Florida Will Miss Opportunity to Address Public Access TV
Miami Herald, May 5, 2008
By Mark Hart
The state Legislature apparently will miss the opportunity to revisit the Consumer Choice Act of 2007 and address its unintended consequences on public-, educational- and government-access cable TV (PEGs).
The bill has potentially legislated out of existence PEGs, once the great promise of cable-TV franchise agreements with local governments. Only one public-access channel remains in Florida. In addition, PEGs now may be voted away with a majority vote of not just all poll respondents, but all subscribers, in a service area.
PEGs are burdened with programming requirements not applicable to commercial TV; they must be on air at least 10 hours every day, and with at least five hours of nonreruns and not including ''bulletin board'' announcements.
Meantime, states such as Illinois have ensured that PEGs can't be ''channel-slammed'' into hard-to-find, triple-digit, high-tier channels unavailable to basic subscribers who don't have converters.
Florida should do the same by adding a provision to the bill that PEGs not be numerically separated from other basic service channels. In addition, the state Legislature should delete the provisions allowing for elimination of PEGs, as well as for minimum programming requirements.
Further reductions in the ranks of professional journalists in the state of Florida, like those announced recently by Media General in Tampa, make causes such as PEGs, which relate to open government, all the more important now.
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