|
 |
CABLE POSITIVE ANNOUNCES THE TOP ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF 2005 IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS NEW YORK, NY - December 19, 2005 1. Cable Positive Launches Video-On-Demand Educational Initiative In May 2005, Cable Positive partnered with TVN Entertainment, a leading provider of on demand television programming, management and delivery solutions, to launch Cable Positive On Demand – an HIV/AIDS educational initiative via video-on-demand (VOD) technology. TVN’s important support include underwriting the total cost for encoding and transport of information allowing Cable Positive to provide programming with the help of our cable operator partners to more than 15 million VOD enabled homes. Our operator partners include Adelphia, Advanced Cable, Bend Broadband, Blue Ridge, Buckeye, Champion, Charter, Click TV, Comcast, Insight, Massillon Cable, Mediacom, Metrocast Cablevision, Mid-Hudson, RCN, Ringold, Seren, Sunflower, Surewest, Time Warner Cable, Vista3 and Wave. The initiative includes the Kismet Films/Cable Positive-produced documentary “Behind the Scenes of Weapons of Mass Instruction”. The program features interviews with phase two participants in Cable Positive’s award-winning JOIN THE FIGHT HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign including Matthew Broderick, Billy Crudup, Rosario Dawson, Jerry Ferrara, Jimmy Fallon, Allan Houston, S. Epatha Merkerson and Eduardo Xol discussing their reasons for “joining the fight” against HIV/AIDS. 2. JOIN THE FIGHT HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention Campaign Impacts Viewers Cable Positive made important strides with our award-winning HIV/AIDS public service campaign in 2005. The year-long campaign directed by Joel Schumacher and featuring celebrity activists Jamie Lynn-DiScala, Jennifer Esposito, Nathan Lane, Chris Meloni and Jeffrey Wright was distributed to more than 100 cable networks and systems in the United States reaching more than 80 million cable television households. The campaign resonated with viewers helping the organization’s informative website to receive more than 2 million hits during the campaign’s outreach – making this the most successful campaign in the organization’s history. 3. Expansion of National Awareness Campaigns Includes Targeted Awareness Days for Communities At Risk Cable Positive expanded its HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention public service campaign efforts to include three new awareness days targeting three communities at great risk for HIV infection during 2005. These communities include African-Americans, Latinos and Asian and Pacific Islanders. In 2005, Cable Positive supported National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, February 7; National Asian & Pacific Islander AIDS Awareness Day, May 19; National HIV Testing Day, June 27; National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, October 15 and World AIDS Day, December 1. As part of this expanded outreach, Cable Positive co-branded spots with leading AIDS organizations working with these communities, the Black AIDS Institute, The Banyan Tree Project and Latino Commission on AIDS to create culturally consistently HIV/AIDS messaging for each community. For this year’s National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, the Latino Commission reported that the campaign had doubled the number of visits to their website from the month prior. 4. Cable Positive Continues a Strong Commitment to Fight HIV/AIDS Internationally Cable Positive has always supported the efforts of the epidemic worldwide, but this year Cable Positive made two bold statements by creating an ongoing relationship with The Mothers Programmes, an innovative non-profit empowering women living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa, to provide our donors with specially hand-made beaded red ribbon pins, pen covers, bracelets and bookmarks -- for a donation of $25 or more. Cable Positive’s growing international work and credibility were also represented by President & CEO Steve Villano at the MIP-TV Programming Conference in April. Cable Positive’s support of The Mothers Programmes begin earlier this year, when the organization enlisted the support of Lifetime Television to purchase lanyards for the 18th Annual National Association of Multi-Ethnicities in Cable (NAMIC) Conference in September 2005. Beginning this December, Cable Positive is offering The Mothers Programme products on our website. Cable Positive provided funding to the program through a $10,000 grant. The bead sales provide the women who make them with a degree of economic independence, subsequently combating one of the societal causes of HIV/AIDS. Villano participated in the United Nations-sponsored “AIDS Programming Pitch Session” at the MIP-TV Conference in Cannes, France, in April. The session was aimed at producers who would like to play a leading role in the fight against HIV and AIDS through creating original programming. The jury was made up of Villano, MTV Networks International vice president of public affairs Georgia Franklin (jury president), NBC consultant and International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences board member Fred Cohen, SABC2 general manager and TV-commissioning editor Aletta Alberts and Miditech founder Nikkil Alva. The panel reviewed three long and three short program pitches chosen by a pre-selection committee chaired by Roy Head, ex-director of the BBC World Service Trust. 5. More Than $380,000 in Grants to Community-Based and National Organizations to Fight HIV/AIDS in Local Communities Cable Positive provided more than $380,000 in grants to more than 45 community-based and national AIDS service organizations for the fight against HIV/AIDS in local and targeted communities in the United States during 2005. Funding was distributed through our Tony Cox Community Fund, a program promoting partnerships between community-based AIDS service organizations and cable outlets; fundraising and awareness events through our six chapters in Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington D.C., Denver, Philadelphia, New York and Southern California; and through our national grants program for direct services and partnerships through grants to The Actors’ Fund of America and the Black AIDS Institute. 