PEG stands for public access, educational or governmental channels, one of the few broadcast venues open to average citizens. PEG channels serve as an essential platform for community media – broadcasting local voices, covering local issues like city council and school board meetings, and showing exactly how local government operates.

The 1984 Cable Act has long allowed local cable franchising authorities to require cable operators to set aside channel capacity for PEG use and to provide adequate facilities for these channels as a condition for using public rights-of-way to lay cables for television service.

Now, under pressure from cable companies and from phone giants AT&T and Verizon – new entrants to the TV business – state legislatures across the country have been passing state franchising laws that shift authority to negotiate franchise agreements from individual communities to the state.

As a result, huge corporations like Comcast and AT&T are taking advantage of these state franchising laws to renege on their public interest obligations to provide PEG channels, which are in danger of disappearing from public view.

These corporations are impairing people’s ability to find, see and use PEG. Problems have included a loss of funding for PEG channels and facilities, relocation of PEG to less accessible, higher numbered channels (a practice called “channel slamming”), and reduced broadcast quality. Channel slamming also imposes additional costs on consumers to view PEG channels.

For more information about PEG, visit saveaccess.org or the Alliance for Community Media.

PEG in Congress

The Community Access Preservation Act (H.R. 3745) -- introduced by Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) -- would protect community television channels from discriminatory treatment while freeing their funding from unfair restrictions. This legislation has the potential to go a long way toward repairing the damage done to PEG channels by phone and cable companies over the last decade.

These companies rake in huge profits by using public property to string connections to your home, but discriminate against PEG by giving preferential treatment to their own channels and the offerings of national conglomerates.

Contact your representative now and urge them to support the Community Access Preservation Act.

At the FCC

Free Press Initial Comments on PEG
Free Press submitted these comments to the FCC on March 9, 2009, on the issue of discrimination against PEG content by multichannel video programming distributors in Michigan.