NACTV loses use of equipment

Details

Published on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Photo by Eoin Devereux. This notice was posted on the doorway of NACTV on the evening of Oct. 14, following the AGM.

By Kate Jackman-Atkinson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

When NACTV staff arrived at the station on Oct. 15, they found a notice on the door and some of the equipment they had been using was gone. 

The letter, titled Notice of Termination of Loan Agreement, began by saying, “Take notice that the day to day loan of equipment from CJ Radio and its related companies to NACTV is hereby terminated immediately.”  The letter continued saying that any and all equipment owned by CJ Radio must be returned by 11:59 PM on Oct 14. The letter outlined that after the deadline, the equipment would be removed by employees or agents of CJ Radio. The letter was signed by Bill Gade, owner of CJ97 Radio.

Earlier on Oct. 14, NACTV members voted for a new board of directors at the AGM. Bill Gade had been a board member, but wasn’t re-elected to the board. The board meeting began at 7 p.m. and ended just after 9 p.m.

On Oct. 15, NACTV found themselves without a variety of equipment which was owned by CJ Radio, including their telephone system, audio and network wiring, OnAir video playout equipment, video streaming server and equipment, remote broadcast equipment, audio equipment and audio and network switching equipment. In the process, the station also lost programming which had been stored on the loaned equipment.  NACTV board chair Ivan Traill explained that over 2,000 programs had been stored on a hard drive for playback. Traill isn’t sure if they will be able to recover the lost programming.

There was also some damage done in the process of removing the equipment.  For example, when the phones were removed, instead of unplugging the phone cords, the lines were cut.