 Activists, artists, and citizens from nearly all walks of life and perspectives have struggled to reach beyond the limits of mainstream media. Whether it's Fox News or The New York Times, Rush Limbaugh, or Brian Williams, many people say they are tired of being talked to or overlooked. They seek to exercise their own rights to free speech, to fulfill a need to hear from independent voices. They exercise their rights and fulfill their needs by creating new avenues for speech, by inventing new forms of communication and by seizing the microphone to speak to their community. This movement did not begin and does not end with the Internet or social media. It is a movement as old as the dawn of mass media itself. This series will highlight the contributions of alternative media and a political environment that seems to reward those with the most money, a political environment that does not necessarily reward those with the best ideas or those who serve the critical information needs of their communities. We're looking beyond mainstream media. My name is Mark Lloyd. I'm the director of the Media Policy Initiative here at the New America Foundation. And our subject today is public access cable television. Public access cable television really started as a dream and a strong struggle among many community activists, thinking, as many folks do now, that this new medium of cable was actually going to open up opportunities for voice and change democratic conversation across the country. Something very odd has happened along the way. And many of us have sort of forgotten the role that public access television played in the fact that it was a fight to get public access cable on. We're going to talk with three folks who have a great deal of experience and can talk not only about where public access has been but where it is right now. Sitting right next to me is Robin Holden. Good afternoon. So Robin, why don't you talk just a little bit about who you are, why you're here, and your connection with Peg. My connection stems through DCTV. I was introduced to DCTV at least 10 or more years ago. I was a professional broadcaster and radio. I worked in commercial television and when I say professional, that means commercial radio. I was on several of the local radio stations here as a program director, as a music director and a radio personality. And as things started to change in the radio industry and we started to become limited in our ability of what we could say, what we could share with our listening audience when the script became four words versus being able to deal with the issues in the community, I then started to look for other avenues so that I could express myself as well as what was coming from my listeners. And that was the link for me, DCTV. Well, that's great. Well, it's great to have you here. Thank you. And Tonya, we've talked before off and on over the years. Could you tell us a little bit about Tonya Gonzalez, a little bit about DCTV and what you do? Well, I am a lawyer by trade. I worked for PBS for a number of years after law school. I loved it. I loved the mission. I stumbled across DCTV one day. It was this beautiful mansion. I didn't really know what it was. So I went in and I started talking to somebody who was doing the development work there and I would just have conversations with him about this access thing and how different it was than PBS and why there wasn't more sort of collaboration so that people could actually come in and create their own media as opposed to having a team of people sitting in a room deciding programming for all the PBS stations across the country. And so over a year talking with the different staff, people and hanging out there, I got hooked and I convinced my boss to hire me. She did. And I've been there every since in some form. So for me, the connection is really the understanding that in this democracy that we should really have an ability to go and use our airwaves. I mean, it's just, it's basic. And so access is really important for that and in the community that we live in, it's extra important because the news in DC really doesn't get covered. It's only the things that happen on the Hill. We have a very diverse community that really deserves to have access. And so that's what we provide. We've been doing it for 25 years. Well, I'm glad you could make it. Me too. Yeah. And Bunny, when I knew you, you were the executive director, I think, of the Alliance for Community Media. And now you're running a related but a different organization. Or the lobbying organization. Yeah. I actually have 25 years going back to 88 working on constitutional issues in general. Women's rights, church day separation, et cetera. And so when the Alliance ran an ad and they put in First Amendment issues, I thought, well, this is right up my bailiwick. And honestly, I didn't know anything about Peg at all. I know that I had been on some channels, but I just thought they were local television channels. So the getting the job based upon my previous experience. And then I had about a six month learning curve in which I swear I had a headache every day because I was reading all the trade journals and Nance gave me an amazing tutorial very early in. And I sat down with engineers, explained to me how the little feet and go through the wire to get to your television set. I didn't understand any of it. I wasn't a technical person. I was a philosophical person. So now with American Community Television, all we do is legislative, we're 501c4. And basically, it's providing that voice on the hill from time to time we help people out in the states. But that's basically our focus is very, very, very narrow. So we need some narrow focus every now and glad you could be here. So we have a short clip that we want to show that talks a little bit about the role of public access operations and a little bit about, I guess, the CAP Act. So why don't we show that? What if you had to stop televising your council meetings on your government access channel? What if local high school sports, junior high school spelling bees, or the school board meetings would no longer televise an educational access channel? And what if community nonprofits, local churches, religious organizations, and