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Commentary :: Media
Point-by-point response to Champaign City Staff recommendation against cable-company funding of Public Access Cable TV Current rating: 0
09 May 2006
Tonight (Tuesday, May 9th) at 7PM the Champaign City Council will discuss the future of Public Access Cable TV in our community (in the City Council chambers, ground floor, 102 N. Neil St, intesection of University and Neil). In an unexpected 11th hour development, the Champaign City Staff is recommending to the council to forego any cable-company funding of Public Access Cable TV. Their main justification is that there isn't sufficient public interest, despite a city-sponsored Public Access Study Committee's findings that "there is a high level of interest in Public Access in this community". Other justifications supporting their recommendation are similiarly misinformed. In this article, I address each justification individually.
Over the past two years, there has been considerable community support building for a new, dedicated Public Access Cable TV channel run by an independent, non-profit institution. This new channel and the Community TV Station would be funded by both initial capital and ongoing annual funding from our franchised cable provider (Insight). And this funding would be negotiated as part of the impending franchise contract renewal that will soon be initiated by Urbana and Champaign jointly.

The main justification that City Staff puts forward in opposition to seeking funds for Public Access seems to be:

"City staff does not believe there is sufficient public interest in a new public access channel" (staff report page 6)

As a member of the Public Access Study Committee convened by the Champaign-Urbana Cable Television and Telecommunications Commission, I helped document the substantial and growing support for Public Access. In chapter 9 of the Study Committee report (Assessment of Local Interest in Public Access), we concluded "The Committee finds there is a high level of interest in Public Access in this community" (first paragraph). That same chapter also describes how:

1. Over 500 community members signed a petition in favor of a "fully-funded, independent non-profit community Public Access Television Center with dedicated public-access cable channels" (page 21)

2. There has been a recent "dramatic growth" in use of the existing (somewhat limited) Public Access cable facility (UPTV), having grown from 12 members in 2002 to around 200 now in 2006 and forecast to grow to nearly 500 by 2009, when the current cable franchise contract ends (page 21). Please note: half of UPTV's active membership actually resides in Champaign.

3. In response to a survey of community organizations (76 organizations from across the political spectrum), 91% indicated that if staff from a Public Access center could be used to make videos for their organization, they would use this service. 93% said they would make use of a low-cost community camera crew or community video production service (pages 15 through 17).

Support for the Public Access Study Committee's recommendations has already been provided by:

1. Champaign-Urbana Cable Television & Telecommunications Commission (January 18, 2005)

2. Urbana Public Television Commission (Dec. 12, 2005)

3. Urbana City Council (March 6, 2006 City Council Resolution 2006-02-007R). This resolution is included as an appendix to the study session report and is also available on-line at:

http://www.ci.urbana.il.us/urbana/city_council/agendas/agendas_2006/03-06-2006/Resolution_2006-02-007R.pdf

These bodies have all supported the recommendation to create a new, dedicated Public Access cable TV channel funded by our cable provider through franchise fees negotiated by Champaign and Urbana. Yet the Champaign City staff seems to be ignoring the community's expressed public interest in favor of significant, self-serving funding increases for their own existing operations.

Note that the Public Access Study Committee Report is included in its entirety in the City Staff report for Tuesday as an attachment. That City Staff report is available on-line at:

http://archive.ci.champaign.il.us/archive/dsweb/Get/Document-3975/SS%202006-029.pdf

And the Public Access Study Committee Report is also separately available on-line in two parts: the main matter and the (somewhat bulky) appendices:

Main matter:
http://archive.ci.champaign.il.us/archive/dsweb/Get/Document-3384/2005%20Public%20Access%20Study%20Committee%20Final%20Report.pdf

Appendices:
http://archive.ci.champaign.il.us/archive/dsweb/Get/Document-3376/2005%20Public%20Access%20Study%20Committee%20Final%20Report%20Appendices

Now to individually address the other justifications that the City Staff provided to recommend against pursuing funding of Public Access by Insight.

