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A significant Columbus civic and cultural resource has been quietly vanishing and is at risk of disappearing altogether. Columbus public access television, once a national model for citizen creativity, free speech and activism, may simply fade away unless we urge the City of
Columbus to preserve and fund it.
As this article is written, the City is contemplating the future of the medium and, through the Cable Commission, is taking public comment and hearing proposals to manage the station. The problem for would-be managers is that the City appears set on diverting cable franchise fees into the general fund rather than equipping a facility and hiring staff to train community producers and conduct community outreach. While the City has the ultimate control of these funds, diverting them reverses longstanding and hard-won support of this civic resource.
Why is support for access important? Public access television — also called a community media center in some locales — is one of the few areas of public greenspace in broadcast or cablecast media. If you are a cable subscriber, part of your monthly bill includes a franchise fee. Cable companies are required to pay local governments a franchise fee for use of the public right of way to run cable lines. Columbus, like other communities, has required cable companies to designate channels for government, educational and public access and has used franchise fees to contract with agencies to manage and equip these stations, hire staff, and provide training to community producers. Public access stations vary in their sophistication but all provide one of the few opportunities for citizens to fully exercise their right of free speech in an electronic medium.
Columbus public access has followed a rocky road in recent years. Assigning blame depends on your perspective. Management controversies, lawsuits from community producers, and ineffective handling and defense of controversial programming sullied public perception of the channel and made it a difficult cause for city officials to champion. Some feel the City wanted to simply get rid of Community 21, the non-profit manager of the station. In the spring of 2001, the city announced that it would halve funding for public access television to only $220,000. The City failed to reach an agreement with Community 21 and the channel was turned over to the management of the government channel to run. Critics of the City say Columbus failed to create a process whereby a worthy successor could prepare a bid to manage the station. Others claim that their bids — modeled after exemplary media centers around the country — were simply ignored.
Eventually the City commissioned a community advisory panel to study the issue. The advisory panel held several ill-promoted public meetings and studied other access centers. It issued a report that included the recommendations that the City provide a larger funding base consistent with other cities of comparable size, and to seek out a more capable and committed non-profit manager for the station. In the meantime, the City contracted with a the Biomedical Media Group at Ohio State to collect, and prepare for broadcast, shows from community producers who had access to their own equipment. A year later, nothing has changed and some speculate that the channel is at risk of going dark for good if there is not a significant public display of support.
As the City continues to tighten the belt on its budget, public access television appears to be an easy target for elimination. When Mayor Coleman introduced the City’s current budget following September 11th, 2001, he singled out the elimination of public access funding, noting we needed to choose between “safety and television.” Even though the dollars involved were relatively small compared to the entire budget, such a characterization of our options was an easy one to make in a crisis atmosphere. But if a political leader were to say we need to make a choice between “safety and democracy” (remind you of a President or Congressperson?), there would (hopefully) be a significant outcry. By not funding and expanding public access to the electronic media we are, indeed, short-changing our democracy. And while the FCC, the federal steward of our public airwaves, continues to permit corporate consolidation of media, and eliminate and trivialize public service obligations of broadcasters, local communities are the last place were citizens can secure even the tiniest patch of public greenspace.
And for those who insist that public access is the domain of cranks and eccentrics should have heard the calls I received while working for a local TV station. Not long after the access studio and training facility closed I heard from several organizations seeking media training and access:
A refugee organization, that had a grant to create media to bring culturally relevant information to its audience, was seeking training and a broadcast venue;
A church wanted to turn a festival with a theme of youth development into a televised town forum;
A neighborhood organization wanted to use media training as a capacity building tool in low-income neighborhoods;
An environmental group wanted to edit a tape to present to newspaper editors and politicians;
These are citizens who care about their community, want to create dialogue and address community needs. These are the people a community media is meant to serve. Since local commercial and public media are unable (or unwilling) to help them, their voices and contributions will be muted without a community media center.
Concerned citizens should speak their mind by contacting members of City Council, the City Department of Technology, and the Mayor’s office. Tell them you think public access television is an important cultural and civic resource and can be a key ingredient in this administration’s goals for neighborhood empowerment and electronic government. Tell the city to restore adequate funding for public access and not to divert cable franchise fees.
You can also join local activists battling to preserve access television and build a community media center. You can lean more by signing up for the “Our Media” listserv at groups.yahoo.com/group/ourmedia.
