Save Access

three articles from Albany NY

from: WNYT - Albany

Albany group demands public access TV
Advocates want channel similar to what other cities have
ALBANY, Dec. 4
By BILL LAMBDIN

Some Albany citizens want their own cable television channel. They're demanding that the city negotiate the kind of public access channel many other municipalities already offer.

Long before you could get a couple hundred channels through your local cable, in many places there was a special channel set aside for city council meetings, high school debates and all types of public access programming.

“For almost two decades now, the city of Albany has decided not to take advantage of public access. We have a wonderful studio in Albany Public Library that's currently empty,” Anton Konev of the Coalition to Save Albany said Monday.

The news conference outside City Hall was the type of event a public access channel could carry—assuming there was a camera and microphone to shoot it and the personnel to cover the event and then make sure it got on the cable channel.

Schenectady's public access channel offered the only debate between Rep. Mike McNulty and his primary opponent. It also has a Today in Schenectady program, city council meetings and other local programs.

The advocates in Albany complain their city has never had anything remotely comparable on its cable.

“If you compare the cable rates in Albany to cable rates in communities that have access, they're the same. So what we're seeing is that the cable company is taking all the revenue essentially from cable operations and not giving back to the community,” said Steve Pierce of NY Media Alliance.

Although the Common Council will be called upon to approve a new cable TV franchise, Councilman Corey Ellis complains they're not a part of the negotiating process—a process that has failed to produce adequate public access programming in the past.

“The money is there. It's just a willingness on the city of Albany to negotiate that within Time Warner,” Ellis said.

NewsChannel 13 asked for comment on the coalition's demands for better public access from the mayor and the corporation counsel. So far they haven't responded.

Time Warner Cable offers regional programming, including Capital News 9, within the city of Albany. But the coalition argues that's not public access.

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from: Capital 9 News

Group rallies in support of public access television

12/4/2006 2:57 PM
By: Web Staff

Albany is one of the few local cities without public access television, and several agencies are hoping to change that.

Supporters of public access gathered Monday on the steps of Albany's City Hall. They're demanding that Mayor Jerry Jennings and the City Council move forward with plans to bring public access television to the city.

Local and national media advocacy organizations attended the meeting.

NY Media Alliance Executive Director Steve Pierce said, "It's a totally different thing from commercial television. It's provided for by federal law because it's a totally different thing. It's something that commercial television and commercial media will not provide on its own. It's empowering people to speak for themselves."

The Alliance for Community Media believes public access gives the people of Albany a voice to connect communities and encourage civic participation.

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from: TU 12/6/06

Calls for public TV studio renewed
Council member, others call for facility as part of new Time Warner
contract

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer

ALBANY -- It's been three years, but the song remains the same: Some in Albany want the administration of Mayor Jerry Jennings to revive a public access television studio for city residents.

"The city must give its people a voice, connect communities and encourage civic participation," said Anton Konev, who was among a half-dozen people at a news conference Monday on the steps of City Hall.

Konev and the others want the city to include funding for a studio as part of a new contract with cable giant Time Warner, which provides service to about 29,200 customers citywide.

Time Warner's 10-year contract expired in October 2004, and the city has allowed the company to remain on a month-to-month basis as negotiations continue. In return for the exclusive cable rights in Albany, Time Warner pays an annual franchise fee of 5 percent of gross revenues, which is included in customers' bills. The city receives about $1 million a year.

It's been about two decades since city residents had their own television studio, which used to be in the main branch of the Albany Public Library. It was shut down in the late 1980s because of budget cuts.

Now, Albany residents can bring videotapes to Time Warner offices in Rotterdam or Guilderland for later broadcast, but have no access to studios to create programming.
In 2003, after the Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations pushed for a public access studio, Jennings set up a committee to study the issue as part of contract negotiations.

However, the committee, headed by former city Common Council member David Torncello III, met only a handful of times in 2004 and issued no recommendations. A call to Jennings' office for comment Monday was not returned.

"We are still talking with Time Warner," said city Corporation Counsel John Reilly. He said Torncello's committee "passed along information they had gathered ... they were trying to assess what the public interest and need were."

The committee included former Corporation Counsel Gary Stiglmeier and Comptroller Tom Nitido; Common Council members Sandra Fox and James Scalzo; former council member Sarah Curry-Cobb; Ann DiSarro, then-executive director of Senior Services of Albany; and Bill Pettit, president of the Washington Park Neighborhood Association.

Konev said Jennings doesn't want a public access studio because it could provide a forum for those "who don't see eye to eye with the mayor."

In 2000, Jennings was criticized for using $250,000 from Time Warner under the contract, which was earmarked for public access at the city's discretion, to instead buy computers in public schools and create a media program at a private college. In 1997, Jennings gave $100,000 from the public access fund to The College of Saint Rose to create a media education program that is also open to Albany High School students. Another $150,000 from Time Warner paid for school computers with Internet access.