June 5, 2004. "Access Deterred", Metroland.
By Travis Durfee

Access Deterred: Many local governments fail to offer adequate public access to cable, but advocates aim to change that

Steve Pierce has a vision. One day in the near future, Pierce foresees public-access cable channels throughout the Capital Region flourishing as the vibrant electronic democracies they could be, their schedules filled with locally produced documentaries and talk shows on issues of local interest; rebroadcasts of cultural events from the region’s numerous colleges and universities; and local city-council and school-board meetings broadcast like CSPAN, live with multiple camera angles, speaker IDs and subject headings.

As an independent-media advocate and instructor in the department of science and technology studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Pierce knows that New York state law requires cable service providers to set aside public-access channels for home-grown programming.

The state’s laws also give municipalities the opportunity to enter into contracts known as franchise agreements with these companies, whereby the cable-service providers must give up to 5 percent of their revenues to local governments. But Pierce also knows that the system is flawed: Though cable companies are required to give money to localities, those governments are not required to spend the money on public-access broadcasting. Therefore, most do not.

“There is a public resource here that can be put into place without a huge investment from the cities’ side,” Pierce says. “It is like money in the bank that people are not aware of.”

Pierce sees a lost opportunity, and he is not alone; he and a number of concerned citizens and community groups throughout the Capital Region have been lobbying their elected officials recently for better funding, facilities and equipment for public-access ventures as their governments begin the tedious and complicated process of renegotiating their cable agreements.

New York state law requires local governments to renegotiate their contracts with the their cable-service providers at least once every 10 years. And for a number of communities the time has come: Albany’s contract with Time Warner is up in 2004, Troy’s contract lapsed three years ago (negotiations are still in progress), and Saratoga’s expires in 2004 as well. Cable-access advocates in each of these communities say that none currently has a functioning public-television system, and they are all looking for better deals this time around.

In Albany, for example, the city last negotiated a franchise agreement with Time Warner in 1994 and asked for 5 percent of the company’s gross annual revenues, the maximum allowed by state law. The city received $947,460 and $953,758 in franchise fees from Time Warner in 2001 and 2002 respectively. But over the past 10 years, the city spent only a fraction of what it received on public-access television: $100,000 on a media-education program at the College of Saint Rose that is open to Albany High School students, but not the public.

“There is a need [for public access] for groups in these communities that want to encourage their activities,” said Aimee Allaud, an Albany resident and member of the Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations. “These channels could provide a vehicle for those ends. But [the current system] is set up so that there is barrier after barrier to making this work.”

As Allaud explained, CANA used to tape its meetings to be aired on the city’s designated public-access channels—16, 17 and 18—but the number of hoops the organization had to jump through to air the meetings led the group to abandon the process.

“When we were participating in this ridiculous little scheme, we had to borrow the equipment from Bethlehem, get the tape edited at Saint Rose, then run it out to Time Warner’s [old] building on Washington Avenue to get it aired,” Allaud said. “And there were a number of barriers there—you have to fill out a permission form, you never know when the program is going to be aired, you can’t publicize your shows. [The system] is virtually useless in this effect.”

On April 28, CANA addressed a letter to Mayor Jerry Jennings asking him to appoint a citizens commission to work with the Common Council as it formulates a plan for public access. Allaud said the mayor’s office never responded.

Allaud, other CANA members and Albany residents attended two public meetings held by the city’s Public Authorities and Utilities Committee to discuss the future of public-access television in the city.
Alderman Michael O’Brien (Ward 12), who is vice chairman of the Public Authorities and Utilities Committee, said the committee is still in the information-gathering phase, but he hopes it will appoint a citizens council to present the issues to the council and the mayor.

Elsewhere in the Capital Region, local governments have taken more forward steps in negotiating their franchise agreements. Saratoga’s City Council approved a motion on June 4 to hire a field organizer to gather ideas and explore funding options to expand the city’s public access. The city of Troy recently hired a professional cable-franchise contract negotiator from Sacramento, Calif.

Pierce, who has worked with the city officials in Troy on the issue, urged the city of Albany to use a negotiator to ensure that the renegotiation process is as lucrative as possible.

“Unfortunately, the way it unfolds in New York state,” said Pierce, “is you have a multinational media giant that negotiates every day around the world using various kinds of lawyers cutting a deal with municipalities that have done this maybe once every 10 years and who are on the ropes financially. It is a very unfair playing field.

“It is really a travesty that the state capital of the third or fourth largest state [in the nation] doesn’t have public access,” Pierce said. “It doesn’t quite have the feeling of being at the forefront in this realm. They’ve got a great pedestrian bridge over 787 and some great live music, but in terms of media it is not quite there.”

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