TeleVISIONS (Autumn 1977)

3) anne nnn nn nnn nena From an Energy Action spot. PROJECTS Minority Center Expands By VALERI BYRD Communications Resource Center will be the new name for Cablecommunications Resource Center, an expansion of five-year-old minority consulting firm into a national business resource center for the development of minority ventures in all sectors of the media, communications and telecommunications industries. According to Charles E. Tate, vice president of programs, and Phil Watson, senior program manager of the Booker T. Washington Foundation, CRC’s parent group, the group will “broaden its programs and activities in minority community economic development and minority business enterprise by expanding its cable television venture program to include broadcast radio and television, master antennae television, pay cable, cable radio, film, video, radio and other media software and related communications technologies and industries.” The Foundation’s activities undertaken by CRC since its inception will be the basis for the program design. One activity is venture development. Venture groups now hold 30 franchises with a market value of $30 million, 7 minorityowned systems were in operation and CRC developed $82 million in equity and debt financing. Some venture groups accomplishments include organizing 100 local venture groups of 25-50 people to compete for local franchises; chartering 75 local CATV venture corporations; financing and placing 8 CATV systems into operation; and creating 45 jobs by operating systems. Another activity is developing and designing a program to insure that a pool of skilled technicians are available to manage and operate minority-owned CATV systems. A system in Dayton, Ohio, has trained 200 technicians over the past two years and has a92% placement ratio. The proposed major difference be tween Cablecommunications Resource Center and Communications Resource Center is that the expanded program will inaugurate fewer new systems. The Foundation believes that financing will be easier to obtain for established operating enterprises with proven earnings records. “Balance growth and economic development is the thrust of the Carter administration. Telecommunications is received the same as transportation and other inc'ustries. They’re growth industries. We must function as a development organization,” said Watson. Anti-oil-monopoly spots have been running on D.C.’s WTOP the past two months, and will continue through October. Energy Action Committee, Inc. filed a fairness complaint against TOP for running a Texaco ad 53 times glorifying an “integrated” industry. The FCC admitted there was a fairness problem, and forced the station to take on opposing spots. WTOP was forced to help in the production to the tune of an estimated in kind $50,000 to $100,000. Though that’s not much compared to some $100 million the oil companies are spending on promo this year. Communicasting: Although ham radio operators were pioneers of broadcasting, today they are a curious sub-culture obscured by the ponderous structures of big-time media and surrounded by swarms of iand-mobile phone types and CB’ers. Now, an amateur group in New York, the Communicasters Association of America, is pioneering the concept of inexpensive, low-power, interactive community television. “Communicasting” calls for 10-watt receiver/transmitting terminals, a repeater, and the conversion of local televisions to receive the signals. Ed Piller, president of the CAA, says a communicasting system is operating in Syosset, N.Y., with five terminals at a construction cost of about $1,000 each. The CAA has a membership of 550 people around Long Island, including a number of experienced radio engineers and technicians who have scrounged used equipment and built the stations on a volunteer basis. They are conducting community broadcasting workshops in the Syosset schools, and are developing their experiment with the Center for Advanced Study in Education and the Institute for Research and Development in Occupational Education, of the City University of New York. The system is designed for educational and public service, with stations at schools, libraries and other social centers. A program would be broadcast from one station while groups at the others would be able to interact at any time with JUMPCUT a review of contemporary cinema examining cinema in its social and political context providing in-depth analyses of current films developing a radical film criticism PO Box 865 Berkeley CA 94701 6 issues $3.00 comments or presentations of their own, through their ability to transmit as well as receive. The viewing public can respond by phone. The broadcast range is from a 10 mile radius to a potential 15. The CAA, CASE, and IRDOE, have initiated a petition for rulemaking at the FCC which calls for designation of a “communicasting” band between 470MHz and 930MHz, with preference for TV channels 70 through 83 (806-890MHz), a range now used by land-mobile phone operators. They hope to have some impact on the US position at the World Administrative Radio Conference in 1979, which will consider the redesignation of telecommunications frequencies. The petition is being reviewed by the FCC Broadcast Bureau and the Office of the Chief Engineer which will decide to begin either a notice of inquiry or rule-making. For further information: CCA, 80 Birchwood Park Drive, Syosset, New York 11791. (516) 938-5661, or CASE/IRDOE, 33 West 42nd Street, NYC 10036 (212) 2213895. —Steve Spector Small Business Administration is considering policy changes to allow loans to be used for media ownership, FCC