California Could Require High-Def PEG Channels
Rejecting cable industry and Republican objections, the California Assembly Communications Committee advanced a bill Wednesday requiring high-definition public, educational and government (PEG) access channels. Alliance for Community Media President Mike Wassenaar expects the issue to pop up across the country, especially where local governments are subject to state franchise agreements, he said in an interview.
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The Assembly panel voted 9-3 to send the PEG bill to the Appropriations Committee. AB-2635 would modify the 2006 Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (DIVCA), which set up a state franchise that preempted local negotiations with cable. Despite local PEG channels producing channels in HD, cable companies downgrade them to standard definition before they appear on customers’ TVs, said Assemblymember Marc Levine (D). Text and captions become harder to read, making it an accessibility issue, the bill sponsor said.
Broadcasts by the Community Media Center of Marin technically could have been HD since 2018, but Comcast chooses not to allow it, testified Executive Director Michael Eisenmenger. Upgrading the channel to HD would be "a flip of the switch," he said. The "old-fashioned concept of limited viewership" is no longer relevant to decisions of whether to make a channel HD, said Alliance for Communications Democracy President Sue Buske. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and more than 15 PEG and local government officials supported the bill.
There’s no technical challenge to putting PEG channels in HD, agreed California Cable and Telecommunications Association Vice President-Government Affairs Bernie Orozco. “This is about ability to pay.” HD is premium and uses triple the bandwidth of SD, Orozco told the committee.
Cable companies have plenty of bandwidth and the cost is minimal, responded Levine. Cable shouldn’t treat PEG, which provides a public service, the same as an NBC affiliate, he said. DIVCA prevents localities from negotiating with cable companies, added Eisenmenger.
Some Republican committee members sympathized with industry’s cost concerns. It seems to come down to “Who’s going to pay for it?” said Assemblymember Laurie Davies (R), who voted no. But Chairwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva said consumers aren’t truly getting access to PEG, which is required, if it’s transmitted in diminished quality.
“Consumers no longer buy standard-definition televisions” and local access channels shoot with HD cameras, yet in many places across the country, cable companies broadcast PEG in SD, said Wassenaar. PEG channels in states that don't preempt local franchising have managed to get HD channels, but even there it can be an “acrimonious” fight, he said. The cable industry lost an appeal last year of a Maine law requiring HD in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2108040022), but still no PEG channels are conveyed in HD and it's unclear how the Maine law will be enforced, said Wassenaar: California lawmakers should be sure enforcement is clear in its proposed law, he said.
“This is definitely a problem across the country,” NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner told us. “We hear about it all the time.” Cable will put PEG channels in HD only if the station agrees to pay an “astronomical amount of money,” she said: “States can be helpful here.” NCTA didn’t comment.
Also at the California hearing, the committee voted 10-3 for a network resiliency bill (AB-2252) to require more post-disaster reports on broadband infrastructure. Committee members unanimously passed other bills to implement the 988 mental health lifeline (AB-1988), remove state telegraph regulations (AB-2066) and add a local government official to the broadband office overseeing California’s in-development middle-mile network (AB-2256).
Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo (D) cheered the bill to add a local official to the middle-mile council. He tweeted, "California is bringing local governments to the table as the state deploys billions for broadband infrastructure."