PEG Community Looks Forward to CAP Act Focus in 2014
Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., reintroduced the Community Access Preservation (CAP) Act Tuesday, which is aimed at keeping public, educational and government (PEG) channels afloat. The latest version left out a requirement for the FCC to do a study of the PEG community. The bill maintains the previous version’s calls for flexible use of PEG fees and requires cable operators to provide support for PEG channels required under state law.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
American Community Television Executive Director Bunnie Riedel expects the bill to gain traction next year, she said. ACT has worked with Baldwin and Markey on the bill, she said. The organization also has worked to raise the awareness and visibility of the legislation, she said. “I'm thinking we're going to have a really good shot at it this coming year because we've walked the halls and talked to so many people about it.” The consensus is that “community media is important for our local communities,” she said.
As a member of the House, Baldwin introduced HR-1746 last year along with then-Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio. “As local budgets tighten and television delivery methods change, we must ensure that our local public access channels are able to continue to reflect local interests and bring diverse programming to the public,” Baldwin said in a news release Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1bUs6ES). Several states “have adopted statewide video franchising standards that have devastated PEG funding,” she said. The CAP Act costs nothing, addresses severe challenges faced by PEG channels “and will save thousands of jobs across the country,” she said.
The bill’s drafters left out the provision from the earlier version that directed the FCC to do a study on PEG channels. “We felt it made the bill too cumbersome,” especially since the bill doesn’t call for a federal allocation, Riedel said. The senators plan to work directly with the FCC on a study, Baldwin’s office said.
Another provision in the bill would restore funding to channels that have lost it due to the elimination of franchise agreements between cable operators and municipalities and states, and another provision would ensure PEG channels are kept on basic programming tiers, the bill said. Some PEG viewers had to rent separate set-top boxes to reach the public access channels, Riedel said. Some cable operators are charging municipalities for transmission of PEG channels, Riedel added. “There were instances where school districts have lost their channels or had to shut them down because they couldn’t afford to pay” $4,000 to $5,000 a month to rent a T-1 line to transmit the channel, she said. The bill prevents operators from establishing such a charge, she said.
A cable operator would owe to any local government subdivision “in which the operator provides cable service during a year beginning after the date of enactment of this subsection an amount for such year to be determined by the local government subdivision,” the bill said. Or the operator must provide support historically provided for PEG, “or up to 2 percent of gross revenue, whichever is greater,” Baldwin said.
Many of the state franchising laws that eliminated franchises’ PEG funding took effect this year, Riedel said. Channel closures are pending in Atlanta, St. Louis and Cincinnati, she said. “It’s a perfect storm where municipalities can’t make up the difference in lost revenue streams for access.” The bill attempts to make it possible for funding to be used for expenses other than capital and equipment, such as salaries, she added.
Local programming on PEG channels in Wisconsin has withered, said Mary Cardona, executive director of Wisconsin Community Media, in a news release. “Some key public access centers in the state have closed their doors.” She expects the CAP Act to allow the lost programming to be restored, she said.