individuals could no longer have their programming on the public access channel? That means no more candidate debates, no senior programming, no health shows, no distance learning, no more police or fire department safety programming, and no community parades or fences. All television programming for and by your community, gone. And that's exactly what's happening across this country. Public, educational, and government access television is at risk because of massive lobbying efforts by the cable and telephone industries. Cities and towns across the market have already lost well over 100 television stations and stand to lose as many as 500 in the next couple of years. There is a solution to this loss of our important local community media. The Community Access Preservation Act or the CAP Act. The CAP Act will protect and preserve PEG access television so communities like yours can continue to have this valuable local resource. Here's what the CAP Act can mean with your municipality. This federal piece of legislation is critical to the survival of PEG access televisions. And communities across this country and communities just like yours. American community television is working hard to get the CAP Act fast. But we need your help to get this legislation passed. We need you to call or email your congressman. And your senators. And tell them your community wants and needs PEG access television to stay connected. We need you to tell them to support the CAP Act. To learn more about the CAP Act, go to the act now section at acommunitytv.org. To see what you can do. The CAP Act preserves every store's PEG access television support without federal, state, or local government money. Together we can make sure that our communities continue to have the power to communicate. These over 5,000 public educational government channels broadcast over one million hours of new programming a year. As a viable source of local information, PEGs help create stronger and more vibrant communities. One of the most important foundations for small and local businesses to drive. They educate the public, inform citizens, and provide a platform for talented individuals. So Robin, let me start with you. But we're going to go and talk a little bit about the CAP Act and what it does. But before we do this, let's see if we can establish some common understanding about the unique value of public access programming. You produce public access programming. That is correct. Why? You're a broadcast producer from going a little ways back. And you could do films. You could put things up on the web. Why cable public access programming? I think Tonya touched on that briefly. When she says what is reported in Washington, D.C., doesn't necessarily touch the heart of Washington, D.C. itself. Everything is on the hill. I produce a program called the A and C and U, short for advisory neighborhood commissioner and U. And advisory neighborhood commissioners are the people who are just below the city council. So they're the ones that are immediately in touch with the community. Were you an advisory neighborhood commissioner? I was an advisory neighborhood commissioner. I thought you might have been advisory. Why was it important for you as essentially an elected official in the city to have access to public access television? Well, I actually wasn't looking at it from that capacity. I was looking at it from the perspective of my going to a meeting three times a month with my local community, which in fact might have been 50 people or 100 people talking about the issues that were of concern to them. And when I would go around to other A and C meetings and other jurisdictions, it was the same thing. So you have an A and C commissioner who are talking to 50, maybe 100 people. And the issues are almost the same from community to community. From Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, Southeast. But you're talking to 100 people. And I said, now this doesn't really make any sense that the platform we have 500,000 people in the District of Columbia who live here. And so the issues are almost the same for each one of them. So there needs to be a platform so that each community resident has the ability to talk and see, talk meaning interacting, maybe sending us an email and saying, hey, you know, National Media Consortium, I'm interested in this. I'd like to have this A and C commissioner on and or I'd like to have because what we did was not only have the residents on, but we've had the last three mayors on. We have had Vincent Gray on. We've had Adrian Fenty. We've had Marion Barry, all three of them in their capacity as mayor, as well as the various city council members, as well as the heads of the various agencies in the District of Columbia. Don't we get the same thing from Channel 9 or from Kojo Namdi or from any number of other sources? Why do we need? I would say to you, no. We don't get the same thing. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because generally speaking, from my perspective, it's all canned in what they want to hear the topic of the day. What we're dealing with are the issues that the community wants to deal with, as well as the responsibility for the office, whatever office that might be, Department of Health, Department of Public Works, what their responsibility is to the community, not that there was, in fact, a storm and the lights were off for a day. I mean, everybody's interested in that at that specific moment, but there are issues every single day that the Department of Public Works is responsible to the community for, and those are the issues that we explore. So, Tonya, let's talk a little bit about the mechanics of public access cable. We heard in the piece that we presented earlier that the money supporting PEG doesn't come from a wide variety of sources. Where does the money come from? How do you afford putting expensive producers like Robin on the air? So, how does this actually operate? So, in every jurisdiction where you have PEG, Public Education or Government Channels, there's an agreement that the city has with the local cable suppliers, and in our cases, RC and CONCAS now Verizon. And each jurisdiction, and Bunny will talk a lot about this later, each jurisdiction