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.

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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