John “Hoppy” Hopkins made an important contribution to community video in Britain. After pioneering work in Notting Hill, west London, he drew on Canadian experience in a report for the Home Office, Video in Community Development (1972). Keen to learn more of the possibilities, I took a tutorial with Hoppy at the New Arts Lab and wrote an article for New Society about the opportunity that small-scale video presented to the experimental cable licences then on offer from the Heath government. Certainly Bristol Channel, Swindon Viewpoint and Channel 40 in Milton Keynes were influenced by Hoppy’s ideas.
He continued to promote the idea of community media when, after most of the cable stations closed, Comcom (the Community Communications Group, the forerunner of the present day Community Media Association) was formed. His publication JCATS, the Journal of the Centre for Advanced TV Studies, produced from the Fantasy Factory base in central London, carried articles on the topic from around the world.
