Gay TV Now Freely Available in Canada CNN Airs Segment on

Gay TV Now Freely
Available in Canada
PrideVision Wins Discrimination
Dispute with Cable Giant
By Michael James
Canadian-based PrideVision TV, a Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT)
television network, won a lawsuit in which it
claimed Shaw Cablesystems and its sister
company Star Choice satellite service
excluded the channel from a free preview of
new digital services.
PrideVision is the world’s first network
to broadcast gay-themed programming 24
hours a day, 7 days a week and Shaw holds a
cable monopoly in Western Canada.
Shaw stated that consumer concerns and
PrideVision content, which includes gay and
lesbian erotica, prompted them to take the
channel out of the automatic preview package
and made it available on-demand at a cost of
1 cent.
PrideVision disputed Shaw’s comments
about its so-called adult content and
countered that PrideVision programming is
no more racy than shows seen on Showcase,
a mainstream arts-and-entertainment
specialty channel.
“Our concern was that customers were
being denied this service,” says PrideVision’s
marketing VP, Anna McCusker. “What we
were interested in was to be treated fairly.”
Calgary resident Robert Drummond
stated, “Shaw carries Showcase with no
censorship and it shows Queer As Folk, Tales
of the City, Oz ... each with varying amounts
of suggestive gay sex scenes. They carry
WTN, which has the very explicit Sunday
Night Sex Show, Life Network which shows
Eros ... I don’t understand Shaw’s
homophobic attitude toward PrideVision.”
Other Shaw customers stated concerns
that Shaw could be keeping records of who
had requested the gay channel. One Shaw
customer stated, “This sounds like an
invasion of privacy as much as a breach of
CRTC regulations.”
McCusker stated that PrideVision
broadcasts much more than erotica and
referred to the array of programming
focusing on lifestyles, finance, travel and
news that is also available on the channel.
The Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
ruled that Shaw had engaged in
discriminatory business practices contrary to
commission regulations and has been ordered
to provide the service as part of the current
free preview package.
“We are pleased that the Commission
made the right decision,” said McCusker.
“Now is the time to move on and allow
Canadian digital viewers to see what we’re
all about.”
The CRTC ruled that Shaw and Star
Choice must change how they carry the
channel to comply with broadcast rules. The
added steps that were required to view
PrideVision were “a strong disincentive” for
new subscribers to sign up for the service,
the federal regulator stated in a written
decision.
As of October 1, Shaw customers have
been able to view the channel without having
to specifically request it.
PrideVision TV was licensed by the
CRTC on November 24, 2000 to provide
television service targeted to the GLBT
community. As a Category 1 service,
PrideVision TV is guaranteed distribution
through Cable and Direct-To-Home satellite
companies who provide digital TV services
to their customers in Canada. They began
providing programming on September 7,
2001.
In focus groups interviewed as part of
PrideVision’s research conducted by Price
Waterhouse Coopers, participants indicated
that they were looking for higher quality gay
community programming than that available
on community and local television at the
time. Focus group participants felt that local
and community programming was frequently
focused only on the “hard core” gay
community.
As a result of the research, PrideVision
TV’s programming was designed to provide
news, information and entertainment on
issues of interest to the gay community.
CNN Airs Segment on
Tragedy’s Gay Heroes
Breaking a three-week trend of nearinvisibility in television news, gay heroes
who have emerged from the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks were the subject of a CNN story aired
at 10 pm on Saturday night.
The segment will profile openly gay
New York City firefighters and police
officers who have been on the front lines
at ground zero since Sept. 11. CNN also
will profile Mark Bingham, one of the
United Flight 93 passengers who
participated in an on-board revolt that
crashed the hijacked plane into a remote
field outside Pittsburgh, rather than into
any potential target.
The segment also featured footage from
the Oct. 1 memorial at New York’s Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community
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www.ExpressGayNews.com • October 8th, 2001
CYMK
Center; Friday evening’s Empire State Pride
Agenda dinner honoring Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki; and home
movies of Mark Bingham.
The CNN piece aired three days after a
less-inclusive profile of United Flight 93’s
heroes on the October 2 edition of NBC’s
”Dateline.” The hour-long report, which
constructed a detailed timeline of the United
flight, included an interview with Bingham’s
mother and mentioned his passion for rugby,
but did not mention either that he was gay
or that he played for a gay rugby team —
newsworthy details that have been widely
reported elsewhere.
If you saw the CNN segment, please
send feedback to [email protected]
are looking for public response.