"Cable Television Franchise Renewal:

Public Education, and Government Access Channels and Institutional Network:

Utilization Review and Future Uses Study"

June 27, 1994

• 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.