Video: Compilation of various opening credits for LGBTQ2+ community television programs in Canada. Disclaimer: I do not own any of the footage.
Cable access, also known as community TV, was developed following a policy statement by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) which encouraged Canadian cable companies to provide equipment, training, and transmission for “citizen-produced programming” in 1971.
Following the CRTC’s statement, a variety of groups and individuals went to their local cable television studios and asked for airtime to produce and distribute their own shows. Canadians equipped with a cable television system, in turn, were able to tune in to their local community channel for the first time. Now available to viewers were programs made by people like them on topics that spoke to them.
Community cable channels aired programs about local events and groups—among other types of programming, it broke new ground by broadcasting shows made by and for queer people at a time when LGBTQ2+ lives were often relegated to the margins of society and television. These ground-breaking television programs now constitute a unique window into LGBTQ2+ cultures and politics.
As part of my current book project, From Local Screens to National Networks: Trajectories of Queer Cable Television in Canada (under contract – McGill Queen’s University Press), I am researching the various ways in which community television was used by LGBTQ2+ groups and individuals from the 1970s (when cable access took hold) to the early 2000s (when cable access began to dwindle with the advent of satellite and the Internet). In so doing, not only am I looking at archival material related to these various shows (tapes, reels, audio recordings, press articles, posters, policy papers etc.) but I am also interviewing participants of former community television programs.
Do you have material related to LGBTQ2+ community television shows in Canada? Were you part of a cable access show dedicated to amplifying LGBTQ2+ issues? Do you wish to share your experiences?
Don’t hesitate to reach out!
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