Save Access

from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Don Quixote takes on AT&T

Sunday, February 18, 2007, 06:00 PM

Georgia’s state Capitol produces Don Quixotes like Jerusalem churns out prophets.

They tip their lances and spur their chargers. Sometimes the giant is a windmill, sometimes the giant is a true behemoth. Regardless, the result is a crash of hooves and an oil slick.

Most DQs — this is the accepted short-hand for champions of hopeless crusades — are mad as hatters. A large percentage are also salaried, elected officials, as well you know. Tip-offs include glazed eyes and an inability to sense humiliation.

But occasionally a clear-eyed Quixote crops up. One whose armor is in order, and whose brainpan is unscrambled — though his hair may be a bit of a Brillo pad. Think of a younger Ted Koppel.

This was the case one day last week, when a House committee took up a bill to permit what we once called the phone company to pipe TV programs and movies into your living room.

The measure would create a statewide video franchising system. Right now, when a cable TV company moves into new territory, it must negotiate with each local government, which gets a slice of the receipts, plus public access channels. This is in exchange for the use of public rights of way.

This bill would offer one-stop shopping to AT&T, as well as cable TV companies. A single deal would give them access to the entire state. It’s worth $500 million to them. What would you get? More competition among TV programmers.

On this particular day, 40 or so scimitar-wielding Saracens hired by AT&T — lobbyists, you might call them — protected the franchise bill, along with a dozen more hired by cable TV and other interests.

Even so, up jumps the DQ. He is Joe Bankoff of La Mancha, with a half-time lobbyist by his side, his Sancho Panza. Bankoff is president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center. He advised lawmakers that they were selling the state short, by several million a year.

“I’m not trying to be a fly in anybody’s ointment,” Bankhoff said. He doesn’t oppose the franchise legislation. He doubts it will lower your monthly bill, but thinks it might improve service.

The point, he said, is that Georgia will charge cable and phone businesses 5 percent for the franchise. Other states, including Texas, where AT&T is headquartered, have charged 6 percent.

“This is not a question about taxes, it’s a question of what’s the price for something you’re creating,” the DQ said. “In Texas, the price was six percent. My question to you is why are the video rights in Georgia worth any less than they are in Texas?”

Bankoff would have that extra 1 percent — perhaps $10 million to $12 million a year — spent on promoting the arts in public schools. Two of the three public high schools with the highest college board scores are arts-centered charter schools. The top one operates out of a warehouse in Augusta.

“I think you need to focus on this as an opportunity, because it will not come again,” Bankoff said. “You’re setting the price on something that is going to be very important and, frankly, a very valuable cash-flow franchise.”

AT&T opposes the extra 1 percent charge. “We support the arts and education in this state, and others, extensively,” said spokesman Ken Willis. As a matter of fact, two days before the hearing, AT&T dropped a cool $2.35 million on local cultural charities. It was an astounding coincidence.

Any additional charge to the company will cost average citizens, according to the company. “This is a pass-through to the consumer,” Willis said.

Bankoff politely scoffs at that. “Does anybody seriously think that the cable companies are going to charge a penny less?” he asked after the hearing. “The rates for cable have gone up in the last five years without any change in the franchise rate.”

The only thing that limits the price charged by companies who use wires to bring moving pictures into your home is the price that satellite TV companies charge to do the same, he said.

Earlier, we mentioned the state of this DQ’s armor. Before Bankoff headed up the Woodruff Arts Center, he was a senior partner for King & Spalding, Atlanta’s largest law firm.

He acted as an unpaid advisor during last year’s negotiations over the broadband regulation bill. He negotiated television rights for the 1996 Olympic Games.

The video franchise bill has a ways to go, but it’s clear the odds are stacked against Bankoff, no matter his expertise. “I’m prepared to win, I’m prepared to lose. I’m not prepared to give up,” he said Friday.

Like we said — another Don Quixote, but with Ted Koppel’s hair.