Community Access: Money vs. Ideas

The FCC is working to place caps and limits on what most of us know as “Public Access.” The regulations limit how municipalities can negotiate to support media in their community and release providers from having to provide wider access to media distribution.

I know that “public access” can be synonymous with bad production values and amateurish programming. But, the Public/Education/Government (PEG) channels are the only place where people in a community can take advantage of (what we all know is) powerful stuff — electronic media.

The Association for Community Media (ACM) is working to defeat this kind of regulation. Help them take action at http://www.alliancecm.org/blog.php.

[From the ACM website]
Part of what is being proposed:
* All PEG, I-Net and other in-kind services would be counted against 5% franchise fees. 5% would be an absolute cap. (My commentary: That means any costs a provider incurs by providing community access services would be taken out of the franchise fees before a municipality received them.)
* Municipalities would have to approve new franchises for telephone companies within 90 days or allow them to operate without franchises. (My commentary: Could be detrimental to smaller communities with (much) less than full time council-persons who may have longer lead times for ordinance review.)
* There would be no build-out requirements allowed whatsoever. (My commentary: Cities could not negotiate and providers could cherry pick where to build in a community (redlining); community media access and availability would be split along socioeconomic lines.)

At the start of my career I advised and assisted public access groups and produced a series on brotherhood for a local organization. Many professionals (admit it) got their start there. Free equipment and a distribution channel made it very attractive.

As a media communicator I feel we have a responsibility, as a profession and an industry, to enable people to take advantage of electronic media. Support for public access and community media seem a natural extension of that responsibility.

I’m all for the free market economy. But I’m also for the free market of ideas. I hope you’ll help take some action that can preserve both.