CTV gets seven-year broadcasting licence

It is a free-to-air channel that broadcasts programming on a 24-hour basis from a single transmitter on Tygerberg mountain. Its broadcast footprint covers most of Cape Town including those areas in line-of-sight of Tygerberg.

"Getting this licence represents a turning point for CTV. Now that we have achieved regulatory certainty, we know that we are going to be around for the next seven years. This means that we can plan ahead and build financial sustainability," says station director Karen Thorne.

"The licence gives CTV a legitimacy which will encourage the building of long term partnerships that will ensure the sustainability and growth of the channel. Donors and advertisers are now assured that their investments in the channel will have long-term benefits for the people of Cape Town."

"The first two years of existence were very challenging but the station has now firmly established its broadcast and production operations as well as stabilized its finances. Next year promises to be a significant growth period for the channel as it prioritises increased local content, particularly in the areas of Afrikaans and isiXhosa language programming and local news."

CTV is a membership-based non-profit organisation. Its members elect the board at the AGM and have a direct say in the programming content of the channel. It began broadcasting in September 2008, after being formally launched at its first AGM in November 2006. The organisation has grown rapidly over the years and has succeeded in doubling its income in each year of operation. The channel derives its financial underpinning from grants, donations, advertising and the sale of airtime.

Thorne notes, "Community TV ensures that all citizens have access to the information and communication channels necessary to exercise their civic rights and responsibilities, to share political, cultural, artistic, spiritual, and individual expression and to promote a culture of human rights.

"This non-commercial mode of television has a powerful role to play in community cultural development as a means of enabling alternatives to the cultural values imposed on communities by top-down and commercially driven forms of media," she concludes.