6. Positively Red Carpet – An Innovative New Fundraiser Cable Positive partnered with TV Guide to produce the organization’s most innovative fundraising event – Positively Red Carpet Charity Auction to Benefit Cable Positive. This one-of-kind online auction provided cable television fans across the United States with the opportunity to bid on ‘experience packages’ from their favorite networks and programs. The auction raised $33,707 for Cable Positive’s fight against HIV and AIDS. More than 650 bids were placed on exclusive entertainment and sports ‘experience packages’ provided by 21 cable networks including, AMC, BET, Comedy Central, The Speed Channel, GSN – The Network for Games, HBO, Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Outdoor Life Channel, Oxygen, Shop At Home, Showtime, SoapNET, Sundance Channel, The Tennis Channel, TV Guide Channel, Univision and VH1. The program launched on Sunday, April 3rd in San Francisco at National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s 2005 National Show with Melissa Rivers, who supported the auction with her mother Joan Rivers, by placing the opening bid. TV Guide’s Angela Wong worked with her colleagues to create a display area of mini-representations of each package in the Cable Courtyard thanks to the support of NCTA, who provided the space to promote the auction. Throughout the 6 week auction period, Cable Positive worked with TV Guide to promote the auction to their viewers and online users and to Cable Positive’s supporters. With the help of TV Guide’s Tim McNulty, TV Guide produced an engaging television spot featuring several packages and the networks that donated them. These spot aired thousands of time over a 3-week period towards the end of the auction. Lauren Ruotolo of TV Guide helped create an online strategy and worked with creative folks to produce banners and special web page that promoted the auction and directed users to the auction site. Cable Positive’s Thomas Henning managed the website and auction items. A true team effort by Cable Positive, TV Guide, NCTA and our network partners allowed this first-of-its-kind auction for the organization to be a huge success raising much-needed funds. 7. Denver Chapter’s Positively Cable Breaks Fundraising Record By Raising More Than $154,000 Just when you think the crew at the Denver Chapter of Cable Positive can't possibly do it again, they do. A sellout show that raised a record-breaking $154,000 plus, topping last year’s by $10,000. The Denver Chapter of Cable Positive presented Positively Cable:CSI: Broadband on November 10 at The Cable Center. The sold-out show, written and performed by industry volunteers (and the gifted professionals of Rave Reviews) lampooned the cable industry (and the cellular industry, and anyone else they could think of!) in a murder mystery. The evening also featured a silent auction of items donated by supporting companies. In total, the event raised more than $154,000, a new Denver record topping last year's record of $144,200, totaling more than three-quarters of a million dollars in its 11-year history. In addition to supporting the national Cable Positive organization, two local organizations will receive funding from the proceeds of this year's show -- the Rainbow House and Mi Casa's health education program. 8. Time Warner Cable’s Bonnie Hathaway Elected to Head Cable Positive Board of Directors Cable Positive’s 2006 Board of Directors and Executive Committee took office on October 1, 2005, following a smooth leadership succession, which saw Bonnie Hathaway, Vice President, Corporate Public Affairs, Time Warner Cable succeed David Wicks, Partner, Alwyn Group as Board Chair and Peter Low, Executive Vice President, Cable Distribution and Marketing, MTV Networks, join the organization’s 25-member board. Wicks, the chairman of Cable Positive’s Board for the last three years, will serve on the Executive Committee as Immediate Past Chair, passed the baton of leadership to Hathaway. In addition to Low who begins a two-year term on Cable Positive’s Board of Directors, returning Board members include: Ruth Browne, Arthur Ashe Institute; Jim Coltharp, Comcast Corporation; Italia Commisso-Weinand, Mediacom Communications; Erica Goldman, NBC Universal; Larry Dunn, Multichannel News; Billy Farina, Cox Communications; Steve Houck, National Cable Communications; Paul Jacobson, Adelphia Communications; Byron Marchant, BET; Patty McCaskill, Cequel III; Melissa Montuori, Norm Marshall & Associates; Tonia O’Connor, TV Guide; Scott Perlmutter, GSN: The Network for Games; Rob Stoddard, NCTA; Craig Watson, Charter Communications and Jeffrey A. Bernstein, Founder. In an election held by Cable Positive Board of Directors, other newly elected members of Cable Positive’s Executive Committee include: First Vice President Chris Moseley, Hallmark Channels; Second Vice President, Ray Gutierrez, Showtime Networks Inc.; Treasurer, Stuart Benson, Sundance Channel; Secretary, Meredith Wagner, Lifetime Entertainment Services; Member-at-Large, Dennis Mangers, CCTA and Daniel L. Brenner, General Counsel. 9. Another Million-Plus Raised at Annual Benefit Dinner On May 10, 2005, Cable Positive honored Carole Black and Lifetime Entertainment Services with the Joel A. Berger Memorial Award for outstanding contribution to the fight against HIV and AIDS. This dinner represents the eighth consecutive Cable Positive dinner that reached the million dollar mark in fundraising for the organization. The 2006 Benefit Dinner, Positively Community: An Evening to Benefit Cable Positive is schedule for Tuesday, March 7, 2006 and will recognize Jim Robbins, President and CEO, Cox Communications. 10. Honored for Our Hard Work in the Fight Against HIV and AIDS Cable Positive’s work in areas of awareness, education and prevention were recognized this year with several prestigious awards including Beacon awards for our work at the local level through our Atlanta and Denver Chapters and our educational partnership with VH1 and Cable in the Classroom. Cable Positive’s JOIN THE FIGHT HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign was recognized with a PROMAX Gold and the organization’s second TV Cares Ribbon of Hope Award presented the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Cable Positive President & CEO was honored by the New York AIDS Film Festival along with Christina Norman, President MTV and Jack Valenti, Friends of the Global Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for their contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS.
ABOUT CABLE POSITIVE |
|
||||||||||
