[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Imc] URGENT call to action - May 9th 7PM! Champaign city staff aims to torpedo new public access TV channel!

[Stuart Levy]

You have have seen this elsewhere -- Randall Cotton mentioned it
at yesterday's Main Event -- but in case not, if you live in Champaign
or Urbana, your presence WILL MATTER for prospects of public-access cable:
despite overwhelming support from scores of local organizations and
support from the Urbana City Council, the Champaign city staff is arguing
that there's little public interest in a public-access channel and are
recommending *against* negotiating for it in upcoming cable franchise
negotiations.

The issue is to be considered at this Tuesday's Champaign City Council
study meeting.

Favorite quote from the city staff report (cited below, and released just
last Friday, May 5th!) -- in the list of Disadvantages [p7]:
   Though supported by City dollars, programming content on Public Access
     has First Amendment protections and could not be controlled.
One of the staff's suggested "alternatives" would be to negotiate for the
2%-of-cable-revenues PEG support fee but to use it to fund the
City Government's own TV programming instead of for a public-participation
media center.
   -Stuart

===========================================================================

Summary:

This Tuesday, May 9th at 7PM, the Champaign City Council will consider
the future of Public Access Cable TV in our community. And although there
has been considerable community support building over the past two years
for the creation of a new, dedicated Public Access Cable TV channel, the
Champaign city administration is mounting a surprise 11th-hour effort
to dissuade the Champaign City Council from providing any support for
Public Access Cable TV for perhaps the next 15 years. Instead, they
are proposing a substantial funding increase to equip and staff the
government-only cable channel they already run, which has no public
access. A strong public turnout will be necessary at Tuesday's meeting
in order to ensure community efforts to establish a new Public Access
TV channel are not dashed by Champaign's city staff.

What's at stake:

This is the single most critical moment, to date, in the effort to win the 
kind of Public Access Cable TV facilities our community deserves.
Strong community turnout at the City Council Chambers (ground floor,
city of Champaign building, 102 N. Neil St.) for the 7PM "study session"
meeting of the Council will be decisive in convincing them to reject
the city staff's recommendation to completely forego support for
Public Access Cable TV. The Champaign City Council is the last
governmental entity that would need to sign on in support of this
new channel. Support has already been provided by all other relevant
governmental bodies, including:

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)

These bodies have all supported the recommendation to create a new,
dedicated Public Access cable TV channel managed by a non-profit Community
Media Center and funded by our cable provider, Insight Communications (as
part of a new cable franchise contract). But if the Champaign City Council
chooses to reject supporting Public Access Cable TV, this will destroy the
community's chances (for many years) to obtain the community-building,
democracy-vitalizing free speech public platform that Champaign/Urbana
deserves. The duration of the current cable franchise contract is 15
years. If the renewal is just as long, our community won't have a chance
to improve our Public Access facilities until after the year 2020! Here's
a summary of the envisioned facilities at stake in the recommendations
(which would be funded by cable company revenues, not local taxes):

1. A cable channel just for Public Access, managed by an independent,
non-profit Community Media Center governed by a Board of Directors
including public-access media enthusiasts from the community.

2. Dedicated live, interactive call-in, and production TV studios for
community use.

3. Media production training and support services from hired professional
staff.

4. Affordable services to assist with or perform video production for local
non-profit organizations.

5. Live broadcast capability from anywhere in the community using a portable
production unit and remote location van.

6. Video-on-demand technology which will allow viewers to choose what Public
Access programming to view at their convenience with pause, fast-forward and
reverse functions.

The current state of affairs:

Currently, our community's limited Public Access service available through
Urbana Public Television (UPTV - cable channel 6) is controlled by the
City of Urbana bureaucracy, which yields service that is less responsive
and accountable to the public than a Community Media Center management
model. Since UPTV isn't even funded at all by Champaign, its resources
are limited. UPTV does not feature the facilities described above (though
some informal training is provided). In addition, the complete control
of UPTV by the municipal government has led to repeated instances of
political tampering with the station's programming (e.g. Democracy Now!,
VEYA/Miller/Thompson cop-watch video, etc.).  A separate, independent,
fully-funded non-profit organization managing its own public access
channel is the preferred and recommended model that will provide our
community's diverse array of community groups, non-profit organizations,
schools, social clubs, churches, neighborhood associations, action groups,
children's centers, adult education facilities and area citizens with
the quality of Public Access Cable TV we deserve.

What we could have if we only insist on it:

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
could be entirely funded not by tax revenues, but by the cable company
itself from their millions of dollars of revenue. Cable franchises are
guaranteed money-making monopolies. 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, Internet access and 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 negotiating it into the cable franchise
contract (which is currently up for renewal).

The surprise road-block:

However, the City of Champaign management staff (and potentially the City
Council, which is strongly influenced by the staff) intends to stand
in the way of all this. A staff report to be presented by City Manager
Steve Carter at this Tuesday's City Council study session declares on
page 6 that "Staff recommends Council not support the establishment and
funding of a new public access channel." The full staff report, which
was published just yesterday (Friday, May 5) is available on-line at:

archive.ci.champaign.il.us/archive/dsweb/Get/Document-3975/SS%202006-029.pdf
(note: this is a very large download - 10MB)

The primary argument the staff uses to justify disregarding the
recommendations of the three other government bodies supporting a new
channel is "City staff does not believe there is sufficient public
interest in a new public access channel" (again, page 6). Yet that same
staff report includes, as an attachment, a Public Access Study Committee
report (to which I contributed as a member of that committee) that
describes how "The Committee finds there is a high level of interest
in Public Access in this community" (on page 15 in Chapter 9). That
same chapter ("Assessment of Local Interest in Public Access") 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). Interestingly, about half of all UPTV members are actually
residents of Champaign.

3. in response to a survey of community organizations (76 organizations
responding), 95% of the respondents said their organization has a need to
communicate with the public, 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).

There is a clear disconnect between the findings above and City staff's
statement that they do not "believe there is sufficient public interest
in a new public access channel".

Ironically, immediately after recommending against any funding of public
access facilities, the city staff recommended (page 6) increasing the
franchise-related fees charged to the cable-company by 66% (from 3%
of cable company revenues to 5% - about $225,000 annually) to fund the
government-only cable channel that they already operate (CGTV - cable
channel 5) . That is, they are recommending a dramatic new increase in
funding for equipment and staffing at their own cable channel, but none
for public access.

In this way, their recommendation appears to disregard the clear public
interest in improved Public Access Cable TV in favor of self-serving
funding increases for their own existing operations.

Another curious justification the City staff puts forth as a
"disadvantage" to supporting a public access channel is that "Though
supported by City dollars, programming content on Public Access has
First Amendment protections and could not be controlled" (page 7). Of
course, that statement misrepresents where the funding would originate
(cable company revenues), but more seriously it seems to represent an
unsettling contempt for free speech.

The time to act is now!

Our community will likely have only one chance to speak out in opposition
to these developments. The best way for our representatives on the
Champaign City Council to learn of the true public interest in Public
Access cable TV (and the free-speech forum it provides) is to have
a strong public turnout at this week's Champaign City Council meeting
(again, 7PM Tuesday, May 9th, in the City Council Chambers, ground floor,
102 N. Neil St.) This is a crucial and defining moment in the effort
by our community and parts of our government to finally establish the
forward-looking, community-building Public Access Cable TV facilities
that our towns deserve. Our Public Access resources have fallen behind
other similar municipalities around the country. If our community doesn't
mobilize now and speak out on Tuesday, we may have to live with feeble
and increasingly inadequate Public Access resources for more than a
decade. Our community deserves better.

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