Public-access television in the United States is a form of citizen media, similar to Canada's community channels, Australia's community television and other models of media created by private citizens. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The term citizen media refers to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional Journalists Citizen journalism, A community channel, in Canadian broadcasting is a television channel produced and aired by a local Cable television company airing programming of local community Australia's Community Television is a form of Citizen media much like Public Access Television in the United States and the Community Channel in Canada

Due to the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, US cable companies are required to fund local organizations to provide training and access to media technology and cable distribution on the local cable systems. The 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act is a piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater passed into law that allowed Cable Television This legislation was intended to enrich communities with the opportunity to produce community-initiated programming and address local issues and concerns on the electronic medium. In its conception, public-access television pertained only to the cable television technology of the times, but many public-access organizations now include television, radio and the internet within the spectrum of communications. Television ( TV) is a widely used Telecommunication medium for sending ( Broadcasting) and receiving moving Images, either monochromatic Radio is the transmission of signals by Modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible Light. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Public-access television is one type of PEG access, short for Public, Educational, and Governmental, the three traditional structures of access within a municipality.

History

In the United States, public-access is a result of the cable television industry. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[1] There was concern within communities as cities began contracting for cable TV service that companies were using public by-ways (such as roads and sidewalks to run cable wires) to make a profit and many advocates believed some form of 'rent' should be paid for their use. Cable companies at the time were greater in number and smaller in size, and negotiating this arrangement was eventually confirmed by the FCC. US cable companies were then required to provide a percentage of revenue from the cable TV subscription fees to provide public-access to the cable systems.

In 1968 the Dale City (Virginia) Jaycees' Junior Chamber of Commerce operated the first community-operated closed-circuit television channel in the United States, when Cable TV Incorporated gave a channel to the public-access center Dale City Television (DCTV), but poor financing, low-quality equipment and lack of a permanent studio contributed to the center's failure two years later. Year 1968 ( MCMLXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Dale City is an Unincorporated community in Prince William County, Virginia, United States. The Commonwealth of Virginia ( is an American state Junior Chamber International ( JCI) is a worldwide federation of young leaders and Entrepreneurs. The United States Junior Chamber ( JCs or more commonly Jaycees) is a leadership training and civic organization for people between the ages of 18 and 40 The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[2]

Fred W. Friendly

According to Ralph Engelman's Origins of Public Access Cable Television 1966-1972^[3], New York City's public-access began in 1968 by Fred Friendly, a television advisor to the Ford Foundation and chairman of Mayor John Lindsay's advisory task force on CATV and telecommunications, when he wrote a report recommending that cable companies set aside two channels the public could lease for a minor fee. Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. Year 1972 ( MCMLXXII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The City of New York Fred Friendly should not be confused with Ed Friendly. Fred W The Ford Foundation is a Private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by John Vliet Lindsay ( November 24, 1921 – December 19, 2000) was an American Politician who served as a member of the The fee was opposed by others, and was later dropped. In July 1971 public access started. Year 1971 ( MCMLXXI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1971 Gregorian calendar.

From 1968 to 1970, Canadian film-maker Red Burns, who'd served on the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)'s Challenge For Change and George C. Stoney, who'd likewise served a guest role, co-founded the Alternative Media Center (AMC) at NYU in 1971. The National Film Board of Canada (usually National Film Board or NFB) is Canada's public film producer and distributor George C Stoney (1916- is a professor of film and cinema studies at New York University, and a pioneer in the field of Documentary film. AMC started the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers, which is a public-access advocacy organization, with interns that help establish access centers throughout America. In 1972 Burns and Stoney worked with FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson to make the FCC cable access requirements. Nicholas Johnson is best known for his controversial term as a dissenting Federal Communications Commission commissioner 1966-1973 and his book How to Talk Back to Your

The FCC issued its Third Report and Order in 1972, which required all cable systems in the top 100 U. S. television markets to provide three access-channels, one each for educational, local government and public use, where if there was insufficient demand for three in a particular market, the cable companies could offer fewer channels, but at least one, and any group or individual wishing to use the channels was guaranteed at least five minutes free. Also required was for cable companies to provide facilities and equipment with which people could produce shows.

