All-gay television.

• Author: Metz, Holly
• Position: Network Q monthly videocassette magazine

How do gay and lesbian film and video makers overcome the political and regulatory obstacles that prevent their work from reaching television audiences without network filtering? Start an alternative network.

Last year, former advertising director David Surber co-founded Network Q, a Las Vegas-based company dedicated to commissioning, producing, and delivering gay and lesbian programming directly to subscribers through a monthly videotape magazine. "By having home videos as the delivery vehicle, Network Q sidesteps all the censorship issues and local prejudices you come across" when dealing with broadcasters, says Surber, who serves as the network's on-air host. Direct access, he notes, allows the viewers "an unfiltered portrait of the community" that originates with its members.

For many of the filmmakers contributing to the network, says Surber, "it's the first time they have been paid to do what they do, and it's for a gay and lesbian audience. So there's economic empowerment. And we're helping to provide an audience to people who didn't have that before, outside of festivals," which provide important screening opportunities but little financial compensation.

In addition to providing entertainment and an outlet for the work of gay and lesbian artists, Suber says, Network Q enables subscribers living in more rural areas to hook into events and information previously accessible only to people living in cities with large gay and lesbian populations.

For $20 a month, network subscribers receive two hours of news, features, and entertainment programming. Supported entirely by subscription, Network Q airs commercials that advertise community support services. Regular segments, focusing on different cities each month, include profiles of openly gay activists and artists, travel spots, book reviews, film clips, and theatrical venues. A recent issue included coverage of "the largest queer cinema event in the world" - the Seventeenth Annual San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; reporting on the Gay Travel Expo; bits from comedian Marilyn Pittman's hilarious routine at a San...