Re: sponsors of non-locally produced shows on BTV (Susan Block)

What’s wrong with knowing “who sponsors what show” or “who produces what show”? Why don’t they want to share that info? Aren’t producers proud of the shows they sponsor or produce? I don’t get it….

Peace through pleasure
Suzy

The Dr. Susan Block Show
http://drsusanblock.com
http://bloggamy.com
http://twitter.com/drsuzy

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Ah, well, Suzy, this may be a long story. So sit back!

As you know, they have invented a whole bunch of new rules at B-TV. These rules are designed to discourage local Berkeley residents who are not members of the Berkeley Community Media. So this makes B-TV a private channel. Partly these rules were designed to knock me off the channel as much as possible. But they have wider effects beyond me.

Now you have to be a BCM member to have a series on B-TV [$60 a year!]. Non- member residents now are barred from having a series. I don’t know if non- members can still sponsor series. We are checking on that. But using their “logic“, I doubt it.

Well, I just checked and non- member residents now cannot sponsor a series. They have excluded at least 99% of the Berkeley residents! This is simply not right! This is simply not local public access any more!

Non- member residents can still submit shows to be aired… But now it is $5 a single show! It used to be any resident could air a tape, produce or sponsor a series… All for free. I never had been a member. I am now! But they still discriminate against me because I don’t use their studio. I think the studio is the heart of the problem because they justify their existence, and getting money, on running the studio, instead of on the maintaining of the local public access channel for the residents to air their shows.

That is one aspect of it. But they also want to get LOCAL PUBLIC out of local public access! For years they have wanted to limit my presence on B-TV. The nudity and eroticism were handy excuses… which ultimately didn’t work in getting me and you off the channel. But I think the core reason was I was giving a stage to a wide range of voices from the community … Like what public access should do. It showed what they were not doing. The tag line of my Unlimited Possibilities show is YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU WILL JUMP INTO! “ or where… or who/what you will see! Unlike BCM, we went into the community! For years I said I should not be able to have so much air time. There should be a lot more local programs. I always said I would be happy to lose some of my time slots to new local shows.

And then they started coming up with new rules which made it harder and harder for me to keep most of my shows. These rules also took away the control over the show content from the resident producers… Bullshit rules restricting how many times in a day someone can “host” shows on B-TV and what percentage of your show MUST be “new” and what is “new”. All such restrictions of show content are illegal. There are ways to do what appeared to be the goals of the rules and not violate the content. For example, they could say an episode can be only aired again six months after it has been previously aired.

But it has become obvious that the real goal of the rules is the control over the content of the channel. One puzzle was how they were going to fill all those empty time slots that the new rules created. There were no new local shows to fill all those empty time slots. Then they sent out a email promoting a national web site for high end public access shows from all over the country. Then high end public access shows from all over the country [old shows] started showing up on B-TV! But the rules state non- local shows must have local sponsors! Now we have gotten to the answer to your question. They probably don’t have local sponsors for these shows [about 14]! So they are stone-walling! It is much easier for them to pick shows from that web site than having to deal with the local community producers!

We have to make it impossible for them to hijack our channel!

In Freedom,
Frank Moore