Is Cable Access Dead in Indiana?
April 17, 2006
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The recent telecommunications "reform" legislation passed by the Indiana General Assembly may spell death to locally produced cable access shows.
The legislation was written with the guidance of Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC), now AT&T/SBC.
Similar legislation introduced by SBC in Texas drastically reduced public access broadcast channels in the state. The Texas legislation was touted as an expansion of PEG programming. Instead, the legislation was a Trojan Horse.
Major cities in Texas lost public cable access programming almost overnight. The public access budget in Dallas was cut in half. San Antonio lost its channel entirely.
These channels were reserved for public, educational and governmental use and are therefore commonly called PEG access channels.
The End of Local Control
The hallmark of PEG access is local control and production. Each municipality grants a monopoly to just one cable vendor. Each municipality negotiates a contract with the monopoly vendor and can demand reserved PEG channels.
The Texas telecommunications reform law resulted in less local control. Indiana will have an arrangement similar to Texas. A small group of appointees in Indianapolis will decide which cities in Indiana are allowed to have PEG channels.
In the past, citizens generally gathered a minimum number of signatures on a petition to qualify to produce a cable public access show. A dozen or so signatures was the norm. The local petition demonstrates grassroots support for a cable show.
However, instead of local municipal control, Indiana will now have centralized control. It is unclear at this point how local producers will petition the state regulatory body for PEG channels. No matter what the process is finally, it will be more difficult and less democratic than gathering a dozen signatures from fellow citizens.
Where once Indiana had weak corporate influence over public access media, we will have strong corporate influence. Telecommunications and cable companies, through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, will set the agenda for the media regulatory process as they do for public utility regulation in Indiana. Corporations much prefer dealing with a single statewide agency than negotiating with the local governments in 92 Indiana counties, where voters have real power.
Public Access In Indiana Before Reform
The restriction of the public media commons is done in the name of fair competition and deregulation. In the end, the reform is neither fair to citizens nor increases real competition among corporations.
The telecommunications giant SBC/AT&T jealously eyes the cable franchises. SBC wants to enter their prime market -- entertainment delivery into the home. The cable industry wants to provide voice and data communications, SBC's prime market. Each wants to cripple the other, if it can. Both want guarantees of protection from smaller, more innovative and competitive media companies.
Neither telecommunications nor cable wants to provide public access to media production facilities and content delivery. These corporations see us solely as consumers of their products and services, not producers of our own media.
Indianapolis
Indianapolis takes a cut of the monopoly cable vendor's profits, puts the revenue in the general fund and grants no public access rights to their citizens. As a result, there is no public access channel in all of Marion County, the most populous county in Indiana.
Although the lack of PEG broadcasting is regrettable, the voters in Marion County could have elected officials who would provide them with public access to media.
South Bend
South Bend negotiated a contract with Comcast in which Comcast provides a single one room studio with an adjacent control room. The lighting system is extremely simple (two lights on stands), and the audio-video equipment is decades old analog technology. The city puts its share of the revenue from the monopoly license into the city's general fund and nothing into the public access system. Consequently, the system is falling apart. When equipment fails, it may or may not be repaired or replaced.
South Bend's public access system employs one full time and one part time person. The part time person is a temp who receives no benefits and no opportunity for advancement.
The city requires Comcast to provide only one public access channel. Comcast has started a "local origination" channel as well. Local origination in this case is not public access. Someone, possibly Comcast, purchased a rack of new and expensive commercial broadcast Sony Beta video tape players for local origination shows. Public access producers cannot use these tape players. The equipment is only available to local educational institutions and government. Newer commercial broadcast grade camcorders are also not available to public access producers, who are stuck with broken and barely functional consumer grade equipment.
To make matters worse, the one full-time and one part-time technicians at the public access studio periodically take time off public access to produce shows for the local origination channel. When they do, public access producers lose an equal amount of access to the studio facilitites. Public access producers sacrifice for local origination shows, but don't benefit from the new equipment reserved for local origination producers.
Finally, the quality of public access production is lower than the commercial channels and local origination. The source material is recorded, edited and played on 15-20 year old analog equipment -- there is no digital equipment at all. As a result, the public access signal is degraded in comparison to commercial and local origination channels on the same Comcast system.
Ft. Wayne
Ft. Wayne has possibly the most enviable public access system in the state. The city contracts with the Allen County Public Library to provide public access services to citizens. The city also gives all the monopoly license revenues to the public access system. The Library leverages the city's investment by using the city's funds to apply for matching grants for public access.
Because of the well thought out system and the leveraging effect of contracting with the public library system, the public access system in Ft. Wayne has 3 cable broadcast channels, 3 production studios each with its own control room, sophisticated overhead grid lighting systems in the studios, state of the art digital audio/video recording and editing equipment.
The PEG access staff is 16 full and part time employees. Ft. Wayne public access is converting more of its part time employees to full time status to expand services to the public and to cover more public access employees with benefits.
Public Access After Reform
There is no certainty that Indianapolis, South Bend and Ft. Wayne will have any PEG channels going forward. Indianapolis has no PEG broadcasting now. South Bend has a deteriorating system. Ft. Wayne has a model PEG system.
Greens value democratic media access. We support a robust free speech media commons without corporate or government interference, media of, by and for the people.
Based on the Texas experience, there is every indication the public media commons is about to shrink in Indiana.
Thanks to elected representatives who favor corporate sponsorship over liberty and democracy.
St. Joe Valley Greens, South Bend, IN