Public-access television has always had a low-budget, amateur reputation. Yet Rod Laughridge’s alternative news program “Newsroom on Access SF” was anything but that. Though San Francisco’s public-access station had its share of offbeat shows —- like the risqué DeeDeeTV, hosted by self-described “pop culture diva” Dee Dee Russell — “Newsroom” took itself seriously. Its mission, as described on its website, was to “bring community-based, community reported and produced independent news and interviews from a grassroots viewpoint — unhindered, uncensored and unaltered.” Continue reading The Public Access Crisis by Eric Arnold→
Artist education, research and advocacy organization Future of Music Coalition announces the release of a report that analyzes radio playlists to determine whether policy interventions resulting from payola investigations have had any effect on the amount of independent music played on terrestrial radio.
The CPUC’s Division of Rate Payers Advocates has filed a petition at California’s Utility Commission asking the State of California to go above and beyond the boilerplate cable franchise renewal process laid out in the Digital Infrastructure and Competition Act (DIVCA) and institute a real public process that allows the users of a cable franchise to talk about the quality of service provided by the franchisee.
Enclosed are MA’s comments on the FCC plan to relax cross-ownership rules and increase media consolidation, without even finishing the analysis of their own data on media ownership and diversity.
Media Alliance is also represented in this proceeding by the Institute for Public Representation (IPR) at Georgetown University.
This 2011 video from keepusconnected.org explains and clearly demonstrates AT&T’s failure to deliver basic functionality for public, educational and government (PEG) access channels on its U-Verse system.
A petition challenging the discriminatory treatment is pending at the FCC. (2016 update: still pending).
On the good news front, after much litigation, the Federal Communications Commission finally released long-delayed Form 323 data, which tracks female and minority ownership of broadcast outlets.
On the bad news front, over 2,000 broadcast outlets failed to file the information at all, and those that did, did not report significant increases in ownership diversity.
But public data is public data and it is better to have access to the data than not, so for those who are interested, here it is.