The rule was amended in 1976 to include cable systems in communities with 3500 or more subscribers, and the cable companies had no discretion, but Midwest Video Corporation sued the FCC on the grounds that it had overstepped its authority in requiring the access channels, and in 1979 the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Midwest. Year 1976 ( MCMLXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary.

U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater

The 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act written by Senator Barry Goldwater, allowed local governments to require PEG channels, barred cable operators from exercising editorial control over content of programs carried on PEG channels, and absolved them from liability for that content. The 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act is a piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Barry Goldwater passed into law that allowed Cable Television

Congress passed the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which gave the FCC authority to create rules requiring cable operators to prohibit certain shows. The Alliance for Community Media and others brought suit, and in 1996 the U. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) S. Supreme Court held the law unconstitutional, in part because it required cable operators to act on behalf of the federal government to control expression based on content.

Currently the Alliance for Community Media and others are focusing on operational challenges after new deregulation rules across Texas are directly threatening PEG access.

Principles of PEG access

PEG access is a government mandate that provides television production equipment, training and airtime on a local cable system so members of the public, educational system, and the government can produce their own shows and televise them to a mass audience.

Municipalities must take initiative and petition the cable operator to provide the funding for PEG access as laid out by law, but municipalities may also choose to take no action and will instead keep the franchise fees in a general fund. A municipality may also choose to allow Governmental access but not Public access or may replace it with Governmental access or may take away Public access altogether, depending on the disposition of the local government or its voters.

Municipalities have a broad spectrum of franchise agreements (a government-granted monopoly) with cable television service providers. In Economics, a government-granted monopoly (also called a "de jure monopoly" is a form of Coercive monopoly by which a government grants exclusive privilege In Economics, a government-granted monopoly (also called a "de jure monopoly" is a form of Coercive monopoly by which a government grants exclusive privilege Depending on the size of the community and their contractual agreement the PEG and LO channels may take many forms. Lo is a town in Lo-Reninge, a municipality of Belgium. See also West Flanders Sights Though Large communities often have a separate organization for each PEG type, smaller communities may have a single organization that manages all three. Because each organization will develop its own policies and procedures, constituent services differ greatly between communities.

Public-access television

Public-access television channels may be run by public grassroots groups or individuals, private non-profits or city organizations and policies and regulations are subject to their own ordinances and community standards.

Services available at public-access organizations are often low cost or free of charge, with an inclusive, content neutral, first-come, first-served, free speech ideology. Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without Censorship or Limitation. Monies from cable franchise fees are hopefully used to operate the facilities, employ staff and trainers, develop curriculum, operate training workshops, schedule and maintain equipment, produce programming (live or pre-recorded), manage the cablecast of shows and publish promotion materials to build audiences. Funding and operating budgets vary significantly with the municipality's base cable subscriber volume so that organizations in densely populated areas may be able to offer different services than sparsely populated areas.

Users of public-access stations may participate at most levels of this structure to make content that is meaningful and reflective of their experience within their communities. Any member of a community may take advantage of public access. Users are not restricted to cable subscribers only. Many public-access channels carry primarily locally produced programs while others also carry regionally or nationally distributed programming. Public-access centers are not necessarily bound to traditional one-and-one-half hour block schedules, programs may be about 30 or 60 minutes but may also be of any length, depending on local organizational policies. In the event that a public-access channel becomes filled up with programming a franchise may state that more channels may be added to suffice the demand.

Public-access centers often allow members to sponsor programming that was produced outside of the municipality. A show that originates outside the municipality is often referred to as "bicycled" programming. Public-access centers also may solicit programming that may be valuable to the community despite its origination point.

Educational access television

Educational access is the institution set aside for fulfilling the needs of the educational departments and organizations within the municipality. Educational access channels may be associated with a specific school, school district or even private organization that is contracted to operate the access station for the city.

Educational access centers usually operate a cable channel on the local cable system and often include elements and principle that echo Public access in terms of training and resources. Many school media and video training programs are based in the educational access centers. Programming distributed by these centers ranges from student or parent produced media to coverage of local school functions and bodies (such as the School Council or Committee). There are a number of notable Educational access organizations that produce programming for a national audience and experiences a very broad distribution.

