Category: Berkeley Community Media (BTV) (Page 2 of 8)

hey, Tracy! It was a great show last night. We got this below email about it.

We forgot last night to arrange how to get your show to play on LUVER. We can play it from a dvd.
Does that work for you?

In Freedom,
Frank Moore

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Last nights guest on The Shaman’s Den was Tracy Rosenberg from Media Alliance. It was a great show about what is currently happening with big media, public access and particularly BTV. It is such important information to get out there. It was great to get the information out about how much BTV has changed in the last year and a half. Frank and Linda talked about how the entire feeling of what BTV has changed. They are no longer showing as much local, raw, intimate programming. Now they are showing canned programs that are not local. Tracy talked about how when programs are not local they loose the magic that comes out of people creating something within their community. The programming on BTV is now looking mainstream, smooth, and polished. They have now replaced Frank’s shows with old cooking shows from Colorado which means that instead of having local bands on the air they have out of state cooking shows! Wow! Linda talked about a show that use to be on that was a heavy metal cooking show, a local show where heavy metal guys where on with their girlfriends and they were cooking. They would cook things that looked really good and it was a really sweet show. Now shows like that are gone. Linda talked about how BTV is no longer user friendly. They have made new rules that make it harder for local people to put programming on the air. Now you have to be a member and pay a fee in order to have something on BTV and you don’t have to be a local person to sponsor a show. They made up a new rule that a person cannot host more than one show in a day. That rule right there knocked much of Frank’s programming off the air! Whatever image they are trying to put out there they are blinded to what was happening before within the community, people connecting with each other. Linda talked about how many people would come up to Frank when he was on the campaign trail. They all knew Frank because they were watching his shows!

Frank talked about how he has tried to have conversations with the new people who are running BTV to ask them why they have made the changes they have made. He sent them letters to ask why they have the new policies that they have. He has even invited them on his show to discuss it. They have not been responsive and are not interested in engaging. Tracy said that they should come on the show and they should be willing to talk about why they are making the decisions that they are making. Frank and Linda talked about how they don’t know what to ask them at this point. The changes have been so drastic that it has been hard for them to watch the changes that have happened like Frank’s shows being replaced by old cooking shows from Colorado! Frank said that there should be enough local stuff to fill the space, don’t kick him off for canned stuff! Frank and Linda told Tracy about how Frank use to have six hours of programming on a night. Before that they just had the daily announcement calendar on from midnight to 6:00 AM so that Frank suggested that he could fill the space with the hundreds of programs that he had. At the time the director of BCM said great and that’s the way it was for years!

There was so much important information that came out in this show about the media. Tracy talked about the laws that they are working on in Washington to legalize pirate radio. Frank said that before it gets passed they will probably crack down and go around and shut down a bunch more pirate radio stations. With digital channels there are now more channels on tv and on the radio but the big cable companies like Comcast who lease out BTV to the Berkeley Unified School District and to the city of Berkeley, who own the channels are not going to donate any more of their channels for community use. Tracy said that they are only going to donate the minimum that they are required to by law. Tracy talked about how ATT throws big parties in Sacramento and in other states to get what they want. They are trying to become the monopoly and they are the monopoly in 26 states including California. This way the cable companies do not have to contract with each city but have a big monopoly in the entire state. Linda said that every month the cable bill goes up by 25 or 50 cents and Tracy said they are making a killing! Big media does not like public access because they do not like what they cannot control, what they can’t make money off of. In LA public access is almost dead, almost gone when there used to be 12-14 stations. There are laws that people are working on that would roll back the laws and provide public access with the funding they were receiving in 2005. There would be less restrictions on how they can spend their money. Now much of the funding can only be used for equipment and not for hiring people to train people to use the equipment. Frank talked about how media equipment is now easier to use, more people friendly. So, that in a time when it is even easier for people to create things the media makes it harder for people to get it out there into the community. Linda talked about how people are often attracted to an image of doing something that is going to reach a lot of people rather than listening to how easy it is to do your own show and get it out there without money and without focusing on how many people you are reaching. Tracy said that at least Frank is still kicking away and doing his 2 1/2 hour show and that she did not know of another station that allows people to play shows that are that long in length. Tracy said that she would take Frank’s slot when he retires and Frank said that he is not going to be retiring anytime soon! He said that he is good at grabbing opportunities. He said that most people aren’t good at grabbing opportunities.

Frank and Linda told the story about when the city council tried to change Frank’s programs to 2:00 AM and how they backed down when channel 7 showed up and supporters showed up and Frank kept writing letters to the newspaper. It was front paged news. There was only one city council member who was for not changing the time of Frank’s shows. Then it failed and the whole thing was dropped when the ACLU came in. The City Council was trying to come up with laws for Frank’s shows that were different than the ones on a national level. Linda told the story about how Luver got started. They were doing the Shaman’s Den on another web station who said that Frank had to sell out. It turned out they were talking about selling out for only a few dollars! Frank said that Luver could play the show that Tracy is airing in San Francisco and she said great! They have 10 episodes already and Frank said that is 10 weeks worth! Tracy had heard that Frank had run for president and Linda read her his policies on public access media and she said that nobody who ever ran for president had such a great policy on the media. From Frank’s platform: “Each city and each “media market” will have at least two public access channels on radio, broadcast television, cable, AND satellite! These channels will be free and open forums for discussion of the issues. Moreover, starting 2 months before an election, every radio and television station will give each candidate 5 hours of free prime time.” Linda told the story of how Frank ran for president, how it all started as a T-shirt. It was a present for Frank. Then when Frank would wear the T-shirt people started asking what his platform was, so he wrote one and it took off from there. Lately people have been asking if Frank would be running in the next election! They are getting excited about it again now that they see that not much is changing with Obama.

Tracy talked about how we watch public access for the intimate feeling of it, its about neighbors talking to neighbors that the idea behind it. Frank said that that is what he is trying to tell BTV so he said to call them and tell them that you want local programming! Tracy said that it has been a great show and that she will be watching luver! Tracy said that Media Alliance where she works is an activist organization that fights for 1st amendment freedom of speech, alternative voices, independent media. Media Alliance introduces people to media skills so they can get there message/story out. This show did that in a very powerful and important way!