negotiates that contract, that franchise agreement with the cable suppliers, but it's required by the city. So, in order for the cable suppliers to do business in DC, just as an example, they have to pay back some of the money because they're using taxpayer-maintained roads to lay their cable. So, it's like a right-of-way. So, you said this very well, but let me see if I can make sure that I understand this clearly. Our local elected officials, someone that we elect, negotiates an agreement with the cable company, and then money goes to provide public access cable opportunities. Right, and so we actually independently negotiate our own franchise agreement. In every jurisdiction, they can look different. And sometimes you can have, we're just public access station. You can have ones that are combinations. It could be public in education or government, whatever. Here in the District of Columbia, you have an education channel, government channels, that's channel 13 and 16, and then you have us. So, our focus is to train, and this is identified in the statute. So, the statute that the government put in place requires the cable suppliers to give us that money on an annual basis, and it's significant for us. It's between 80, 85 percent of our budget annually, and we have about a $2 million budget. So, we really need it in order to operate. And then our members, like Wonderful Rotman, come in, and they're able to use state-of-the-art equipment. They're able to get the training. They're able to do all of the things that they need to do in order to put the programs on for the community in their own voice. So, the mechanics of it is, there's these great laws that we have across the country that allow us to exist. And that, you know, going into the cat-back, you know, we'll talk about why that's so very important. So, now, this seems so simple and so easy, and no commercials, no money directly out of my pocket to go to provide for these programs, local training for programs. Why, how could it possibly be that public access cable operations are in trouble, Bunny? What's the, what's happened here? Well, so 1984, Barry Goldwater writes and passes the Cable Act in 1984. Ronald Reagan signs it. And we have in the Cable Act exactly how these negotiations are going to go. I mean, it's laid out. What we can ask for in exchange for the public use of rights away that we're all paying taxes on. In 2005, jump forward. So, we're doing this this way all over the country. Every town, every hamlet is negotiating a cable franchise agreement. You jump forward to 2005 and AT&T decided all of a sudden that they wanted in the cable business. And they didn't want to have to go town by town and city by city. And they had a huge footprint across this country. So, they went up to Congress to begin with, and they tried to get what was called a national franchise. I mean, really taking the power away, way away from the local government. That failed. So, then they went state by state by state, which any good political campaign will do. And they started out in Texas in 2005. We remained okay. We got funding. We got to keep our channels. And then they went across between 2005 and 2008, got 20, what we call statewide franchises passed. That means you take the power away from the local government, like where I live in Howard County, and now it goes to the state of Maryland. It didn't happen to Maryland, but at any rate, that's the equivalent of it. As they went along, it became more and more scorched earth toward Peg. And I think a lot of that was through two things. One of which is AT&T is fundamentally a telephone company. They're not used to giving back anything to anybody. But then the cable operators saw it, and they went, me too, let's all join in. So, you had the pile on of Time Warner and Comcast and so forth. It became more and more scorched earth toward Peg. Today we sit in a position in which we've had 11 states eliminate Peg funding. And some of it was just purely by, you know, not putting it in. I mean, I picked up the Georgia piece. I looked at it and said, oh, there's nothing about Peg. And then I looked at it again and went, uh-oh, there's nothing about Peg in here. And at the same time, and even while, you know, that cable pays, but they passed it on to the subscriber. I mean, the seven dollars they're going to start paying for ESPN, you will see in your bill. And they separated out. They passed it on. So they're not really putting anything out of their pocket because they're passing the cost right along. They're not putting anything out of their pocket for ESPN either because they passed the cost right along. And what it is, I've never been 100% sure, because when they send out ads saying use us instead of satellite, they always talk about the Peg channels. We've got the local channels, you know, not satellite. And so I don't know. It's the culture of cable. It's the, you know, we're always a burr in their side. I don't know why. But Verizon will say something about Verizon as the player in this area. Verizon's been somewhat extraordinary in that they'll say, oh yeah, you want channels, here's your channels. Okay, oh, you need funds. Okay. And a lot of times they're paying 3% of the total cable bill in Peg support. We've seen them suggest legislation in which they said, oh yeah, you can have six channels community. You can have 3% Peg support. They will take all the channels in a region, like if you're in Fairfax County, you can see Spotsylvania County's government access channels and public access channels. And they'll line them up 25 in a row. So wherever you're sitting, you can see your neighbor, you know, communities if you want, and you can watch those. So cable in the old days, I'll wrap it up, but cable in the old days used to scream, scream, scream about limited space, how they had no space. It was, you know, those analog channels were killing us. Well, that's just not true. And Verizon has proven that that's not a true argument anymore. When you've got 1,000 channels and you have the first 150 repeated over and over and over again, there's no argument for space. So why it is they have this behavior, I do not know. It's been, Mark, I've been doing this for, what, 15 years. And I still don't