Government access television

Example of a Government access channel in Sarasota, Florida

Government access television is a resource of the city to address local municipal programming needs. Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the state of Florida in the United States. Often the city or town may use the G channel to cablecast city council meetings, election programming, local emergency announcements and other events and programs as valued by the local government.

Local origination

Local-origination is typically local programming produced by a cable operator. In contrast with public-access, which is government mandated access for programming, local-origination programming is usually programming of local interest produced by cable company employees or contractors for the cable company. A local high school graduation ceremony produced by cable studio employees and aired on a local cable channel is one such example.

PEG technologies

Equipment available for public access broadcasting is evolving quickly. At its birth, the state-of-the-art PEG facilities were composed of racks full of analog tape decks and an automated video switching system. Recently, the low cost of digital production and distribution equipment, such as cameras, non-linear editing systems, digital video playback servers and new internet technologies have made digital content production the norm. "NLE" redirects here For the standardized test see National Latin Examination. The dropping cost of digital production and distribution gear has changed the way many PEG facilities operate.

PEG challenges

PEG centers have come under fire from many angles including local governments and officials, local producers and viewers and even corporate litigations from potential copyright infringements. Special interest groups have also frequently applied pressure on local PEG operations.

PEG often struggles to balance freedom of speech with free, open access to the cable systems and as a result cable operators or PEG organizations have occasionally rightfully or wrongfully banned producers based on the impact of a specific program, or have removed programming from the schedule because it pushed the legal boundaries of pornography, sedition or slander.

Local governments are required to contract PEG work to city organizations or private non-profits and funding for these groups are often managed through the municipality. Franchise fees ultimately come from the local cable subscribers, paid to the city by the cable operator, and paid then to the PEG centers. Centers have been known to experience interruptions in contract negotiations by the local governments, late payment of contracted operating monies, or obstructive or restricting behavior from the municipalities in general.

PEG centers have also faced challenges from major marketshare cable giants who intend to squelch the single digit percentage of PEG funding that comes from their profit margins. As of 2006, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are the largest marketshare companies in the United States and lobbied significant legislation through the US House of Representatives to reduce or end PEG funding.

The FCC's official seal.

Municipalities, local governments and even residents often confuse the difference between broadcast and cablecast television systems. PEG centers have been reported to the FCC about infractions that may apply to broadcast television, even though cable television content (including public access television) is not subject to the same rules. Terrestrial television is a term which refers to modes of television broadcasting which do not involve satellite transmission For example, Janet Jackson's appearance at the 2004 Super Bowl appeared on broadcast systems which spurred the FCC to threaten networks and their affiliates with additional fines for displaying indecency. Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16 1966 is an American recording artist and entertainer professional American football, the Super Bowl is the Championship game of the National Football League (NFL The same goes for the Monday Night Football sketch which featured Nicollette Sheridan and Terrell Owens. Monday Night Football ( MNF) is a Live television broadcast of the National Football League. Nicollette Sheridan (born November 21, 1963) is a Golden Globe -nominated British -born American Actress. Terrell Eldorado Owens (ˈtɛɹl̩ (born December 7, 1973) is an American football Wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys of the ^[4] Because cable television is a closed system with elective access there are fewer rules and restrictions about the same content.

PEG also faces technological challenges, often due to the poorly funded and stretched budget of their operation. Access centers are traditionally underfunded and understaffed and give rise to numerous complaints. Complaints range from the poor production quality of scheduled programming, poor scheduling and playback, programming playing late or not at all, or signal strength being so weak that the program becomes unviewable.

Future of PEG access

The cable television cottage industry of the 1960s no longer exists. Since the mid 1980s, large marketshare cable television providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T collect billions of dollars across many states using public rights-of-way for cable, telephone and internet infrastructure each year. As cable television technology evolves and is replaced by digital media technology, and Congress and lobby groups struggle to redefine policy, public access organizations nationwide stand to lose massive percentages of operating budget. Public access television is dependent upon revenue from cable television services, should cable television disappear from the marketplace then one of the few institutions that supports citizen media may vanish with it.

