Entertainment Summit West - Los Angeles

Entertainment Summit West - Steve Villano Transcript

Steve Villano: President and CEO oi Cable Positive

STEVE VILLANO: Our mission as the AIDS Action Organization of the cable and telecommunications industry is to communicate to the decision makers about programming, so that they get programming like that on the air to get those messages out, Because 71% of the public, according to Kaiser, gets it health information about HIV and AIDS from the media. So, we have a responsibility, we have an obligation, to everyone in this country and around the world to use these great resources that we have, to use the talent that's at our disposal to communicate these messages of awareness, education, prevention and hope. And we do it not only internationally but locally.

Cable is everywhere. We're in Bel Air, we're in Brentwood, we are all over the world. We are in every community and so recognizing that we use our resources everywhere. Just this weekend some of you have probably seen the PSAs promoting the Elton John Foundation Smash Hits Tennis Events with the National AIDS Fund. Well, through Craig's work and through Bob Gold's work, Cox, Charter and Time Warner provided $200,000 worth of airtime for that.

Multiply that by cable companies in every community around the country and you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of donated in-kind contributions to fight this epidemic. We have grant programs where we support local community AID service organizations. We do PSAs several times a year. In fact we're doing one in conjunction with National Hispanic HIV Awareness Day because that community, as well as the African American community in this country, is being devastated by the disease.

And we made on call to our friend Allison Reedy at MTV, and Allison has helped us get it on Spanish language stations of MTV that reach about 30 million households. So, you can see the reach of this industry worldwide, nationwide and locally. And if we didn't do this we would be ashamed of ourselves. But we hope, like the Sesame Muppet Kami, to serve as a champion, for children and for everyone on the topic of HIV education, awareness and prevention.

And now we can roll our brief tape which will summarize for you, um, the kind of programming that's being done by cable networks across the country and around the world, uh, by Cable Positive and our, and our 30 second spots, our PSAs that are aired on World AIDS Day, National HIV Testing Day and is, are seen by up to 75 million households, uh, throughout the country. And many more with MTV involved around the world.

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