PEG, TVfreedom.org Look to Push CAP Act, Clean STELA Reauthorization
Advocates for public, educational and government channels expect their partnership with TVfreedom.org to help with the push to keep PEG channels on the basic tier of cable service and to encourage movement on the Community Access Preservation (CAP) Act, S-1789, they said in interviews. American Community Television (ACT) joined TVfreedom.org, which put its support behind the CAP Act (CD July 9 p19). The legislation, introduced in December by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., would require cable operators to provide support for PEG channels (CD Dec 11 p6). The groups also plan to work together to ensure that the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act reauthorization doesn’t harm PEG interests, they said.
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The partnership is the first time that PEG operators formed a national partnership with broadcasters, said Bunnie Riedel, ACT executive director. It will help “double up the message” that PEG channels should remain on the basic tier, instead of being relocated to higher channels, she said. PEG channels are still being relocated to higher channels in cable line-ups, she said. “We've seen audiences drop and people have had to rent an additional box to find us.” Riedel also said she worries about the effect on public safety. Broadcasters, including PEG channels, are critical to safety and local news information, especially when other means of information aren’t available, she added.
ACT’s joining TVfreedom.org extends the collaboration that has always existed between PEG channels and broadcasters at the local level, said Robert Kenny, TVfreedom.org public affairs director. Broadcasters share resources with PEG stations, he said. The groups are working to preserve the lifeline basic tier of service and localism, he said. Sustaining diversity in local TV and PEG channels is part of that equation, he added.
Eliminating the basic tier of service would affect monthly fees for PEG programmers and rental fees, Kenny said. Removing PEG channels from the basic tier affects local government institutions and nonprofit organizations that own the channels, forcing them to pay more to get their own channels on the pay-TV system, he said. It also forces consumers to pay up to three times as much to receive those channels and pay for additional rental fees on the set-top box equipment, he said. “Once you move them to a higher tier of channels, that would require a set-top box."
American Television Alliance argued that PEG channels wouldn’t be affected by ending the basic-tier mandate. “Only for-profit broadcasters reaping billions from retransmission consent would be affected,” ATVA said in a blog post last week (http://bit.ly/1mFBqkI).
ACT is “critically interested” in STELA due to an effort by cable operators to get rid of the basic tier, Riedel said. The House Judiciary Committee approved its version this month (CD July 11 p11). ACT is monitoring the Senate Commerce Committee’s final version of the bill, she said. Even if the final STELA reauthorization includes a reorganized basic tier “we're not going to be positioned alongside broadcasters and PBS,” she said: “We'll be ghettoized."
Support from TVfreedom.org and its members, including NAB, is “a really big development for ACT,” especially with added support for the CAP Act, said Michael Bradley, a Bradley Hagen attorney who represents local governments with cable franchising issues. “We're really hopeful that cable operators will start supporting it as well,” he said. The CAP Act is for the preservation of public access TV and doing so in a fair way throughout the country, he said: “There’s no reason why everybody can’t get on board with that.” Riedel agreed that support for the CAP Act is important. There isn’t much time left, she said: “It’s really critical that something gets done in this session.”