Public-access organizations remain in service in their municipalities and continue to serve their missions of empowering communities and facilitating resident communication on a local level. In a changing technology industry, many PEG organizations began investing in training and technology to distribute media in new ways using the internet. In 2005, the consumer media market became flooded with blogs, vlogs, RSS syndication and aggregation, iPod and cell phone media, and countless new methods for distributing information and ideas. A blog (a contraction of the term " Web log " is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary descriptions of This page is about the visual medium for the Thai film see Video Clip (2007 film. RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as Blog entries news headlines audio and video – in a standardized iPod is a popular brand of Portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc As cable television phases out in lieu of a new technology, many access centers adapted these new technologies in order to continue serving their missions and goals within their own constituency.

Many media reform and watchdog organizations have been formed to monitor and report on national and global media policy. Free Press, for example, is a "national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. "^[5] Free Press monitors PEG access legislation at Defend Local Access. ^[6]. Save Access, a watchdog organization focused on PEG, is not associated with any specific non-profit organization, nor does it receive any operating funds of any kind (either corporate, non-corporate or foundation related). ^[7] Both organizations have been identified as respected sources.

Public-access in everyday life

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is not public-access television and has no official connection with PEG. PBS is funded partly by government and tax resources, and partly by private grants and contributions. PEG is funded by cable television companies through subscription fees, and also by private grants and contributions. PBS does not regularly provide free use of facilities to produce programming.

Nevertheless, a PBS program called Mental Engineering started at the public-access channel of Saint Paul, Minnesota, was picked up by KTCA, and had an episode broadcast across the U. The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) is a Non-profit Public broadcasting Television service with 354 member TV stations in the Mental Engineering is a public Television series where host John Forde leads a panel discussion featuring Critical mdashand Humorous Saint Paul ( abbreviated St Paul) is the capital and second most populous city in the U Twin Cities Public Television (TPT is a nonprofit organization based in Saint Paul Minnesota, United States, that operates the Twin Cities ' two PBS S. after Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, which analyzed the advertisements from the game. Super Bowl XXXVI was an American football game played on February 3, 2002 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans Louisiana See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand

A famous fictional public-access program, Wayne's World, draws some comedy from the often stereotyped low production values of material distributed on public-access channels. Wayne's World was one of the most popular recurring sketches to come from the NBC Television series Saturday Night Live.

Many PEG channels rebroadcast programming from satellite distributions such as Democracy Now!, Free Speech TV and Deep Dish TV Network. Democracy Now! is a syndicated program of news analysis and opinion aired by more than 700 Radio and Television, satellite Free Speech TV ( FSTV) is a free Satellite television station in the United States founded in 1995

Elvira, Tom Green, Ari Louis and The Food Network's Bobby Flay all started out on Public access. Cassandra Peterson (born September 17, 1951) is an American actress best known for her on-screen Horror host Persona Michael Thomas "Tom" Green (born July 30, 1971) is a Canadian Actor, Rapper, Writer, Comedian Food Network is a cable network that airs specials and recurring (episodic programs about food and cooking Robert William Flay (born December 10, 1964 where he was raised and continues to live

In the book How to Talk Back to Your Television Set, Nicholas Johnson, FCC commissioner, 1966-1973, in part discusses prototype public-access. Nicholas Johnson is best known for his controversial term as a dissenting Federal Communications Commission commissioner 1966-1973 and his book How to Talk Back to Your

The Philo Awards named after Philo Farnsworth is an annual public-access television competition where the winners receive notice for their efforts in various categories in producing community media. Philo Taylor Farnsworth ( August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor

On the other end of the spectrum, the Found Footage Festival collects examples of generally older public-access shows that are unusually badly produced, as a form of comical found art. Started in 2004 the Found Footage Festival is a live Comedy event and screening featuring odd and hilarious clips from VHS Videotapes gathered from The term found art &mdashmore commonly found object (objet trouvé or readymade &mdashdescribes Art created from the undisguised but often modified

See also

• Alternative views
• Citizen media
• Community channels in Canada
• Community television in Australia
• Guerrilla television
• Public Access Stations in the United States

External Links

• The Alliance for Community Media is the national organization representing PEG access centers in the United States. Alternative Views was one of the longest running Public access television programs in the United States The term citizen media refers to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional Journalists Citizen journalism, A community channel, in Canadian broadcasting is a television channel produced and aired by a local Cable television company airing programming of local community Australia's Community Television is a form of Citizen media much like Public Access Television in the United States and the Community Channel in Canada In the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture video collectives extended the role of the underground press to new communication technologies

Notes