understand the animosity by the cable operators. I just don't get it. Well, all right. So let me ask you two tough questions and anyone can pick these questions up. One is, if the programming on peg channels is so valuable and so needed, then you've got an audience there. In the first place, why wouldn't a commercial operation provide that same programming? In the second place, why wouldn't your audience protect you? Isn't the audience the determinant of what gets on the air? Well, I'm going to let Tonya, since she runs the integral part of DCTV, I can, you know, address some other issues, but I think you should. It is valuable, but I think, and we often say this and we hate to say it, but it's sort of like a well kept secret. There are certain niche sort of audience that we automatically have, but I think people are used to commercialism. And actually the commercial broadcasters do have a duty to broadcast in the public interest. They're required as FCC holders, license holders to do that. So what you get is you get these early morning programs around 5 or 6 a.m. with people talking heads for a hot second. Okay, they fulfill their requirement. So, and I think because people aren't aware that they really do have a right and that these centers are really there for them, not just public, but so that you know what your elected leaders are doing. So you know what your, you know, your city council, your mayor, you can see and hear those discussions. It's really important, but I think it doesn't click always. So there's a lot of education that's always needed and part of what we try to do is to really keep pushing out, keep pushing out, reaching different audiences. Because then we are competing. We're competing with the broadcasters. We're competing with, you know, to some extent people are able to make video easier and they think they're distributing it when they put it up on YouTube. Yeah, YouTube is like, you know, I mean, there's so much on there every second. If you don't know to look for it, you're not going to find it. So that's not really distribution. So one of the other, and one of the other challenges and Robin asked, how do you promote your program? How does anyone ever find out what you're talking about on your program? Well, actually DCTV has a, I don't know if I should call it a distribution network, but they interface with the community in general through their websites and so forth. And then, of course, we have our own National Media Consortium, which is the company that produces the five or so television shows that I produce that air on DCTV. So we have our own network internal as well as DCTV has. Those networks promote the program. This is what's going to be on Robin's program. Absolutely. As well as I work for or work with a local radio station, which is a public radio station here, and we also promote the shows. Now, are any of these programs also on the web? And do you have information about these programs on the web for people to find? We do. We actually stream live. And because we're so forward thinking, you can get our channels on any mobile device. So we called one of our big marketing things we did a year or so ago, was anytime, anywhere. So now you can get us, you don't just have to have cable, you can get us on the web. You can get us on any mobile device. But it varies. Every center, it just depends on how situated they are, how financially secure they are. We're able to do a few more things. And we have community partners, the Washington Informer newspaper. We have different ways that we get out beyond our reach of 350,000 viewers. But still, it's, you know, it's challenging. The challenge, too, is we've got probably about 5,000, if it's an estimate, television channels across the country that are public ed in government. I found out a few years ago, and it's probably not much better, that one-third of them operate 24-7 television channels on $100,000 or less per year. So the budgets aren't huge. And now, of course, we've got 11 states where the budgets have been completely eliminated. So to do things like what DCTV does and a few others, I think Worcester Mass does it and, you know, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, to do things like what the big folks do, they just can't do it. They find themselves even having to run bulletin boards for quite a bit of the day, because they just don't have the money to hire the people to stand behind the cameras and to do the production. And... We're not PBS. I don't have the money. Will the CAP Act solve these problems? Yeah, I mean... So tell us about the CAP Act. All right, so the CAP Act, we had introduced last session of Congress by Tammy Baldwin, who's a Democrat from Wisconsin and Steve LaTorette, who's a Republican from Ohio. And we got about 30 or five or so co-sponsors on it. The most difficult thing I was working against was people's kind of preconception of Pag or, you know, where they stood politically. But this year, we're doing good. And here's what we're doing good in the Senate. We've been really focusing on the Senate this year. And basically, here's what it provides. There's a little tiny provision in the CAP Act. It's one line that says we can only use our money for capital and equipment. So even in a situation like with DCTV, the money they get in, they have to use it for capital equipment. We can't use it for operations. In other words, we can't hire people. We can't pay the light bill, et cetera. What we're trying to do is get that taken out. I'll give you the worst case example in the country, in my opinion. Houston, Texas, the government access guide gets $1.2 million per year that he can only use for capital and equipment. Now, you could go out every single year and buy the finest $600,000 mobile van you wanted. You know, and you still would have $700,000 left over. Or $600,000 left over. The city has actually come to him and said, you're white, you've got $9 million in the bank, why don't you spend it? And he says, I don't need a studio. I don't need equipment. But if we could get that provision, he could hire 20 people. So that provision is very critical for us. And that'll affect all 50 states. It'll affect everyone. The other provision is the funding provision. We're