*******************************************************
Justification 1: "Public access is already available to Champaign residents through UPTV, but it is underutilized."
*******************************************************

There has been a surge of growth in UPTV's utilization over the past few years, as described in the Public Access Study Committee report (details cited above). Additional staff, equipment and programming time has been required at UPTV to accommodate this growth. And this growth has taken place in spite of the city-management model used for UPTV, which actually has impeded growth. As described in the Public Access Study Committee report on page 11 (under "Municipal Government Management Model) and on page 13 (under "C. Public Access: Urbana), the nature of our community's existing Public Access infrastructure's management actually hampers its growth and development. This, more than anything else, would be the cause of any lack of utilization.

As an aside, Public Access should be managed much in the same way libraries are. In the same way you wouldn't have government staff managing library operations, the same is true of Public Access Cable. As is done with many libraries, Public Access facilities and services should be overseen by a Board of Directors constituted in large part by members of the community who are enthusiastic about the institution. This idea is embodied in the recommendation for a new non-profit independent organization run by a Board of Directors. A library run by a municipal administrator would be much less responsive and accountable to the public and the same is true of Public Access.

*******************************************************
Justification 2: "Recurring financial support from the Cities will likely be necessary to ensure the channel's viability."
*******************************************************

This is misleading. The vast majority of municipalities across the country (Urbana is no exception, for instance) choose to entirely fund their Public Access with cable company revenues, not city funds from tax revenues or other sources. During cable franchise contract negotiations, large capital expenditures are secured for startup facilities and other initial expenses and ongoing payments from the cable company (typically based on a percentage of cable company revenue) are negotiated to provide for ongoing financial needs. There needn't be (and conventionally there isn't) any financial demand on the city or its tax revenues.

*******************************************************
Justification 3: "By requiring another access channel during negotiations, attempts to negotiate for other high-priority services or contract terms may be less successful."
*******************************************************

This presupposes that "public access" is not "high priority", however, "there is a high level of interest in Public Access in this community", as identified in the Public Access Study Committee report.

*******************************************************
Justification 4: "Uncertain future of all identified public access funding sources."
*******************************************************

While there are federal legislation attempts underway by the large phone companies to reduce the ability of municipal governments to obtain public access funding through franchise contracts, the future outcome of those efforts is unknown and may never actually come to pass. Regardless of the future outcome, this is no reason for our cities to refrain from aggressively negotiating now for the best possible level of Public Access Cable that we can get.

*******************************************************
Justification 5: "Though supported by City dollars, programming content on Public Access has First Amendment protections and could not be controlled."
*******************************************************

This justification seems to demonstrate an unsettling contempt for free speech. Should it really be a goal of our municipal government to thwart or control speech? This is a troubling statement and somewhat of a non-sequitur as well. Regardless, establishing an independent, non-profit board-run organization to oversee Public Access facilities will essentially insulate the city from any controversy that might come to pass over Public Access programming.

*******************************************************
Justification 6: "If collected, Champaign resident cable subscribers will bear the expense of the PEG fee."
*******************************************************

Cable companies will charge whatever the market will bear for their services. As with all other goods and services in our economy, the total price of cable service is dictated by market conditions, mainly their competition (such as satellite dish network providers DirecTV and Dish Network). Cable franchise-related fees charged by municipalities have little, if any, effect overall (they only amount to, at most, a dollar or two per cable bill, on average, regardless).

In the same way that expenditures for repair trucks and phone support staff is a cost of doing business for cable companies, franchise-related fees are also a cost of doing business. In fact, negotiated franchise fees are "rent" the cable companies pay for tearing up our streets and using the city's "rights of way" for their cabling. These rights of way have enormous and increasing market value. It's only fair they pay this rent for the right to have their municipal franchise, a guaranteed money-making monopoly. Profit margins in the cable industry are estimated to be as high as 40% (according to Sue Buske of The Buske Group - www.buskegroup.com , who was consulted by the Champaign-Urbana Cable Television & Telecommunications Commission). And with new digital video tiers, cable Internet access and cable telephone services coming on-line nationwide, cable company revenues are projected to more than double in the next 10 years (Kagan Research, LLC, 2005). The funding of local Public Access facilities can be easily absorbed by the cable company - it's just a matter of the cities making the effort to negotiate it into the cable franchise contract for the benefit of the community.

