The Need for Community-Based Media in Indianapolis

The City of Indianapolis does not have a public access TV channel or community media access center. Community media access centers, like the ones Public Access of Indianapolis, Inc. (PAI) has visited in Beech Grove, Speedway, Ft. Wayne, Bloomington, and Richmond, Indiana, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Portland, Oregon, provide the means for organizations and individuals to share their interests, information, entertainment and ideas with the entire community through television production and cablecast, community radio, and the Internet. Such non-commercial media communication is thereby accessible to everyone, regardless of income or occupation, and provides a foundation for a more thorough, diverse, and imaginative public discourse to take place.

Who Uses Community-Based Media?

Today, through community television around the country, thousands of community groups and over one million individuals produce more than 20,000 hours of new local programming each week -- more than all programs produced by NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and PBS combined. Children, senior citizens, community groups, neighborhood associations, religious organizations, schools, and nonprofit corporations are creating local, original television programming themselves, for their communities. As was the case in Indianapolis, where religious programming constituted almost half of the programming on the former public access TV channel, churches and other religious organizations often represent the single, largest group of users of community-based media resources.

Nonprofit organizations are another important group of users. Effective use of communication tools, in particular video, can make all the difference in educating the community on an issue or program, or even in raising funds; however, for all but the largest nonprofits, the cost of video production, either in-house or through a commercial production house, puts this tool out of reach. Non-commercial, community-based media is a natural solution for nonprofits, and many community media organizations have added services to facilitate its use by nonprofits.

Background on Cable Access TV

The need for non-commercial access to cable TV channels has been long recognized. What is now public, education and government (PEG) access TV on cable, grew out of a movement for alternative and non-commercial media that began in the late 1950's. In 1972, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) first required three access channels on cable systems with more than 3500 subscribers. This requirement was overturned by the Supreme Court, then changed with subsequent legislation. Today, PEG access channels are not a federal requirement; however, the right of local cable TV franchise authorities to require PEG access channels was part of the Cable Television Act of 1992. This right has been further upheld by the Courts. The history of public access TV in Indianapolis begins with a 1979 city ordinance and the 1981 franchise agreement the City signed with American Cablevision (now Time Warner) that provided one public access TV channel and production facilities. Until 1996, public access TV was run by the local cable operators.

In 1994, Municipal Services Associates, Inc. conducted an extensive "Utilization Review and Future Uses Study" on Indianapolis PEG channels in preparation for franchise renewals with the local cable operators, American Cablevision (now Time Warner) and Comcast. Municipal Services Associates found that Indianapolis' public access TV had a number of inhibitors:

• Inadequate promotion and outreach, particularly to the nonprofit community
• Equipment that was at the end of its useful life and cumbersome and expensive to use
• Waits of up to 6 months for training, but underutilization of production facilities
• Fees for the use of equipment and studios
• Inadequate staffing

The study made a number of recommendations to improve public access TV in Indianapolis, which it found the least developed of its peers: government access and educational access. Recommendations included:

• Developing an alternative funding and management mechanism for public access TV, such as a nonprofit corporation and use of franchise fees
• Eliminating the bottlenecks in training and inhibitors in video production
• Replacing equipment
• Ensuring cable operator compliance with certain sections of the franchise agreements

Instead, public access TV ended in 1996 when the City-County Council revised the City Code (Section 403 of Chapter 851) to no longer require it, and approved new, 12-year franchise agreements with Comcast and Time-Warner that did not include public access TV. Most public access TV producers became aware of this only after the fact, and within a year public access TV ceased to exist in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis continues to have a well-recognized, government access channel, WCTY Channel 16, a dedicated education access channel run by the Education Television Cooperative (ETC), and another education access channel (the former public access channel), that is shared with Public Safety, called Education Public Safety (EPS). None of these channels or their production facilities are open for use by the general public.

1998 Indianapolis Cable TV Survey

The Indianapolis Cable Franchise Board commissioned a survey of Indianapolis cable TV subscribers in late 1998. The results of that study, released in December, 1998, show that 84% of the 600 customers surveyed think that having at least one local cable television channel openly available for use by the community, a public access channel, is of value, and 72% responded that such a channel is important. (Indianapolis Cable Franchise Board Cable Television Quality and Value Survey, December 1998, Harvard Information Services, Carmel, IN.)