Illinois Editorial FORUM | 05/01/2006
 
Community Access TV Threatened
By: Steve Macek
, Mitchell Szczepanczyk
OP ED
In a given week, Chicago's fleet of five community access cable channels -- together called CAN TV -- carry an astounding variety of home-grown TV programming. News and public affairs shows in Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Spanish and Haitian Creole; a political forum on civil rights in the city's Mexican community; a call-in show on domestic violence; a feature-length video on a neighborhood arts center; a youth-produced show about issues facing teenagers; and regular coverage of city council meetings and the state legislature in Springfield are all featured. During the 2004 election, CAN TV also ran some 160 hours of local election coverage. This is remarkable at a time when most of Chicago's commercial broadcasters opted not to report on even hotly contested Congressional races, much less municipal elections. Across Illinois, dozens of public, educational and governmental (or PEG) cable access channels like CAN TV provide an outlet for locally-produced television focused resolutely on local issues, local politics and community concerns. Nationwide, 1.2 million citizens and 250,000 organizations use the country's 3,000 PEG channels every year. Because for-profit broadcasters and cable companies are ignoring ever-larger segments of the population in their relentless pursuit of audiences who are wealthy, white and young, PEG channels are very often the only outlet for programming made by and for communities of color, immigrant groups and workers. Unfortunately, even these last remaining outposts of localism and diversity on television are being threatened by an ill-considered proposal now moving through Congress. The proposal would seriously undercut the financial future of PEG channels in Illinois and nationwide. Currently, PEG stations are funded by a portion of the local franchise fee that cable companies pay to the cities where they operate. Technological and regulatory changes now make it possible for telephone companies to compete with cable for the right to deliver television services to American homes. But the big telecommunications conglomerates say it would be expensive and time-consuming for them to pay local franchise fees to thousands of local governments. And they resent the idea of having to pay for PEG channels. So, Big Telecom went to Congress and, with the aid of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions from the likes of AT&T and Verizon, apparently persuaded our legislators to "fix" what's not broken. Already, the House Commerce Committee approved a proposal which would replace local TV agreements with national video franchises. This proposal would require holders of national TV franchises to pay fees to cities, but it would reduce the base for determining those fees (by excluding certain types of services). This opens the door to the possible exemption of TV services from all local fees. It would also seal the number of PEG channels at current levels, even though digital technology advances would allow for 10 times more PEG channels than when community access cable was first created. Worse still, the proposal would allow national video franchisees to focus the "build out" of their services on only the most affluent (and hence most profitable) areas, thus bypassing rural and low-income, inner-city communities. Essentially, if this becomes law, it would further impoverish the nation's already under-funded PEG stations and could well pave the way to the eventual elimination of community access TV altogether. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the Alliance for Community Media and other supporters of PEG channels are currently mobilizing to defeat this proposal. If we want to preserve even a small forum for community concerns on the nation's most powerful and widespread communications platform, citizens should act quickly to block Big Telecom's schemes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Macek is an assistant professor of speech communication at North Central College. Szczepanczyk is an organizer with Chicago Media Action and a frequent contributor to assorted Chicago-area independent media efforts in print, web, radio and television.
Copyright (C) 2006 by the Illinois Editorial FORUM. The Forum is an educational organization that provides the media with the views of state experts on major public issues. Letters should be sent to the Forum, P.O. Box 82 Springfied, IL 62705-0082. (05/01/2006)  TOP
PRESS RELEASE
Across Illinois, dozens of public, educational and governmental (or PEG) cable access channels provide an outlet for locally-produced television focused resolutely on local issues, local politics and community concerns.
"PEG channels are very often the only outlet for programming made by and for communities of color, immigrant groups and workers," says Steve Macek, an assistant professor of speech communication at North Central College and Mitchell Szczepanczyk, an organizer with Chicago Media Action.
"Unfortunately, even these last remaining outposts of localism and diversity on television are being threatened by an ill-considered proposal that would seriously undercut the financial future of PEG channels," says Macek in an article for the Illinois Editorial Forum.
"Currently, PEG stations are funded by a portion of the local franchise fee that cable companies pay to the cities where they operate," Szczepanczyk explains. "Technological and regulatory changes now make it possible for telephone companies to compete with cable for the right to deliver television services to American homes. But the big telecommunications conglomerates say it would be expensive and time-consuming for them to pay local franchise fees to thousands of local governments. And they resent the idea of having to pay for PEG channels."
"So, Big Telecom went to Congress and, with the aid of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions from the likes of AT&T and Verizon, apparently persuaded our legislators to 'fix' what's not broken," Macek continues. "Already, the House Commerce Committee approved a proposal to replace local TV agreements with national video franchises."
"This proposal would require holders of national TV franchises to pay fees to cities, but it would reduce the base for determining those fees. This opens the door to the possible exemption of TV services from all local fees," Szczepanczyk states. "It would also seal the number of PEG channels at current levels, even though digital technology advances would allow for 10 times more PEG channels than when community access cable was first created. Worse still, the proposal would allow national video franchisees to focus the 'build out' of their services on only the most affluent (and hence most profitable) areas, thus bypassing rural and low-income, inner-city communities."
"Essentially, if this becomes law," Macek and Szczepanczyk conclude, "it would further impoverish the nation's already under-funded PEG stations and could well pave the way to the eventual elimination of community access TV altogether."
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT/GUEST EDITORIAL
Across Illinois, dozens of public, educational and governmental cable access channels provide an outlet for locally-produced television focused resolutely on local issues, local politics and community concerns.
Unfortunately, these last remaining outposts of localism and diversity on television are being threatened by an ill-considered proposal that would seriously undercut their financial future.
This proposal would open the door to the possible exemption of TV services from all local fees. It would also seal the number of channels at current levels, even though digital technology advances would allow for 10 times more than when community access cable was first created. Worse still, the proposal would allow national video franchisees to focus the build out of their services on only the most affluent areas, thus ignoring rural and low-income communities.
Essentially, if this becomes law it would further impoverish the nation's already under-funded community access stations and could well pave the way to their eventual elimination.
About Steve Macek:
Macek is an Assistant Professor in the department of Speech Communication at North Central College in Naperville, IL where he teaches courses in media studies, persuasion and public speaking. He is currently completing a book on media representations of the urban crisis of the 1980s and 90s for University of Minnesota Press. He has also done research on various areas of media policy and on media reform movements. In addition to being a teacher and scholar, Macek is active politically in the media reform, anti-war and anti-corporate globalization movements.
About Mitchell Szczepanczyk:
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