USTV Media Presents “Phil Donahue and Amy Goodman On The Media” A live public forum in Dayton, Ohio featuring television pioneer Phil Donahue and Amy Goodman, independent journalist and host of the news program “Democracy Now!”. Speaking out on the current troubled state of our media system, discussion ranged over a number of topics, including the increasing commercialization of our media system and the threats posed to truly independent journalism and the role it was envisioned to play by our nation’s founders. Also discussed were specific examples of how the mainstream media system is co-opted to be a conduit for government propaganda, and the tragic consequences this can have for the future sustenance of our democratic system. This event was co-produced by UnCommon Sense TV in association with Wake Up Ohio, and with production assistance by Dayton Access Television

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Candace Clement of Free Press weighs in on the discrimination against local community programming on cable video systems with this good post regarding the petitioning of the FCC to redress this situation.

Most people flip their way through the television dial, pause when something piques their interest, and move on when boredom hits. As media consumers, we click, click, click until we find a program that grabs us. The beauty of television is that we have so many options, including local programming. Or so it seems.

But according to more than 300 organizations, city officials and other individuals who filed comments yesterday with the Federal Communications Commission, companies like Comcast and AT&T have been illegally discriminating against local programming on community television channels.

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That’s a terrible shame because PEG channels are a vital platform for local media in our communities. They are some of the only avenues available to everyday folks who want to try their hand at producing video programming. Many PEG stations are robust community operations that provide media training and youth programs, foster civic journalism, or support the production of documentaries and other videos – some of which have gone on to win Emmy Awards .

But companies like Comcast and AT&T have moved PEG channels off the basic tier, making them difficult to access. These companies also severely limit the many features offered by commercial channels, such as closed captioning and digital video recording (like TiVO).

Read The Complete Post

Democracy Now! reports on how community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation. The dispute centers around how AT&T delivers public television stations to customers. Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations onto a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process. Public television advocates say AT&T is imposing unfair restrictions that will severely restrict audiences.

Community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation, and the deadline for public comment is midnight tonight. The dispute centers around how AT&T delivers public television stations to customers. Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations onto a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process. Public television advocates say AT&T is imposing unfair restrictions that will severely restrict audiences.

The groups have filed a regulatory challenge against AT&T with the Federal Communications Commission. And a House Appropriations subcommittee has also asked the FCC to look into the allegations.

Read and watch more about this Here

I wonder why rates will not go down. There are many reasons why cable rates cannot go down without congress getting involved and legislating changes, specifically legislating a-la-carte or the dismantling of tiers and bundles (regardless of all the claims of ‘competition’ in the video delivery field). They are:

Most Favored Nations - Most favored nations clauses (MFN’s) are clauses in contracts that in essence say that no one will be given more favorable terms than the terms that are negotiated between the two parties. A large MSO can in essence say to a cable network that no one smaller than them will get better rates on a per subscriber basis than they will get. They also state that no one can get better terms (in basically any way you could define it). Most favored nations clauses are cross platform; MTV Networks deals with DirecTV are governed by the MFN clause it has with Comcast, so DirecTV rates will never be lower than Comcast’s. The same holds true with deals with Verizon’s and AT&T. So with MFN’s, a new player in the market is forced to sign agreements with the same restrictive language as the incumbents, so their programming tiers and rate structures are very similar, and thus their rates are similar. In this way, the contracts that evolved when cable operators were true monopolies now govern the new entrants, so of course, their rates are very similar.

MFN Clauses In Programmer Agreements - An established cable network insists that an MSO signs an agreement that includes language that states in effect that their service must be in the same tier of service as all the other top cable networks. In other words, if ESPN and TNT are in the expanded basic cable package, MTV must be as well. That is why everyone’s expanded basic cable tier looks the same. And since they are cross platform, (Cable, Telco and Satellite) AT&T’s expanded basic package will look just like Comcast’s and also cost the same. That is also why everyone’s expanded basic cable tier is so expensive as these are the highest cost per subscriber cable networks. In order to compete, a provider must carry the most popular networks (imagine Verizon trying to compete without ESPN) and the most popular networks will not sign an agreement allowing them to be put on a specialized tier, or offered a-la-carte, so there is no real possibility for price differentiation.

