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Public Access Television Fights for Survival

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Chris Fleisher, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.

Apr. 23--Bill Mattson was a regular at church, but it was television that saved him.

His pastor was concerned about all the people stuck at home, mostly elderly, who could not attend weekly services. She asked Mattson if he'd be interested in recording them for Claremont Community Television, the city's public access station.

What he saw was a revelation.

"I saw some potential in the effect it could have on a community," Mattson said.

That experience four years ago led to other shows. He taped Chamber of Commerce functions and aired segments about the flooding in Claremont last fall. He even organized a get out the vote campaign in 2004 when he interviewed Sen. Bob O'Dell and then-gubernatorial candidate John Lynch to ask about the issues that concerned them.

Now Mattson is on the CCTV board, where he continues to develop the potential of local cable access.

When public access television was created more than 30 years ago, the idea was individual empowerment; a way to keep the average Joe's voice heard from an "electronic soapbox." But today things are different. The Internet has given ordinary citizens more opportunity than ever to get their ideas out to the larger world through Web sites and Web logs, which can be created for low cost and little training.

Now, with so many options for people to express their ideas to others, public access itself may soon have to defend its own relevancy.

Fighting for its own existence is nothing new to public television. From First Amendment battles to funding concerns, public television advocates have scrapped with legislators and cable companies ever since the Federal Communications Commission created the channels in the 1970s.

Most cable franchise agreements include a franchise fee paid by providers, like Adelphia or Comcast, for using city property. Some of these franchise fees can be used for public access channels and, in most cases, form the bulk of the public access revenue.

For places like Falls Area Community Televsion in Bellows Falls or Claremont Community Television, both of which operate on less than $60,000 a year, any fluctuation can have a huge impact.

"We're providing education to the school, doing summer camp, school board meetings, city council meetings. We're spread pretty thin," said Keith Druhl, CCTV's only paid employee. "It would be a big deal." CCTV had a close call last month when their $55,000 check from Adelphia didn't come on time. Claremont's contract with the cable provider expired in 2003, and since then, city officials have been trying to negotiate a new one. Although CCTV eventually got its money, grumblings started about the station's dependency on franchise fees.

When stacked against commercial station expenses, $55,000 is not that much money. Even the Public Broadcasting Service has a $500 million budget. Most public access money goes to pay staff to do the things volunteers can't.

Anthony Tenczar, an assistant professor of communiction arts at the University of New Hampshire, said it's a small price to pay for upholding First Amendment rights.

"(CCTV) gets $55,000 a year," Tenczar said. "That doesn't buy you a school teacher with benefits. Let's get realistic here." Most public television advocates concede the Internet is a cheaper and easier launching pad for public opinion. Also, as digital technology continues to improve, people are now able to make relatively high quality recordings with home equipment and put them online without having to go through the station.

"There are now very small, home consumer products getting close to professional products," Druhl said. "A $300 camera now is as good as a $1500 camera we purchased six years ago." Plus, there is the potential to reach a much larger audience through the Internet. The only problem, according to Tenczar, is defining that audience.

It may not be the most important one to reach -- the local audience.

"Blogs can be created for a (geographic) community, but the communities they create tend to have a common interest or even a very narrow opinion," he said.

Television, unlike the Internet, covers a broad range of interests in a locality that is more likely to be interested in what one of its own has to say. And in a time when diversity of opinion on television is, presumably, decreasing through media consolidation, Tenczar said people should cling to their public stations with jealous fervor.

"Localism is important at a time when local institutions are getting less and less," he said. "This gives the opportunity to people to communicate about a locality and, in that sense, create a community."

Instead of positioning themselves in an either-or scenario, some in public access television see the two working in tandem.

"There's not going to be so much of a shift in focus as a fusion between the two," said Noel Webster, a full-time staff member at FACTV in Bellows Falls.

This fusion is starting. Vermont stations are preparing to use digital technology to share programming content through the Vermont Access Network, which represents 27 public access stations in the state, and a Manchester, N.H., cable access station was the first in the nation to put all of its programming online.

Though most stations are still years away from streaming all content live over the Internet, many know they will be moving in that direction.

Webster has just launched FACTV's new Web site, www.fact8.com. The site is mostly bare at this point, with empty pages "under construction." But it gives an idea of where the station wants to go.

Eventually, all shows going back to 1996 will be archived in a searchable database, with the potential to have short preview clips to accompany them, Webster said. They have also talked about putting up live content for some shows like the "State House Conversations" show done with Rep. Michael Obuchowski, D-Rockingham, every Friday.

The talk program, a roundup of the week in Montpelier, currently is about as basic as television gets. When Obuchowski is away in Montpelier, the show consists of an audio phone conversation between him and Susan Groenewold, FACTV's founder. On the television screen is a still photo. Webster said he'd like to have a live video feed of Obuchowski from Montpelier over the Internet, giving viewers something to watch along with the audio.

"We started talking about it about two years ago, but it seems a lot more feasible now, technology wise," Webster said.

These partnerships are where the Internet's impact on public television, or television in general, seems most likely to develop, Tenczar said. The Internet may be interactive, convenient and affordable, but it is an entirely different experience targeting a different audience than television.

"Television is not going anywhwere. It's getting bigger and it's getting better," Tenczar said. "People are going to want their plasma screens. I don't see television going anywhere." Nor does he see public access going anywhere. A 2004 survey of residents in Tenczar's hometown of Concord, N.H., showed strong support for the community access stations. Sixty percent of respondents said they wanted community programming about schools and government and 74 percent said that kind of programming was important. Just as many said they were willing to keep paying fees on their cable bills to support local programming.

The question is not if public access television should continue, but how.

Even Mattson, who does not like using the Internet, realizes the influence of digital media on public access. He's helped upgrade the station's equipment to digital these past few years, a transition that is all but complete.

As for programming, he's not so partial. The government and school board meetings are all important, as are the winter concerts at the high school and Claremont Boxing Club. It all adds up to the same thing.

"The programming should show the hometown atmosphere," he said. "These are the things people like."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Eagle Times, Claremont, New Hampshire

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