Rich James a Columbus media producer and educator. rj43214@yahoo.com.
As this article is written, the City is contemplating the future of the medium and, through the Cable Commission, is taking public comment and hearing proposals to manage the station. The problem for would-be managers is that the City appears set on diverting cable franchise fees into the general fund rather than equipping a facility and hiring staff to train community producers and conduct community outreach. While the City has the ultimate control of these funds, diverting them reverses longstanding and hard-won support of this civic resource.
Why is support for access important? Public access television — also called a community media center in some locales — is one of the few areas of public greenspace in broadcast or cablecast media. If you are a cable subscriber, part of your monthly bill includes a franchise fee. Cable companies are required to pay local governments a franchise fee for use of the public right of way to run cable lines. Columbus, like other communities, has required cable companies to designate channels for government, educational and public access and has used franchise fees to contract with agencies to manage and equip these stations, hire staff, and provide training to community producers. Public access stations vary in their sophistication but all provide one of the few opportunities for citizens to fully exercise their right of free speech in an electronic medium.
Columbus public access has followed a rocky road in recent years. Assigning blame depends on your perspective. Management controversies, lawsuits from community producers, and ineffective handling and defense of controversial programming sullied public perception of the channel and made it a difficult cause for city officials to champion. Some feel the City wanted to simply get rid of Community 21, the non-profit manager of the station. In the spring of 2001, the city announced that it would halve funding for public access television to only $220,000. The City failed to reach an agreement with Community 21 and the channel was turned over to the management of the government channel to run. Critics of the City say Columbus failed to create a process whereby a worthy successor could prepare a bid to manage the station. Others claim that their bids — modeled after exemplary media centers around the country — were simply ignored.
Eventually the City commissioned a community advisory panel to study the issue. The advisory panel held several ill-promoted public meetings and studied other access centers. It issued a report that included the recommendations that the City provide a larger funding base consistent with other cities of comparable size, and to seek out a more capable and committed non-profit manager for the station. In the meantime, the City contracted with a the Biomedical Media Group at Ohio State to collect, and prepare for broadcast, shows from community producers who had access to their own equipment. A year later, nothing has changed and some speculate that the channel is at risk of going dark for good if there is not a significant public display of support.
As the City continues to tighten the belt on its budget, public access television appears to be an easy target for elimination. When Mayor Coleman introduced the City’s current budget following September 11th, 2001, he singled out the elimination of public access funding, noting we needed to choose between “safety and television.” Even though the dollars involved were relatively small compared to the entire budget, such a characterization of our options was an easy one to make in a crisis atmosphere. But if a political leader were to say we need to make a choice between “safety and democracy” (remind you of a President or Congressperson?), there would (hopefully) be a significant outcry. By not funding and expanding public access to the electronic media we are, indeed, short-changing our democracy. And while the FCC, the federal steward of our public airwaves, continues to permit corporate consolidation of media, and eliminate and trivialize public service obligations of broadcasters, local communities are the last place were citizens can secure even the tiniest patch of public greenspace.
And for those who insist that public access is the domain of cranks and eccentrics should have heard the calls I received while working for a local TV station. Not long after the access studio and training facility closed I heard from several organizations seeking media training and access:
A refugee organization, that had a grant to create media to bring culturally relevant information to its audience, was seeking training and a broadcast venue;
A church wanted to turn a festival with a theme of youth development into a televised town forum;
A neighborhood organization wanted to use media training as a capacity building tool in low-income neighborhoods;
An environmental group wanted to edit a tape to present to newspaper editors and politicians;
These are citizens who care about their community, want to create dialogue and address community needs. These are the people a community media is meant to serve. Since local commercial and public media are unable (or unwilling) to help them, their voices and contributions will be muted without a community media center.
Concerned citizens should speak their mind by contacting members of City Council, the City Department of Technology, and the Mayor’s office. Tell them you think public access television is an important cultural and civic resource and can be a key ingredient in this administration’s goals for neighborhood empowerment and electronic government. Tell the city to restore adequate funding for public access and not to divert cable franchise fees.
You can also join local activists battling to preserve access television and build a community media center. You can lean more by signing up for the “Our Media” listserv at groups.yahoo.com/group/ourmedia.
Rich James a Columbus media producer and educator. rj43214@yahoo.com.