Retransmission Consent - The communications act allowed broadcasters to choose if they wanted their stations to have “must carry” status, or instead negotiate “retransmission consent” from the cable operators. The network affiliates, secure in the knowledge that a cable operator would never drop them, all chose retransmission consent, and then negotiated their terms of carriage. Cable operators pledged never to pay a broadcaster for their signal as they were simply extending their reach and making the broadcaster more profitable anyway, and instead, what emerged were the broadcasters asking for the carriage of other stations. This is how CNBC was started, and also how MSNBC was created. Networks basically used the leverage of retransmission consent force carriage of new cable channels, which they could charge for.

Consolidation of Ownership - Because an MSO, or Verizon, or DirecTV can not compete with each other without ESPN, Disney says, if you want ESPN, you must carry and pay us for ESPN2 and Classic Sports Network. Five years later when their contract is once again up for renewal, Disney demands carriage of College Sports Television and Soapnet. The same holds true for Viacom with MTV networks. Why else do all those different MTV channels exist? And so now even the digital tier becomes bloated and expensive.

Disclaimer: I have not examined and am not quoting from Comcast, Disney, MTV, or Turner contracts, but this is how the game is played.

- Posted by a ‘Former Cable Network Programmer’ for USTV Media

UnCommon Sense TV - “Media & Democracy/Media Carta” Emphasizing the importance of media and its role in the functioning of a democracy, USTV looks at just what is the media, who owns it, who controls it, who has access to it, and what can be done to reform it to make it more directly responsive and accountable to the needs of a functioning democratic society on a whole, and not just to a small number of business sponsors. Analysis of how local control and accoutability of the media has real world implications for the political and cultural health of our society, as well as what every citizen can do to be aware and involved in making the media more responsive to their nation and community.

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Good post by David Reed regarding the ongoing attempts by the corporate few and their PR shills to wrest control over our communication systems.

The Internet is a simple network, a stupid network, that just connects your computer to another computer with no interference. That’s opposed to old smarty-pants networks that tried limit users to those things that maximized the operators‚ monopoly profits, by taxing the content providers and preventing innovators from attaching new devices, inventing new services at the edges, etc. The Internet won, for a good reason: it enabled innovation, and it kept busybody operators from having to tinker with or spy on their users‚ traffic. It delighted users, rather than holding them hostage.

The Arts+Labs site looks cool, very Web 2.0-ish. But hidden in that beautiful design, behind the slick and seductive words, is a dangerous idea, one that the founders of the United States rejected in the First Amendment. The Arts+Labs site tries to convince you (and Congress) of the idea that it’s a “good thing” to allow your ISP to decide what you can see or hear or use. That’s the same ISP that is given by Fed, State, or local regulators a monopoly or oligopoly over your ability to connect at high speed to the Internet. For that monopoly to examine your traffic, make guesses as to what it means, and to decide for you which services you should connect to, using what protocols.

Don’t believe Mike McCurry [former Clinton press secretary], AT&T and Cisco’s new shill. He may be connected, but it’s pretty clear that he wants to disconnect us.

Read The Full Post

Here is a story from ABC’s Nightline on what Reverend Billy terms ‘the holy business of saving public access’. It’s good to see the threats to access getting national attention and making an effort to detail some of the underlying causes of those threats. However, this story is also notable in that it is an example of how, once again, corporate media likes to trivialize and marginalize the full breadth and scope of community access and the wide variety of constituencies it serves, and those who create through it.

It is also notable in that it misses it’s own point in seeing the relevance and effective civic uses of access in that it features a clip of then-State Senator Barack Obama on local access, a medium of communication he obviously understood the value of. He’s not the only one. Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted used to have his own regular political talk show (which I was a guest on at one time) entitled “Political Perspectives”, which ran for a couple of years on MVCC, via a medium that Mr. Husted later voted to undercut with his support of Ohio video franchise legislation SB 117. This legislation has proven (and was predicted to be) to be highly destructive to the survival of local community access media throughout the state. What is sadly ironic is a show like his would hardly have been able to exist if such legislation had been in effect while he was taking advantage of the medium himself.

Here’s Ed Asner with some different and more supportive perspective of the importance of the role of public access.

From President Barack Obama’s new White House website comes this comment from the “Technology” page, as posted in the section titled “Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets”

Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.

