25 Years of Free Speech & Public Access

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Since 1984, CCTV's Center for Media & Democracy has been an incubator of new ideas for building community through media. As an advocate of free speech, public access and open networks, we
established some of the first public access cable television channels in Vermont (CCTV) in 1984.

Building on community demand for local stories and public information,CCTV’s volunteers team parlayed their coverage of Burlington city government into Channel 17/Town Meeting TV, a model of "bottom up" regional government access cable TV at its mostaccessible and approachable.

In the early 1990’s CCTV staff and board expanded its mission to ensure economic and educational opportunity for low-income job seekers and local nonprofit organizations in the “digital age”. Through partnership with a jobs program in Bristol England and major grants from H.U.D. and the Kellogg Foundation, we launched of the Old North End Community/Technology Center. Known also as CyberSkills/Vermont, the program provided computer and internet skills to low income job seekers, at-risk youth and nonprofit organizations.

In the mid-1990’s CCTV expanded its delivery of important community programming on the Internet (Streaming Democracy, available now at CCTV). At the same time, CCTV Production and Duplication Services was set up to provide high quality production and duplication services to CCTV’s nonprofit and government customers.

In 1999, CCTV launched CyberSkills for Vermont Nonprofits to
institutionalize training and technical support service delivery for
nonprofit organizations in Chittenden County and Central Vermont
(CyberSkills). Today, the project serves a membership of 50 nonprofit organizations supported in part by the A.D. Henderson Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, IBM Community Affairs and the Vermont Community Foundation.

Media Works for YOUth uses media as a vehicle to provide useful skills and community connection to at-risk youth in Chittenden
County.Supported by the U.S. Department of Justiceand a number of local donors, MWY is one of many viable national youth media programs.

Today, CCTV's Center for Media & Democracy is recognized as a national model in the fields of free speech advocacy and community media. The Old North End based organization is operated by 13 people. This year's (0708) budget is estimated to be $750,000 (subscriber revenue – 30%, federal grants – 15%, private foundations – 30%, fees for service – 25%). All of the community benefit that CCTV now provides each year through its programs, (1000 hours of new programming, 1000+ people trained, 100+ nonprofit recipients of service) revolves around stable relationships with our community based partners.

The tax return for Chittenden Community Television d/b/a CCTV Center for Media & Democracy is available here.