PEG Advocates Remain Hopeful On CAP Act During Election Year
Advocates for public, educational and government channels are pushing to close the gap between states that haven’t touched franchise agreements between cable operators and municipalities and states that passed legislation that no longer required such agreements. Some advocates said legislation that would require cable companies to provide PEG support could revive channels that lost funding, but such action could be hindered by the election year.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
PEG supporters said they expect that the election year will make it difficult for most lawmakers to prioritize the Community Access Preservation Act, but they're taking steps to keep it afloat this year. The bill, HR-1746, was reintroduced in May by Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio. A LaTourette spokesman said he doesn’t expect it to gain traction this year. “I don’t know if too much is going to move as we get into the presidential calendar year.” But it’s still an important piece of legislation to LaTourette, he said.
It’s a tough year politically, but “we are hoping to see some movement,” said Sylvia Strobel, executive director of the Alliance for Community Media. “We're continuing to shore up and secure sponsors in the House and we need more Republicans to sign on.” ACM is leading an education initiative on Capitol Hill, she said: “What we found with the House and Senate is that members may confuse PEGs with public broadcasting. They may not be aware of the services PEGs have adopted and innovated."
The CAP Act is poised to be a bright spot for PEG channels, said American Community Television. The effort is “full-steam ahead,” said Bunnie Riedel, executive director. ACT has been working with the offices of LaTourette and Baldwin on the legislation, she said. “The intent is to get it to pass this year” and ACT has met with municipalities and organizations to move toward making that happen, she said. “Congress is deadlocked on so many things,” she added. “It’s generally making everything a lot more difficult and we have the election coming."
A Congressional Research Service report last year identified more than 100 PEG access centers that closed since 2005 (CD Oct 27 p15). Franchising was lost in nine states, Riedel said. “Cities and counties aren’t in a position to make up for these lost fees.” ACT didn’t have lobbyists to place in the statehouses 24/7, she said. This year, states including Florida, Missouri and Iowa lost franchise funding. Kansas, Nevada and Wisconsin are among states that lost funding last year. Chippewa Valley Community Television and Radio in Eau Claire, Wis., has been “gravely constrained” since the cable system no longer was required to do franchise agreements with local municipalities, said Joel Desprez, executive director. “We're searching for a new model to provide the local communications services that are vital to our communities.” The station will deliver more of its programming through the Internet, he said. The station also lost its channel placement, he added: “We were placed on channels that were very high in the lineup, where other stations weren’t listed,” which made it difficult for the station’s audience to follow it.
Without franchise agreements, operations at Exeter Public Television in New Hampshire would suffer, said Doug York, EPTV coordinator. “They're the most important because it’s what’s helping the station run at this point.” EPTV officially launched the public access arm of its PEG channel this month. The network has a franchising contract with Comcast for the new public access channel, as well as for the government and educational channels, he said.
While EPTV doesn’t face threats to its franchise funds, York said some PEG channels are surviving, but can’t afford to offer the same features as competing networks: “Everything is moving over to HD and there are hundreds of channels available now for cable subscribers. It’s hard for them to keep up."
Franchising works best when the municipalities can work with the cable operator directly, said Strobel. The state bills eliminating this requirement for cable operators “have taken it away from local municipalities and put it in the hands of the states.” The local interests are generally not protected and “that’s where we've seen PEG funds being siphoned off for other things,” she added.
The CAP Act “would erase a lot of that disparity,” Riedel said. PEG channels that lost franchise funds “can roll back to the amount of funding they were receiving before the state bills passed.”