The nation’s telecommunications giants say Americans are on the
doorstep of another Internet revolution, a time when people will be
able to use a cell phone to preheat an oven or record a favorite
television show.
The nation’s telecommunications giants say Americans are on the doorstep of another Internet revolution, a time when people will be able to use a cell phone to preheat an oven or record a favorite television show.
The only catch – those same companies must be freed from having to negotiate with local officials before digging up streets and installing fiber optic wires in cities and towns across the country.
Officials in Hollister have joined a growing chorus of skeptics who decry the high-flown rhetoric of telecom companies as a ploy to sidestep local regulation and dodge support for community access television.
“Local access is just that,” said Clay Lee, Hollister’s Community Services Director and local representative to CMAP, the community access television station that serves Gilroy, Hollister and San Juan Bautista. “It’s what’s happening in Hollister and at Gavilan College, right now. It’s about our government, and about our community. You don’t get that on the other channels. They only come down when there’s a hot issue. I’m afraid many citizens don’t realize how lucky we are to have a million-dollar studio at our disposal. People might not appreciate what’s involved and what’s available, and what we stand to lose if legislative action cuts CMAP’s funding.”
The country’s current regulatory structure requires cable providers such as Charter Communications, which serves Hollister, to negotiate a franchise agreement to provide cable service. Charter funds community television in exchange for the rights to use the city’s streets to deploy broadband cable.
The station, based at Gavilan College, provides public, educational, and government programming on channels 17 through 20. In 2004, CMAP’s activities included producing 133 government meetings, airing live election debates, and training 40 Gilroy High School students in a three-camera studio. Next year, CMAP plans to start airing high school football games.
“This year alone we took in 300 tapes from different schools and nonprofits,” said Suzanne St. John-Crane, executive director of CMAP. “So obviously, it’s being used, and being watched, by people from all over the area. In fact, most of our members are from Hollister. Shannon Grissom (a local artist) has a show, and we have a great relationship with Mary Maio (San Benito High’s Multiemedia teacher). It’s not that we’re encouraging people to just take in our shows, we encourage the community to be an active part of the media.”
All that could end, say community television supporters, with the successful passage of any one of a series of proposed laws aimed at easing the entry of telecom companies into the cable business. In recent weeks, federal legislators have rolled out a number of bills as part of a broad push to update the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.) has proposed the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act, which would abolish franchise agreements between local jurisdictions and providers of video programming. While the Ensign bill has earned kudos from technology advocates and legislators on both sides of the aisle, many local officials view it as a threat.
“(The federal legislation) is generating so much support because SBC (Communications) and Verizon want to be able to provide video services to communities without having to go through the franchise agreement process and to sit down with local leaders to meet community needs, like the cable companies have to,” said St. John-Crane.
She and other opponents said the Ensign bill and similar legislation aid telecom companies at the expense of community television. They say the franchise agreements are the only leverage cities have to wrest those financing for local programs from cable providers.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand that CMAP is a source of revenue for the City of Hollister,” said Lee. “We have a five percent gross sales franchise agreement with CMAP and the cable company, which brings in over $100,000 a year.”
But the prospect of negotiating with Hollister and roughly 30,000 other local jurisdictions throughout the U.S. on an individual basis represents a major hurdle to the rapid deployment of new technology, according to John Britton, a west coast spokesman for SBC Communications.
“This won’t happen on day one, but what we’re looking at is a totally networked home,” he said. “As you know, the telephone and computer have already merged. This goes way beyond that. In a networked home, you’re microwave and oven would be hooked into your home network and you’d be able to call in and start them over the phone. The technology is ready to deliver the future. You need laws that can help make it happen. If you go to negotiate franchise agreements in 30,000 communities, you won’t see this happen until star date 3000.”
Britton and other supporters of cable-industry deregulation say the proposed legislation does, in fact, ensure the future of community access television by providing for dedicated channels and financing. At the same time, it frees companies from the months-long process of negotiating franchise agreements.
But opponents remain skeptical, arguing that the proposed safeguards are vague and provide little real protection. And they question the wisdom of any law that threatens public access television.
“I’ve been doing community television for 15 years,” St. John-Crane said. “Charter communications is, by far, the most supportive cable company, staff, and technicians I’ve ever worked with. They understand they have something satellite doesn’t – community television.”
St. John-Crane will be meeting with Congressman Sam Farr over the next two weeks, along with representatives from the public access station in Santa Cruz. She says that Farr, who has a public access show himself, “gets it”.
“I will not support legislation that hurts our community television stations and allows companies to override local community needs,” said Rep. Farr in a press release. “Real, beneficial reform requires inviting all the players – from cable companies to local franchise authorities – to the table. I am looking forward to meeting with local community television representatives next week to discuss the legislation before Congress in more detail.”
