[Nick]

FCC's Martin Outlines Concerns, Possible Changes with Franchises

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin outlined his concerns with the local franchising process and how the agency could help new video entrants such as telcos gain access to local markets.

In a speech before the Phoenix Center U.S. Telecoms 2006 Symposium Wednesday, Martin said the commission could set time frames for a local franchising authority to act on a video entrant's application. He told the crowd it's not unreasonable to expect a local entity to take action on a franchise proposal within 90 days.

Martin also said there should be a limit on what localities can assess for franchise fees. He said the commission should reiterate a previous finding that found it unlawful for any community to tax revenues from non-cable services.

In addition, the FCC chairman took aim at local municipalities requiring in-kind contributions as part of the franchising process. Martin criticized moves by some cities to request funding for items like a new recreation center or swimming pool as part of video franchise negotiations.? And Martin said in some cases build-out requirements may impose unreasonable barriers to entry for new video service providers.

"In many instances, the franchising process appears to be unreasonably hindering competitive entry," Martin said. "The commission can take steps to further this entry and ensure the benefits of increased video competition, namely lower prices for consumers, are available to as many Americans as possible as quickly as possible."

The FCC has a proceeding in place that's scrutinizing local video franchise issues. It's expected that Martin could push for some changes within the franchise process at the FCC.

www.mbc-thebridge.com - used with permission

 

[FTA Michael]

So cities give up at least a de facto monopoly on cable TV to a given company, and they aren't supposed to get anything in return? I can get behind accelerating the franchise approval process, but if a municipality created unbearably onerous requirements, wouldn't the cable company just leave?

 

[djlong]

Put another way, the FCC seems to be saying that cities demanding extortion are going to lose that ability.

 

[TNGTony]

This is exactly what we (those of us that use access TV) want! The cities can have a franchise fee on the cable (multi-channel) service which is added on the subscriber's bill. that in turn helps fund the expenses incurred due to regularory madates (which can be considerable for some municipalities) as well as free and open access for LOCAL (and I mean LOCAL not broadcast) content.

Now what I do want the FCC to do is mandate that a MINIMUM of 50% of the franchise fee collected go to access. Some communities use the franchise fee as nothing more than an additional tax for the general fund and that is definitely NOT what was originally intended.

See ya
Tony

 

[Steve Mehs]

Tony, you may know this, something I've always wondered, what is the purpose of that $0.06 FCC fee cable TV subscribers are changed? And how are franchise fees determined? I take it the larger the town/city in terms of population the lower the fee? My franchise fee is $4.32 in my small rural town, a buddy of mine that lives in the city of Buffalo is charged just over $2.

 

[harsh]

This is exactly what we (those of us that use access TV) want!

I regularly do TV with a past Alliance for Community Media Chair and we get this beat into our skulls on a regular basis. I see this evening that the ACM is calling for all PEG supporters to letter bomb Congress before December 13.

Apparently the latest legislation proposes a 5% cap on franchise fees and that 5% must be divided between all the fee supported services. This comes at an especially bad time when some of the smaller access centers are just getting into digital. It would be a shame for "public access" to become TV by and for the affluent.

Another prong of this legislation would be that providers could no longer be required to extend services to areas that don't have service. While this would be great for the DBS companies, it doesn't seem to be in line with the whole concept of franchising. I realize that they're trying to get away from regulated monopolies, but they seem to be doing surgery with a flail.

 

[Steve Mehs]

How often to people take advantage of public access? I had cable up until 1998, we had two public access channels, one was blank, the other was a community bulletin board that played audio from a local FM radio station. In about 8 years I saw it used once for a taped delayed town meeting, which town I have no idea. When I went back to cable, now there's the 'Government Access’ channel, ‘Educational Access’ and the community bulletin board. Never seen any one of those with any programming they all have Music Choice playing, the two access channels have a Time Warner slate on them.

In high school I was in the A/V Club and student (all grades) band and chorus concerts were all taped, they started to air them on the Bulletin Board channel, in a back room we had a system that was tied in with Time Warner and allowed us to broadcast, I ran it a few times, it was pretty cool. It was popular among grandparents who weren’t able to make it to the concerts and could watch them on TV the next day.

 

[harsh]

How often to people take advantage of public access?

I live in an town of about 150,000 and our local producers manage to turn out almost 1,000 hours of non-government programming every year. There's probably about twice as much center produced content, but some of those government meetings can go on for hours.

 

[TNGTony]

What determins the franchise fee?
The local government (franchising authority). In most cases this is the local city council, township trustees, etc. By local I mean LOCAL. The franchising authority is allowed to charge up to 5 or 6% of the cable bill as a franchise fee but there is no low limit. Many communities just use it as a tax and provide zero services the fee is designed to support.

How many peolple use public access on cable?
It depends on the area and funding of the access center. Here in the Cinti area Warner system there are 8 access centers.

They range from very little programming to more programming than 4 channels can handle. The hardest thing to get accross to the public is that the service is available to them for "free". The access centers that are fully funded or at least funded well have full slates. The ones that can't afford to hire a full time technitian are virtually unused! It's not because the people don't want to make programs, it's because of lack of knowledge or training.

One access center in the area will take programs from people, but they have to do it on their own equipment and turn in the programs complete. "Here is a tape, play it for me". Those have very little programming. And the programs they show are rarely really produced by a local resident.

Our access center which is fully funded has equipment that the public can check out for free, free training classes on how to use the equipment, lighting, audio, editing and production techniques. We also have 2 studios for live and pre-recoded programming and a full range of linear and non-lenear editing using i-movie and Final Cut Pro. We also have a production truck (studio control room on wheels) for community events, school events and sports.

We have more programming than we can handle so many years ago we had to institute a rule to keep out non-local programming. Simply:
1) all the programs turned in for playback have to have the local resident's (producer's) name in the credits at the end of the show.
2) At least 50% of the program has to be locally produced (videotaped by the local resident producer)
3) At least 50% of the crew in the local protion of the program have to be local residents who have gone though training at our access center.

We fill 2 public access, 1 educational and 1 government access channel a munimum of 18 hours a day.

You can also tell just how much programming each access center has when a fiflth shared access channel jumps to different access centers. We have 24 hours a week on this shared access channel. We fill it. there aint no room at the inn. Some access centers can't get enough programming together to fill their 3 hours a week.

Again, it all has to do with how important this is to the local franchaising authority.

But to bring this back to the topic, the only thing I want to see is a mandate that the franchise fee, if charged by the franchising authority, MUST be used for franchising expenses and public access services and can NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER be used in the general fund under penalty of death to whomever suggested it!

See ya
Tony