After graduating from the University of Vermont in 1982, Lauren-Glenn Davitian wanted to make documentaries and needed video equipment. She knew that cable companies in other cities set aside channels for public access.
“So I went to the cable company, and I said, ‘Where’s the camera? Where’s the channel?'” she recalled. “And they kind of laughed at me, and I left, realizing that I had to become an advocate and mobilize the community in order to compel the cable company — and ultimately the Public Service Board to require the cable company — to provide public access.”
Meanwhile, Nat Ayer had acquired a video camera and was filming events around Burlington: political demonstrations, city council meetings, concerts, quilt festivals and matchbox races. “We were kind of on parallel planes until we intersected one night at a Noam Chomsky event,” Davitian said. That meeting proved momentous for democratizing local media and documenting local history. Chittenden Community Television aired its first program in June 1984 and joined forces with Ayer soon after. Davitian and the late Ayer are considered CCTV’s cofounders.
Filmmaker Myles David Jewell recounts CCTV’s history and explores the foundations and future of community media in a new documentary, Burlington This is You! The working title pays tribute to the show Ayer produced by editing together footage of the events he filmed.
The public can get a first look at the work in progress and offer feedback on Thursday, November 21, at Burlington’s Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. Jewell and CCTV Center for Media & Democracy will cohost a screening of a 30-minute sample of the documentary, followed by a discussion with Jewell and University of Florida community media scholar Antoine Haywood.
“It would be great to hear from people what they think and what they would like to see represented,” Davitian said. Jewell plans to film the event for possible inclusion in the feature-length documentary, which he expects to complete in 2026. The 42-year-old lecturer in video production and community media at the University of Vermont considers himself a collaborator in the film. He is writing and codirecting it, “but I’m not the owner of the story,” he said. “Burlington is the owner of the story.”
Davitian and other CCTV employees, past and present, already have been helping shape the film’s narrative.
Since its founding, CCTV has exemplified community media as activism. Today the CCTV Center for Media & Democracy encompasses Town Meeting TV, which airs Chittenden County public meetings and community events; CCTV Productions, a recording, live-streaming and video production service; Vermont Language Justice Project, which produces public service videos in 19 languages; and an archive containing nearly 50,000 hours of video.
CCTV is also a founding member of Vermont Access Network, an association of 25 community media access centers across the state that operate more than 40 channels and collectively produce 18,000 hours of new content each year.
“We’re keeping the wheels of democracy turning,” Davitian said. But these are critical times for community media centers; revenue from cable companies — the centers’ primary funding source — has declined as the internet has gradually replaced cable TV.
She and Jewell hope the film raises awareness about the importance of non-corporate-controlled media. “We’re really trying to make a case for how this is a wonderful kind of community-building tool, specifically in the digital age,” Jewell said.
Knowing that a new generation considers CCTV’s work relevant is exciting, Davitian said. The film is not just about history, she added: “It’s about the legacy, and it’s about how important it is for activists and people that want to effect positive change to take charge of their local media. And that’s as important now as it was when we started to do this work in the 1980s.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “New Documentary Traces CCTV’s History”
This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2024.
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