Now this is the kind of change I can believe in.

Read much more on this at Brad Friedman’s site The Brad Blog

Obama also appointed Michael Copps as acting chair of the FCC, which is good news for PEG access (public, educational and government television) and all advocates of a truly democratically accountable and accessible media system. Too bad he didn’t just go ahead and name him permanent chair.

A really good posting on the state of community access television, celebrating some of the grand and glorious uniqueness that it encapsulates. I can’t say I care much for the headline The Huffington Post used for this piece, but the essay itself is good and the writer is making direct references to the state of access television in Los Angeles, which has more than its share of the offbeat and unusual, thus the emphasis on those qualities of the programs.

As someone who has worked and participated in access as long as I have, I find this to be a rather poignant if not unfortunately bittersweet homage to the cultural and civic value of access and the sadness at seeing it assualted the way it is these days.

Here in Los Angeles, the city rang in the New Year by closing down all of its public access TV studios, signaling an end to homegrown, grass roots production of eclectic and often monumentally weird alternative programming. Cities in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana are also shutting down facilities, and if the amount of locally-based “save public access” postings on the Internet are any indication, the trend is continuing. Of course, there was never any money in it, and now that the economy is in the crapper something that costs and has no return is just begging for the chopping block. Not to mention, some argue, the notion of the individual cranking out outsider material has long since been co-opted by YouTube. But YouTube is largely the outlet for quick hits, easily digestible visual jokes, rants or parakeets dancing to the Village People. And while many out there may wonder why it is worth mourning a TV channel that usually features seventy-three different talk shows each featuring the same potted plant, I think one would be remiss, especially in a career-based column, if one did not compose a short eulogy for a format that contained a heaping helping of what it takes to get ahead in this world: passion.

People who create public access programming do it because they must. They are overtaken by a muse that will not permit them to do otherwise. How many of us can claim that on a good day?

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The entire idea of getting out there and doing it is intrinsic to our cultural landscape. So who are we to govern what might constitute the getting out there, or the doing it for that matter? There are (sorry, were) several cable access programs in the Los Angeles area that have been running on a nearly weekly basis for over twenty years. Compare that with the amount of turnover in the private sector, and you get some idea of the dedication inherent in these resolutely individualistic souls.

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And before we get on our high horse about how fringe or self-indulgent some of these programs may be, it should be noted that several other, more serious informational shows produced in local markets around the country were often part of a syndication network, allowing them to be broadcast in a number of other cities in the U.S. And the alternative news outlet The Full Disclosure Network is the only public access program to have won an Emmy, It has been up and running since 1992. That, by any estimation, is a career.

So, let us hard-working Americans raise a toast to another set of hard-working Americans: the originators of unique (and, yes, often freakishly disturbing, but so what?) television at the recently-departed and still-remaining community access television stations across the country. Just because these people never got paid for it doesn’t mean they didn’t have jobs to do.

Amen.

Read The Complete Article

For more on the politics behind what is going on in regards to this issue, check out the Multichannel News report PEG Access Has Blurry Future In Golden State

Learn more about community access television at the Alliance For Community Media and SaveAccess.org

From Art Brodsky at PublicKnowledge…

Over the past couple of years, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin got a lot of mileage out of making jokes about his “KGB-style management” at the Commission. Nobody’s laughing today. The House Commerce Committee report sets out in excruciating detail, supported in some cases by email from FCC staff, how Martin withheld information or ignored information that could have changed the outcome of some proceedings, how he intervened in proceedings and how he created a culture of paranoia around the Commission so that staffers weren’t willing to risk disagreeing with the Chairman’s conclusions on issues for fear of being demoted. At the Commission, this is called being “Martinized,” the report said. As damaging as are the accounts of the individual cases, however, are the reports of staff intimidation and of the creation of the “climate of fear” in the agency. FCC staff were directed not to talk to other staff, or to workers at other government agencies. Staff were told to stop work on anything but not officially approved projects that have been assigned. “Projects that were authorized in the past are not necessarily considered to be authorized at this time,” one email read. Everything has to be decided by the chairman’s office, from important regulatory issues to the hiring of student interns, the report found. The result was a demoralized, ineffective agency.

The Original Post from The Benton Foundation