brief we’d love to hear from you. We can accommodate
one-offs in a  new strand called “Here’s the Story” which has been set
up to help audiences become familiar with the concept of stories told
locally for a UK-wide interest. We do plan themes ahead - like
celebrating the elderly, looking at housing issues, talking about
sustainable transport, featuring community arts projects.   And we are
recording on June 24th for a week starting July 7th called Liverpool
week when the whole channel’s content will come from this great city to
mark the launch of youth TV project Toxteth TV.

Your films could just as well run as stand alone specials or you may
have ideas for mini series or weekly programmes.   We have no money but
we have space on a UK-wide TV channel. We are just nine people in total
to run a whole channel, make a magazine show, sort transmission,
acquisitions and the web which means things can be slower than we hope
sometimes so bear with us. If you have material  and can ensure music,
archive footage etc is cleared for broadcast and that your contributors
are happy to appear on the telly will help speed things along massively.
Obviously we will use Showcase to try to find material where possible.
If you want to talk about securing a slot on the Channel before a film
is made to help you win money for a commission then please contact me.

Hope to hear from you soon

Jane

janem at communitychannel.org


Community Media Association
Celebrating 20 years of Community Media
1983-2003

CMA Summer Festival 2003
May 8-10 Sheffield

http://www.commedia.org.uk

Telephone 0114 279 5219
Email nicky at commedia.org.uk