The End of Public Access in Indiana and Florida?
The effects are starting to take full hold in regards to the destructive elements of these video franchising bills being fraudulently promoted around the country, Indiana and Florida in these instances.
These writers are a bit late to the party as to noticing what is really going on, but at least they are finally noticing. What is happening in these states is just part and parcel of what is transpiring in ever-increasing amounts of communities nationwide.
The End of Cable Access TV in Northwest Indiana?
Apparently, the Indiana Assembly, in their infinite wisdom, passed a telecom reform bill, HB 1279 that took control of cable franchises away from local authorities in Indiana and gave it to the state for centralized control, allowing the cable companies to screw localities on their contracts. In exchange for some pathetic promises of jobs and infrastructure, the state let them basically write the new regulations.
The new law basically gave carte blanche to the cable companies to do whatever they wanted. Some of the provisions of the law include (taken from www.indyaccess.org):
* Eliminate basic cable rate regulation (yay, they can raise rates! woohoo!)
* Reduce franchise fees paid to local government (20-30% for Indianapolis) and eliminate audits (they have to pay less to operate in each town)
* Threaten the financial viability and growth of public, education and government (PEG) access TV channels (basically get rid of public access)
* Eliminate basic telephone rate regulation and enable local measured phone service (yay, they can raise these rates too! woohoo!)
* Curtail the development of municipal broadband projects, including those with corporate partnerships (say good-bye to free local Wifi provided by the city, bye Valpo Wireless)
So, what has this meant on the ground? Well, cable access television in Northwest Indiana and statewide is pretty much gone. The law does not force or even compel the cable operators to continue providing the public service of providing cable access.
According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, last fall Comcast sent notice to many municipalities such as Valparaiso and informed them they did not have to provide facilities anymore for public access TV. They demanded all the towns in NWI get together and jointly create and manage new facilities. Of course, this did not happen.
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It’s very clear that HB 1279 is a terrible law for the consumers of this state and Northwest Indiana most of all. It has given more monopolistic controls to the big media conglomerates and silenced local voices. Nice to know Mitch continues to be on our side!
I’m sure if the cable companies had their way, they’d get rid of C-SPAN too.
And more of the same in Florida…
Strategizing To Save Public TV Channels
The Washington, D.C., based Media and Democracy Coalition is collaboration of more than two dozen public interest organizations whose aim is to amplify the public’s voice in media and telecommunications issues. The coalition funded the grant for Hart’s organizer position, and executive director Beth McConnell says that the loss of PEG stations is a threat occurring around the country.
“We are very concerned about a trend that’s happening in many states, including here in FL, where local PEG channels are going dark due to cable franchising rules,” McConnell said. “And we think that the loss of PEG channels is a real threat to democracy arts and culture, and to having a more vibrant, inclusive media. So we’re supporting the efforts of TBCN, FL PIRG and FMC to save PEG in FL.”
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Beth McConnell: “Right, some people who have never seen a PEG station don’t realize the vibrant and innovative programming that’s happening on these stations. It’s true there is some programming not of interest to everyone, but that’s the beauty of a public station, is that everyone has a chance to create something and put it on the air. And it might not be of interest to five million people, but for the 50 or the 5 that it is valuable to, they have that space and place when they don’t have it in main stream media”.
Read The Complete Report Here
on June 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
The people interested in access television have their heads in the sand and that is why we are loosing public access television. The fact is that most and I mean a large percentage of public access shows are not worth watching. They are horrible productions, both artistically and technically. The is an attitude that a polished product is not important in access television. And that is why the majority of people are not interested and consequently neither the legislation nor corporations find value in supporting it.
If public access would put forth more effort into making the shows better quality then this day in history would have been postponed or avoided all together.
Public access volunteers come and go in large numbers. One reason for this is the fact that it is assured that discouragement and disappointment will be a big part of the access television production experience simply because there is little interest in assuring that the final product has much in the way of real substance or production quality.