But cable companies do make it a (understandably shrewd) practice of creating a line item in cable bills for franchise-related fees. And they'll use creative wording such as "pass through" or even "tax" to describe that line item, giving the impression that whatever they are charged by the municipality will result in an inevitable "cause and effect" increase in cable bills by the exact same amount as long as they have to pay those franchise fees to the city.

For one to believe in this kind of "cause and effect" argument, for instance, one would also have to believe that if a cable company's franchise fees paid to a city are suddenly discontinued, than that will automatically mean their cable bills will forever more be that much smaller, clearly a naive premise. Once a cable company knows they can successfully charge at a particular level for their service, they would, of course, factor that in at their next (possibly expedited) price increase.

Thus, the City Staff's statement that "cable subscribers will bear the expense of the PEG fee" is harmfully misinformed and only propagates what is a deceptive public-relations myth brought forth by the cable industry, designed to discourage the public and municipal officials from rightfully seeking franchise fees for the benefit of the community in return for granting cable companies lucrative monopoly franchises.

*******************************************************
Justification 7: "Significant staff time will be required to define the City's role in and oversee creation of a new public access channel; and non-profit entity to operate it."
*******************************************************

Cable company funds could be used to offset whatever additional time and costs are necessary. For instance, it is common practice for municipalities to use cable franchise fees won during negotiation to pay for consulting services used to conduct those negotiations. The same could be done for consultants needed to establish a new Community TV Station and Public Access channel. Also, the time and efforts of community members can be utilized to help with these tasks, just as the Champaign/Urbana Cable Television and Communications Commission convened a Public Access Study Committee, comprised mostly of community members, in order to create recommendations for the future of Public Access.

What's at stake for the community:

A high level of Public Access TV services surrounding a vibrant Public Access Cable TV channel (something we've never really had in Champaign/Urbana) will foster a greater sense of community and enhance our quality of life:

Non-profit organizations would have excellent new opportunities to create video programming that will allow them to publicize the work they do, attract new volunteers, request financial support and in some cases even provide training videos to instruct their own organizations or provide public-service instruction to the community at large.

Community discussion and debate in the form of live call-in talk shows, interactive televised political debates and town meetings will encourage and assist local residents to become more informed and involved in their community's schools, government, churches and other institutions.

Local community events such as public concerts and performances, speaking engagements or school events such as high school athletic games could be broadcast live and then rebroadcast later as well.

Also, providing a true "free-speech" forum will allow our local community to express ideas and opinions outside the increasingly narrow range available on commercial media. As commercial media becomes increasingly homogenized and consolidated into fewer and fewer very large corporations, programming that touches on local news, issues and events is gradually fading away in the interest of greater profits. As media channels become increasingly owned by national corporate behemoths that are progressively being influenced more and more by large corporate advertisers and even the federal government, community-controlled, locally-originated programming and channels will become increasingly valued over time.

And with emerging video-on-demand technology already being implemented elsewhere in the country (e.g. Shrewsbury, Massachusetts), public-access programming can be played on demand at the touch of a button on a subscriber's remote control, greatly magnifying all these benefits.

Vital and vibrant Public Access Cable TV has great potential to bind our community tighter, encouraging folks to become more involved and connected within our community and increasing our qualify of life. And it would be entirely funded not by tax revenues, but by the cable company itself from a small portion of their millions of dollars of revenue.

This is a crucial and defining moment in the effort by our community and parts of our local governments to finally establish the forward-looking, community-building Public Access Cable TV facilities that our towns deserve - a moment that will set the future for as many as 15 years (the duration of our current cable franchise contract). Our Public Access resources have fallen behind other similar municipalities around the country. Our community deserves better.

This work is in the public domain
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