QPTV Wins Overall Excellence in 2013 Hometown Media Awards

The 2013 Hometown Video Awards Dinner will be held on Tuesday, May 30, 2013 at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, California, during the Alliance for Community Media (ACM)  Conference and Exhibition. 
Overall Excellence in Public Access entries are submitted to the ACM by various access organizations, cable companies, educational institutions, local government, or other institutions that provide public, educational, or governmental access services through out the United States. As an access center, QPTV submitted a compilation of programs that reflect the diversity in the borough of Queens. The video clips that corresponded to the Overall Excellence reel illustrated how QPTV Programming addressed our community’s needs. 
     Changing Lives & Building Communities for 31 Years
QPTV has a long standing history of serving the community. In 1982 QPTV made its entrance on the national stage of community television. Since our inception we have trained thousands of residents and cablecast over 90,000 programs. QPTV continues to be the leader in community television in New York. For over 31 years QPTV has advocated and supported media “of the people, by the people, for the people.”  
Queens, New York is the most diverse community in the world. Over two hundred languages and dialects are spoken here. Every race, creed, culture, religion, and political point of view can be found, not only in this community, but also on our four channels. QPTV is democracy in action: we are committed to assisting everyone in this community to exercise their First Amendment right to free expression.
QPTV has become the destination for journalists visiting from abroad, especially from those countries that are in a struggle for liberation. The International Visitor Leadership Program (ILVP) is an extension of the U.S. Department of State. Journalists from Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Libya & Francophone Africa have visited our facilities over the past year. The journalists, as can be discerned from the list, are from countries deeply involved with the struggle for liberation.  They are keenly interested in establishing a center for community media in their respective countries; a media free from government control and censorship. QPTV has become the model for journalists freeing themselves from oppressive governments. 
We are proud of our award winning series: Queens Update: A Live Town Hall Meeting which has earned recognition for the programs Bullying in America and Gay in America. QPTV’s latest original series, Understanding Mental Illness, has been honored with two first place awards from the Alliance for Community Media’s Northeast Region Video Festival for the episodes “What is Mental Illness?” and “Community Based Treatment.”  We’ve also covered other hard hitting and controversial issues like building a mosque near Ground Zero, the disturbing reality of illegal gun violence, and the death penalty.  
Community Television offers an opportunity for every individual and not-for-profit organization to participate in community media, free from censorship, which is guaranteed and protected by our First Amendment. QPTV is an electronic bridge uniting individuals and communities. From Australia to Morocco and from Norway to Zimbabwe, community television is a global reality and QPTV is proud to be a part of that reality.