Brooklyn's Progress
September 2002

Onida Coward Mayers, Executive Director of BCAT (Brooklyn Community Access Television) received the tenth annual Jewell Ryan-White Award for Leadership in Cultural Diversity during the Twenty Sixth annual Alliance for Community Media Conference, in Houston, TX. The Jewell Ryan-White Award for leadership in cultural diversity is given annually to those persons who have made an outstanding contribution to a process that encourages, facilitates, or creates culturally diverse and/or non-mainstream community involvement in the field of communications. Media professionals and other peers nominate the recipients of the award. Mayers launched and has been Executive Director of BCAT’s daily operations, production, programming and educational programs at the state of the art, 10,000 square foot multimedia facility since its inception in 1989. As the borough’s first and only designated community access organization, BCAT, a project of not-for-profit, BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture, develops and manages Brooklyn’s four access channels which operate around the clock. In addition BCAT has partnered with numerous community organizations, and has trained over 1,400 Brooklyn residents in television production. This provides the community with a broad range of services to create, produce and cablecast video programs that influence, share, enhance and preserve the borough’s diversity of thought and culture. A Twenty-four hour community calendar, launched in 1991, enables Brooklyn producers and non profit organizations to potentially inform over 400,000 cable subscriber households on up to the minute local events, festivals and cultural activities. In 1999 BCAT became the first community access center in the country to create a multimedia department with 17 computer stations and training classes, ranging from Internet research and desktop publishing, to nonlinear editing and motion picture graphics, video teleconferencing and distance learning capabilities. With training priced at a nominal fee, becoming a “BCAT Certified Producer” and participating in BCAT workshops is affordable to all income levels, ethnicities and cultures, providing community residents equal opportunity to use the facility. Brooklyn residents currently produce 74% of the over 200 hours of weekly programming currently aired on BCAT’s Time Warner and Cable Vision channels, including: public affairs, current events, news, talk, variety shows, music video, health, education, sports, children’s programs, business, cooking, live entertainment and concerts. Additionally, BCAT staff produces award winning flagship programs; “Brooklyn Review,” a public affairs news magazine, focusing on issues of importance to all of Brooklyn, “BCAT Presents” which highlights special interest stories, “Reporter Roundtable,” current events, “Healthwatch,” featuring various experts from the health related field and “Sports Talk,” Brooklyn’s one stop shop for info on Brooklyn’s schools’ athletes making headlines.