Chairman Richard E. Wiley told a minority communications group on Sept. 2. “It does seem to me that the major impediment to minority ownership in broadcasting is the accumulation of sufficient funds to purchase stations and the SBA policy of not extending loans to media ownership. One of the things that | suggested to Pluria Marshal was the possibility of seeing whether the Small Business Administration in a long time policy of not making loans for media ownership could be changed,” said Wiley at the commencement session of the National Black Media Coalition Conference. In April, the FCC and NBMC held a minority ownership conference with representatives from the minorities, banking, brokerage and government communities to discuss solutions for minority ownership. The SBA policy change was an outcome of that conference. Pluria Marshal, president of NBMC, said he considers the SBA policy change “a step in the right direction. | think that the SBA area is a very key area that we will have to get some assistance from and, hopefully, this rule making will be presented and made part of the SBA rules that will allow monies to be loaned for minority acquisition.” This proposal was presented to Vernon Weaver, administrator of the SBA, by Wiley and Benjamin L. Hooks, former FCC commissioner and present executive director of the NAACP. — Valeri Byrd Line 21: HEW is sponsoring a meeting of the major broadcast networks and programmers on Nov. 1 to do some gentle arm-twisting in the federal effort to secure and implement the use of TV scan line 21 for captioning for the hearing impaired. PBS has, with HEW monies, developed and tested the captioning system which involved the use of a decoder on an individual television or in the control room of the transmitting network. If the decoder is used at the transmitting point, all TVs receiving that signal will also receive the captioning. If the decoder on an individual set is relied upon, then only sets with decoders will receive captioned TV. In their field tests, PBS uses both systems with a couple of hours of programming a week captioned for the general audience and twenty deaf-related institutions also using individual decoders during other times. The decoder unit, developed by Texas Instruments, will cost about $250 when it goes on the market next year. A market survey showed that if only PBS programming were captioned, estimated sales for the decoder would be 1.13 million. Now, of course the big question that remains is whether the three networks will Cooperate. The FCC has already ruled in favor of reserving line 21 for captioning but apparently the networks are still coming up with all kinds of things for which they might need this one line of the television picture. It seems inevitable that they will eventually give it over because as one HEW official put it, “they can’t go on fighting something with nothing.” HEW Secretary Califano is personally hosting this meeting to make it all less painful for them. When asked if they were handed a program already captioned would they use it, word has it that ABC said yes and both CBS and NBC rejected the idea. Rationale behind the networks’ willingness to oppose the handicapped, which is like fighting motherhood, centers on the commercial broadcasters’ reluctance to open their airwaves to any data uses. The next step might be a U.S. version of the “teletext,” which is being introduced in Europe over TV, cable and telephone. Hundreds of print-out items are available to viewers with special de coders. At a push of a button they can tune out not only programs, but advertisements! Boston changes: WGBH’s New Television Workshop (125 Western Ave., Boston, MS 02134. 617— 492-2777) has leased at lowcost its small-format video equipment to the Boston Video and Film Foundation, which takes over day to day operation of workshop functions in video, as well as with its own film equipment. (Contact John Rubin or Susan Wall, 39 Brighton Ave., Boston. 617—254-1616). The Workshop, meanwhile, will concentrate on larger projects in its third year of operation. An impressive record of work with artists is described including areas of dance, comedy, video art, and drama. Notable is the upcoming Collisions, which combines independently generated art pieces by eight video artists, with futuristic comedy sketches and transition material by Jane Wagner and starring Lily Tomlin, among others. The show, which is virtually finished, awaits a bit more money before final editing can be done. The 60-minute special, a pilot for series possibilities, cost $109,000 thus far. SOCCOM: Following the successful model developed in the Bay Area by Phil Jacklin, UC-Santa Barbara speech professor James T. Lull is organizing a Southern California Committee for Open Media (SOCCOM). The group will focus on public service announcements, free speech messages, ascertainment, and has produced a series of programs about local issues for the Santa Barbara cable system. For details, write Lull c/o Department of Speech, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. (805) 961-2148. Broadcast gripes: Video and_filmmakers who have broadcast their work or tried to gain access to broadcast air are being sought by the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF). Jeff Byrd, a member of their access committee, will send you a copy of a one page questionnaire which logs data about the process of access to TV. Write: AIVF, 99 Prince St., NYC 10012. (212) 9666447. A report of the preliminary survey results was included in AIVF’s excellent testimony submitted to the House Communications Subcommittee about indies and public TV.