By Jay April

January, 20, 2010

The Airwaves Belong to the People

In a democracy long, long ago when Community Television was in its infancy, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Nicholas Johnson recognized that according to U.S. law, “the airwaves belong to the people”

The year was 1972; cable television behemoths were about to wire the nation. The federal government’s intent was to protect localism and diversity of viewpoint by requiring these companies to pay “rent” for using our public rights of way by providing Public, Educational and Government Access channels, production equipment and facilities for public use on cable systems throughout the land. The fly in the ointment, however, was that the Feds left implementation and regulation of the Public Access concept up to LFA’s or local franchise authorities. Not every one followed this “best practice” model, but many did and in the vast majority of cases it was mainly city and county governments who granted local cable television monopolies. In a few cases, like New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Hawaii, cable regulation was assigned to a state regulatory agency.

Community Television, also known as PEG Access, began to proliferate in local jurisdictions. The more successful stations were independent nonprofits established at arms length from government and financed from up to 5% of cable revenues. These stations were set up in local communities for no other purpose but to create public access to cable and provide free or low cost media skills for any and all comers. The big idea was not to benefit any one institution or special interest but to serve the general public from all walks of life including the unaffiliated, the disenfranchised, the popular as well as the unpopular, people who would otherwise not have a voice, teachers and students involved in all aspects of formal and informal education. Another main goal was to encourage local democratic discourse by televising gavel to gavel coverage of government meetings making government more accessible to the masses.

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Former Akakū CEO, Sean McLaughlin, now drives Humboldt County, Ca. Access Center to New Facilities

Access Humboldt moves into newly completed center

Date: January 4, 2010
Contact: Liz Rose, Communications Director, Free Press, (202) 265-1490 x32

WASHINGTON — Free Press and other consumer groups are calling on federal antitrust authorities and Congress to investigate agreements among giant media companies to stifle competition in the emerging market for online television programming.

This call for an investigation is based on a Free Press report released today. In the report, Free Press details how giant cable, satellite and phone companies and many leading programming networks, led by Comcast and Time Warner, are colluding on an industry-wide initiative called “TV Everywhere” that requires consumers to pay for cable TV subscriptions to access online programming. While being marketed as a consumer-friendly feature, TV Everywhere is designed to eliminate the threat of online competition, limit consumer choice, and build on the cable TV model that gouges consumers. (more…)