asking those states with statewide franchising to roll back the funding to what it was before the state bill passed, number one, or to provide what the state has provided. For instance, California up to 3%, Illinois and Michigan, 2%. And this is in the Cap Act. In the Cap Act. Or up to 2%. And it's dependent upon what the local government wants. I mean, I worked with Rotterdam, New York. They wanted it to be 35 cents a month and no more. That was it, okay, from the subscribers. The council was nervous about people seeing it on the bill. So it's up to what the local community wants. And it's up to, it's not required. There are some communities out there that don't want a Peg Channel, don't want to have to manage it. It's all very dependent upon the local community and its needs that you get to hear about all the time. Then the other thing is, too, is keep us on the basic tier of service where every person who gets cable, the basic subscribers, and we're talking about people who are on the lower income scale, we're talking about people who maybe who are elderly, maybe who don't want all that digital razzmatazz on the upper end, do you know what I mean? Keep us on the basic tier. Keep us next to the home shopping channels. If you can put home shopping on for goodness sake, you can put a Peg Channel on, all right? And then we have a provision that, and the reason why this is important is in places like Missouri and Florida, we've been slammed to 990. You know, I don't know about you, but when I go up the dial, I go up the dial. You know, I never really go down the dial. Yes, I'm not expecting to find much, you know what I mean? And then the final one is, and this doesn't happen in D.C., but it certainly is happening in some of those states that were affected, is the cable operator is actually charging the municipalities for transmission of the channels. In other words, Dayton's my worst example I provide, $160,000 a year to transmit the channel. $160,000, really? You're right across the street from the active. And by the way, the wire is already in the ground, you know, and basically, as Nia knows, transmitting the channel means flip. I've just transmitted the channel, you know? And so that's, that one drives me absolutely insane. And where this is really affecting communities, it's affecting schools like school districts, K-12, they can't afford $4,000 or $5,000 a month to pay for the transmission of the channel. So we're asking that that practice be ended. And we're also asking that our channels be transmitted with the same quality as every other channel in the system. No more of this bad quality stuff, we're tired of it. Now, let me ask you this. Now, every local community negotiates these agreements with the cable companies. But why can't we just get better negotiators that eliminate all these horrible things that apparently are going on? Because they took it out of the local community's hands in 22 states. In Florida, cable franchisings handled by the agricultural department. Okay? Let's do corn, let's do cable. I mean, that's what they're really doing, you know? They've passed laws, and here's the deal. AT&T spent $123 million in California lobbying. One state. They spent tens of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's not even what Comcast or Time Warner, or I just got told the other day by a Senate office, there are six cable lobbyists for every Senate office. That's 600 lobbyists. Everyone has six lobbyists assigned to them, you know? And basically, you've got me, you've got Catherine Grinswich from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. We're the ones schlepping up there, we drag along an intern every so often, schlepping up there, and I have to be so careful because I'll tell you, if some information gets out that I went to this office, I guarantee you the next day, cable's in there. Cable and AT&T's there. So DCTV is in a little different position. Yeah, they saw their sovereignty. Yeah, because you don't have a state government saying, no, you cannot negotiate a better deal. A number of these little communities, maybe sometimes even big communities, are not in such a good position because they've got state governments saying, no, you cannot negotiate these particular terms. State governments who don't have the 40-year history of negotiating cable franchises that local municipalities have built up over 40 years. I mean, I'm telling you, some of these public utilities commissions where they put the power, these people don't know anything about how to do this at all. I mean, whatsoever, and that's the part that's really frightening is we've learned through trial and error over a period of 40 years how to get, we learn from each other, we share stories, how to get the best negotiation, what you can negotiate for, et cetera. That's gone now. All right, so let me ask you a question which is going to seem completely off topic, and then I'm going to turn it over to the audience, not because I've run out of questions, but what lessons does this experience with public access television, what lessons does this hold for the internet or for social media or for other things that we have as we had hopes for Peg, such hope for? What lessons, Tonya, do we do? What do we get out of what's happened here with Peg? I think that, you know, it's interesting because oftentimes, and we work with a lot of youth at DC TV, we have youth programs there, and oftentimes when they're in the building and I see them, they get television, but they get it in such an MTV or I don't even know the latest hit thing that might be old now, I'm not sure. But the whole idea, I think the lesson is that it's not the device, it's not the tool, it's really how does it fit into the larger framework of a society and to get the kids to be good stewards of their media. It's our broadcast waves, it belongs to the public and for us to hold on to it in some respects. So you can have YouTube, you can have Pinterest, you can have all of those wonderful tools, but at the end of the day, you still need video to put up or you have to be educated somehow in how to use this new media. So I think the lesson is, it's not volume, it's not we need more and more and more, it's the quality of