A sense of sad ennui overcame me last night.

We were supposed to be all smiles at the Australian Community Television Antenna Awards where the show had been nominated for best Music program.

Instead, it was cancelled the day before with maybe an idea it may well be broadcast remotely on the last night of transmission 30th June ...

So the awards may well be the last thing you see before blank screen on the band.

It didn't occur to me until the day after.
Wenesday 30th June.
The night Melbourne Musos is on C31 at 10pm.

When I made "Tales of the Cooked" on Friday, I didn't realise it may be the last one for C31 after 26 years.

I thought I was making a "penultimate" 2nd last show.
It's hitting home here that it is likely my last.

For no reason at all.
Even the right wingers are spitting chips because they have a few shows on there as well.

You see Community Television is a wonderous idea.
It can be anything you want it to be.
It's not nor should ever be (or been) about a springboard for pushing personal agendas or careers.

I get very tired of the usual famous suspects getting dragged out every time we fight. Good luck to them but there have been a lot of people who never left.

As Paul Keating once said .. "You need to spot the value".
A lot of us spotted exactly what Melbourne had in 1995.

Melbourne had a government that was closing down all the schools and opening up all the pokies. We had a city that became the heroin capital of Australia. We had school kids happy in one school with 15 in a class quickly become miserable in another crammed in at 35.

The teachers became miserable because they had little chance except to fend for themselves by throwing the information up in the air and hoping a few of the little angry poppets would catch it. It was a classroom fight for survival on both sides.

One teacher up against 30+ angry kids who would go home to Mum and Dad yelling at each other because Dad did his nuts at the Casino and now they couldn't afford the kid's guitar lessons anymore. We are still feeling/reeling the affects of those years now.

But! We had this new thing called Community Television.
If you had an idea, they'd give you a go.

For all its imperfections, implosions and sheer god awful amatuerism, you could also see a plethora of passion and persistence.

I don't know any place that has given so much to the local musicians of the town over the years. All the shows that have come and gone ... and some that have stuck.

We would deliver a show, then spend a few hours volunteering for others. We'd grab a camera and film a rally down Swanston st. about decent wages. Somebody would go and film a gig for you if you couldn't get there or were at another, doubled booked and likely cooked. ;)

These were halycon days, all in it together and not many trying to screw you down or up.

These were the days when it was abc, sbs, 7, 9, 10 and then US!
A blues band would have 20 turn up to their doortake then 50,000 turn up to the Channel 31 show that filmed it.

I've typed this before but Channel 31 in 1995 was situated in Ross House Melbourne 3rd floor. The lifts were usually not working. I'd have my dinky little s-vhs Muso tape in hand and walk up the stairs past the gay and lesbian co-op on the 1st floor and then the aboriginal community association on the 2nd. Their Flags proudly emblazoned on the mould infested walls.

It was terrific.
It still can be.

If any of you have "ever" been on Community Television it was likely that you had a lot of work done for you and exposure provided to you by volunteers and producers who were and are in the exact Community YOU belong to.

So this is the time, again, that we as a Community Station are asking for something. We ask you to join the fight to keep this wonderful idea alive.

Of course I'll keep going with Melbourne Musos on YouTube, Patreon whatever but that was never the point. I never took off to another bigger, jazzier TV Station, then get canned after 13 episodes like I've seen with so many others.

I knew what I had from the get-go.
I never left them, however, yes, there was one little point in time, they left me, but then I was asked back.

So, here I am writing this.
The thing is, with Community Television, it was never free,
it was always considered a gift.

That's what Australian Community Television is.

It is a gift <3

Now it is your time, again, to fight for it.

Thank you for reading <3

Chris Quinlan f.dip.a
Producer Melbourne Musos TV Show
Channel 31. 1995-present