June 3–10, 1999

on media

As Not Seen on TV

Philadelphia remains nearly the only major city in the nation without a public access television station. And if Bunnie Riedel had to come up with one reason why, her index finger would be pointed directly at the mayor’s office.

Riedel is director of the Alliance for Community Media, a national organization representing public access television stations. Riedel was in town last week to help members of the Philadelphia Cable Access Coalition (PCAC) argue their case in front of top city officials. She and two PCAC members – Inja Coates and George McCollough – met with Chief of Staff Greg Rost and mayoral spokesperson Kevin Feeley.

"The roadblocks they are putting up are just ridiculous," Riedel said immediately after emerging from the meeting.

City Council passed an ordinance in 1983 to set up a nonprofit corporation that would oversee public access – including a studio, eight community training centers, several mobile vans and five noncommercial cable channels for public use.

Fifteen years later, Philadelphia still does not have public access television.

Cable companies fulfilled their end of the bargain by agreeing to fund public access, but the city has tuned out by failing to create a nonprofit corporation to run the stations. Philadelphia collects about $8 million a year in "franchise fees" from the three local cable companies – Comcast, Greater Media and Wade. Rather than being spent on its intended purpose – public access – that money has flowed into the city’s general treasury.

"Philadelphia has excellent franchise agreements," Riedel said. "The blame for this lays squarely on the shoulders of the mayor."

She expresses shock that the city allows the cable companies to use five stations designated for public access at no charge. "Each one of them has a value of at least $3 million in rent."

During last Monday’s meeting, Riedel says that Rost listened patiently and appeared interested in "seeing the situation in its entirety."

Her words about Feeley are not as kind. Throughout the meeting, she says, he was "combative."

The mayor’s press secretary insisted that cable access television would be used as a forum for hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, as well as pornographers. In reality, less than 1 percent of the 1 million hours of community access programming produced in the United States is classified as "contentious," Riedel says. More than 2,000 public access systems exist nationwide.

"There is no question that the overwhelming majority of programming is community-oriented," Feeley says. "It is also true that other cities end up with hate programming that shocks the conscience. Is that content taxpayers should be asked to subsidize?"

Feeley acknowledges that operating cable access would not cost the city any money and that franchise fees are already being collected. "But right now that money is being put into the general fund for the city’s operating budget, and perhaps that is the best use for that money."

Apparently the City Council ordinance can be ignored with no consequence.

The meeting with Riedel did not move the city any closer to creating a public access station, Feeley says. He and Rost asked the PCAC to look into ways Philadelphia could acquire such a station without the city building the studio.

Initially, PCAC was pleased to have the ear of the mayor’s office, but the meeting was disappointing, Coates says. "They made it clear that they have no intention" of creating a station. Instead, Rost and Feeley tried to convince PCAC to establish public access through a local university or on existing channels.

–Gwen Shaffer

City Council is scheduled to hold hearings on public access TV June 17. That’s one day after local lawmakers hear testimony on Comcast’s proposed takeover of Greater Media.