Erik Möllberg

Erik Möllberg, Chair of the Indiana Chapter of the Alliance for Community Media, also runs the public, educational, and government (PEG) TV channels in Ft. Wayne. On January 29, he attended a hearing entitled ?Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age? convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, DC. Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Michigan) initiated the hearing to look into to Comcast?s attempt to move PEG channels to the more expensive digital tier in Michigan in response to the state?s new video franchising law. The Right-of-Way is pleased to present some of Erik?s impressions:

It certainly gave one a "warm feeling all over" to hear all of the subcommittee members extolling the virtues and benefits of PEG access TV. Congressmember Cliff Stearn?s (R-Florida) lone voice wasn?t really negative, but he did keep talking about how many high-definition channels could be added if PEG access TV were moved to the digital tier and dropped from analog. Frankly, I think he simply wasn?t interested in what we do, but then there IS no PEG access TV in his district so it?s not surprising that he doesn?t have a clue as to what we are about and the services we provide. Nevertheless, everyone, including Congressmember Bobby Rush (D-Illinois), who?s a serious AT&T supporter, talked about the unique service we provide and how it is vital for communities to have PEG access TV.

Then came the statements from the witnesses. David Cohen from Comcast talked about how they have spent "many years working with LFAs (local franchise authorities) and providing PEG access TV? and espoused how supportive they are of it (you getting all of this, you folks in the northwest part of Indiana who had your studios shut down by Comcast?) And Cohen spoke of how they have public access in Philadelphia where their headquarters are (uh yeah, it took 15 years of fighting Comcast for Philly to get a public access channel). Cohen?s comments just reminded me of those heady days during the 1984 Cable Act, 1992 Cable Act, and Telecommunications Act of 1996 when every time the cable companies got hauled before Congress they used PEG access as one of the fine things they do that no one else does for the community ? and then they leave us like a one-night stand. AT&T sounded pretty much the same, repeating the same type of language. Comcast had to apologize to Congress for moving "too fast" in Michigan in moving channels to the digital tier. Comcast was able to skirt the issues for the most part, leaving AT&T to take the heat for everything else. And take the heat they did. Not so much for the fact that their delivery system places PEG access TV below all the commercial stations, but they got kicked for not being able to carry closed captioning, SAP (second language, like Spanish ? that went over REAL well with the four Congressmembers from California) and the slowness of delivery of the channel.

We got wind the night before the hearing that AT&T had heard that we were going to play a short video of an actual home trying to load the PEG access channel which took anywhere from 45 seconds to one minute 30 seconds! We also found out that they had paid a production company from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to videotape a demo of this system at the home of their vice president in Grosse Point. Well, that worked not so well for them as the video came on with no sound, and while the "channel" was loading you could see a spinning arrow just like on a website showing that it took at least 20 seconds to load. Committee members were not impressed, and that made our video look that much better and believable.

On the plus side, we got our first congressional hearing, ever! We have Congress, Comcast, and AT&T on tape talking about our importance, and we made a good showing. On the downside, I think we heard lip service from the corporations, and the subcommittee members now think that everything will be taken care of after slapping the corporations' wrists.

Those of us who flew to DC want to track the monthly progress or lack thereof within the states of Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana and fly back to DC three months from now and report to the subcommittee members what has happened. It?s time to keep their feet to the fire.