it, it's how it connects, it's how it ripples out the conversations and that's why Peg is so vitally important because you're not, when you're doing YouTube or when you're doing Facebook, whatever, you're selecting a community, right? It's self-selecting, I select my friends, I put up what I want, I put up whatever I want to put on YouTube and I tell a couple of people about it and they're the only ones that can find it because there's so much stuff on YouTube. We're not really a community, it's not a democracy, we're not getting the full benefit of our diversity and I think that that's the big lesson because we're losing something if we don't have that ability to talk in a community across differences, across cultures to be able to really address someone who may not look like you, may not be in your little pool of Facebook friends. I think the lesson is we're going to find that just like, what was that call back in the day, not before Facebook? MySpace. Okay, I mean, I don't know, it's anybody using that anymore? So I think television will always be around because it's needed in a very different way, so. I used to use MySpace to track my daughter's boyfriend but there's another story for another day. Robin, I'm going to ask you an uncomfortable question about the lessons of power being in DC and sort of understanding whether you have representation in Congress or other powers. What are the lessons of power that this talks about? Well, let me share with you, from being a part of DCTV has allowed me, now this is going to come right back to what you're saying in power, in national media consortium, we always use the same model as DCTV. We always brought in young people from high school. We've always brought in people in first year, second year of college, and we had them as part of our team so that they can understand, not necessarily what power is, but how to develop and connect with the community, be it the mayor, be it Congressman John Conyers, who is part of one of the shows, one on one with the Congressional Black Caucus, whomever it is that you have a direct connection with this individual and the power is not with them, the power is with us. That's my take on power. So do we have any questions from the audience? I think Nick is back there and he may actually have a microphone if we have any hands. My name is David Wenbert. I'm assembling a digital media technology venture called Vibran Intervision and I'm going to ask you a question you probably never thought you'd hear. If a technology venture were prepared to underwrite $10 million a year in original programming, development, and training at local PEG stations around the country, how would you like to see that done and what's on your wish list? One of the things about public access is it's a free speech forum and government access is probably the most... When I was at the Alliance, somebody had filed a complaint about a program and usually it was a politician filing a complaint about somebody doing a program like Robin's doing, political. Forget the sexual, they were always upset about the political stuff. Government access is probably one of the most... Of those three, the PEG government access is probably the more dangerous medium because it provides transparency on local government. Educational access is really what it sounds like. So I think that... Nancy from DCTV is sitting here and Lonnie Moffat's shirt knows this is that one of the things that taking the money would be great. We all know that. We've had attempts in the past to nationalize our channels. If I had a nickel for every time some production company wanted to take over our channels or commandeer primetime and we'll build a national network, I would be truly a wealthy woman. I'd get that South American cruise I've been looking at a lot sooner. But that's not what it is. What we are is community-based and that's probably the most important thing about access is it's about the community. So yeah, if some entrepreneur came to me with $10 million, I sure could sit down and help him figure out how to spend it. But at the same time, to change the nature of our community-based, to take away her voice in order to somehow or another improve what we do, and I always love that. My show is going to put public access on the map. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I would love it. These producers come at me with these bizarre ideas. But the whole point is everybody in access is doing something similar to what she's doing, whether it is shining the spotlight on local government, shining the spotlight on the incidents of high blood pressure in the district, shining the spotlight on the incidents of teens failing school in the district or succeeding in school. What Robin does is the heart and soul of access. And she's kind of crossing public and government here. So that's my answer to that. So that's the long answer to that is which, sure, like to take your money and launch just no strings attached? Well, you do have some programs that do address the larger audience than the people living in the local community. Yeah. Emerald Planet is one, Mark Levine, Telepathic TV are three that originate here in the DC area but have gotten picked up by other public access stations. John, how many channels are you on? 100. Right, he's on 100 channels across the country. He does a show called Perils for Pedestrians which is if you think about it there's a lot of important stuff. There's a lot of Perils for Pedestrians out there. And he's been picked up by 100 channels. I've helped the federal government get the Road to Recovery Program on alcohol and drug addiction out to 676 channels. We just did a campaign where I got out to 304 channels in 10 states and underage drinking videos specific to each state. I've helped documentary filmmakers get their work out. So we do have that and one channel uses it because again they've got these small budgets they don't have the money to fill up 24-7 so they're very appreciative of the program. Places like Chicago and Manhattan they hold lotteries for whose programming is going to be on. They rarely take or never in Chicago they don't take any imported programming whatsoever because they've got so many people using it they just can't. So that's kind of the long answer to that. Go ahead. I just want to comment on the distribution piece there are a lot of our members that actually create programming using our equipment we train them and they create their program and they're very sophisticated and Robin's here and she can talk to you about it as well but they distribute their programs to a number of access stations around the country. I think that's pretty cool because that means not only do you get to have local voice but now you have your own distribution network potentially you can be in markets all over the country in creative ways to get more programs in. But I have to say the quality of what we have that does stay local. Robin has four shows that she does one's jazz, five HIV. One of the programs which is called HIV AIDS the nation and the world was the actual first program to deal with the AIDS epidemic and regionally we have people who are peer counselors from Prince George's County we have agencies who are non-profit who assist those who have AIDS and need housing and development in the various regional Washington, Maryland and Virginia we have those people on our program. So those programs are not necessarily just exclusive to Washington DC but those programs are aired on other public access stations within the region. So the distribution of those programs is something that is desperately needed we have the director of Department of Health for Prince George's County on talking about HIV and AIDS which is devastating their community just like it is Washington and East Africa so consequently the distribution of a program like that is paramount and I have to say that at the height and I know we're still struggling with it there's a lot of things that happen in local government about mismanagement of city funds that were supposed to be directed towards you watch ABC, NBC Nightly News Morning News you would never know that there was an epidemic in the District of Columbia you would have no idea and you know HIV is an exclusive to DC so it is a national issue and the distribution is valid but just saying that you know wow what a thing to have on our channel a conversation that needs to happen exposure for something so people get it and you know on that show they had youth on talking about safe sex practices you would not see that anywhere on television and I don't think that anybody is really putting it up on YouTube and make you know so it's sort of like again the role that you play so there's a really important I would just jump in a quick way and I have another question and that is besides doing PGA I've done non-profit management for 25 years and non-profits are a bigger part of the GDP than the entire energy industry that's how much and there's no way the government could ever take over the role of non-profits in providing services we would absolutely collapse non-profits are so essential to access and some government education is non-profit programming and it's telling people where to go to get services, to get assistance to get help, it's educating them about a disease or a condition or something and that's huge ABC, CBS, NBC the rate on PSAs is 17 seconds per hour that's what the broadcasters are running those public services now they get sent hundreds of them thousands I would dare say but they run 17 seconds per hour on average they're never going to spend time giving time over maybe there's an interview with the boys and girls club and they're doing something you know it's two minutes and that's about it and on the other side of things too is that we have tremendous amounts of religious programming we have about 30% on average religious programming on our channels this is very important to people in communities of religion one of the things that Catherine works with me from U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop said they got point blank told by PBS that they will never put on any more religious programming in other words so if the Pope has a huge mass it's never going to be shown on PBS when our religious programming goes down let me tell you the phones ring off the hook two things make the phones ring off the hook at a peg center religious programming going down city council going down those are two things so the service and that's probably has calculated this it's millions and millions and millions of dollars of free airtime I calculate the substance abuse piece at over 20 million dollars of free airtime going back to the federal government what the federal government didn't have to take out of their pocket to pay for this time which every other television medium in this country would force them to pay for so along with all that the little piddly amount the cable operators give us it's like jack in the beanstalk the peg people plant the seed and actually you know this beanstalk is growing like crazy it's good stuff so we we've got another question here John Webber as was mentioned I produce a series on access perils for pedestrians and I want to talk about the concept of local because the most common requirement I run into trying to get my program on a station is they want a local sponsor so the program might be produced locally or there's a local citizen who says this is relevant to my community I want to want me and my neighbors to be able to see this program so there are a couple different angles to what's a local program but you know the success I've had getting my program on a lot of stations just shows you you know how that issue resonates with people across the country and you know the networks can possibly devote half an hour a month to pedestrians I mean they're just you know it's not in their commercial vision of what they can do not when you've got lost that needs to be shown hey I like lost any other questions here so if you had a foundation or a wealthy donor watching this program about public access television what do you think they need to know coming away from it well again I think it goes back to what I just said about the nonprofit industry is that I do these needs assessments in communities when I get a municipal client and the local community can be a wealthy community can be not so wealthy community but I find that you've got the local Red Cross or you've got the neighborhood association sitting there and I asked them how much money do you have for communications in your budget and they've got $5,000 to communicate with a year or $10,000 every so often I get a realtor in the room and he's got a lot more money than that and they've got such limited strained resources and they want to spend their resources on the service whatever that service is and in order to be able to tell people about the service Peg ends up being the perfect platform for them so I think that if we had a wealthy donor out there I would say help us have a little better of a chance at going face-to-face with the cable industry going nose-to-nose with them help us find the resources we need so that maybe we can't put six lobbyist in the office but we have a few more folks up there help us get the rest of the tail out I'd like to tell you this is my fourth pair of shoes I keep on the same pair because they're comfortable but this is my fourth pair of shoes and I'll probably run through these in the next couple of months you know we need help, we need you to contact folks, we need you to get out there, we need you to just tell the peg story if you've got a favorite show tell your neighbor I watch Robin's show every Thursday Tuesday night whatever it is you've got to see this show on public access did you see what happened on council meeting last night get to educate, that's I think what I'm going to ask of you guys here is educate folks about this it's really amazing stuff and really quite frankly this is the only country in the world that does it the way that we do it the only one we've got some access in Canada but they don't have free speech we've got some in the Netherlands you know that's a crime anyway this is the only country where this is happening it's what I call a happy accident it's the most amazing piece of media in my mind that ever was God bless the internet but this is the great equalizer for communities so speaking of the internet how do I find out more about the CAT Act and how do I find out more about Bunny, your organization yeah it's really easy so American Community Television but it's acommunitytv.org and we've got all kinds of stuff you've got the phone number there if you need assistance but we've got the sample letters that you can write or the explanation of the CAT Act or various other things you can do you can support us that would be most helpful Antonio DCTV how do I find out more about DCTV very easy DCTV.org but to speak to people you had in mind that you're actually going to break putting our hand up for a little what we're trying to do I think on the ground the challenge for at least us I can speak for DCTV is the education piece making sure that we are able to train that we're able to get the word out about what we do keep our doors open to provide the best services and because we're in DC it's the largest I guess pool of nonprofits in the country so we have a lot of nonprofits that really really need our services and oftentimes they simply can't afford it now these are the people that are on the front lines doing the direct service they're probably able to get foundation dollars more easily than we can but they absolutely need us because nobody knows really what they're doing it's the foundation saying you did good work but so what because who knows about it how does it ripple out so we do initiatives everyday things we try to really be of service to them but again it strains our budget working with the youth in the way that we want to strains our budget so a lot for the things that we would want money for because we know Bunny's there is we really want it to do more work in our community and I'd like to comment on that for those of you out there who do have a tremendous amount of money or some money to spare I've been a producer at DCTV since 2005 and periodically DCTV will give me a call and say hey Robin there is a nonprofit group that we would like to put through our boot camp can you sponsor them so I give back to the community that allows me to be able to share the ideas and the thoughts that come from the community that I think need to be expressed but at the same token I can come out of my pocket with the several hundred dollars that it does take to sponsor an organization a nonprofit organization so for those of you who have the wherewithal I would ask you to join me in that effort in sponsoring nonprofit organizations how do we contact you well National Media Consortium N-M-C-I-N-C dot O-R-G you can go to our website and you have a listing of the programs various cable channels that we're on across the country as well as our theme and objectives and the things that we want to do in the community any comments that you have in regard to what we do or what you think that we should do we're always open to that and I will direct you to DCTV to give them money as well as to be a part of their organization because they're very, very, very open and willing to work with anybody in the community and I don't think I mentioned that film you saw when I'm talking about they were talking about the Cat-Back that was produced by DCTV produced for us for free and that was a huge help we've got that on about 600 channels across the country thank you all very much thank you do we? yes, I was just curious you were talking about training and young people and so forth University film and television schools are in a similar situation they often have state-of-the-art equipment and no production budget in the DC area there are nine public access stations and there are nine universities that have film and television schools I was wondering is there any interaction with the film student community and absolutely we have a very strong intern program because a lot of times if you're in film television school you don't get the hands on so that's another thing that we're able to provide so our interns are in various communications programs throughout the city and they come in and they actually are staff working on productions it's a way that we can grow our staff but also give back and make sure they get the training that they need so we work really closely with a lot of the schools around here okay that's it thank you again thank you