Public access TV takes another hit
July 24, 2007 at 10:39 am by Wayne GarciaPublic access cable television, that quirky but necessary First Amendment outlet, has been in the crosshairs of right-wing politicians for years now. But where they couldn’t kill it through sheer censorship, the excuse of property tax reform appears to be getting the job done.
Louise Thompson, the executive director of Tampa Bay Community Network (the nonprofit that runs Hillsborough County’s public access channels and programming), has fired off another in a long line of protests to local and state politicians about the shabby treatment public access is getting. This time it is a budget cut proposed by Hillsborough County, wiping out the entire $355,000 that TBCN receives from that government’s cable television fees (not taxes, by the way).
Thompson writes to public access supporters:
The County Administrator’s recommended FY 08-09 budget eliminates all funding for TBCN [and the Education Channel].
As most of you know, Speak Up Tampa Bay has waged this de-funding battle before and prevailed. We expect to do so again – with your help.
TBCN provides County residents with the training, equipment and facilities to produce their own programming. This includes programming containing speech that is critical of our elected officials and local governments. TBCN provides the only place where residents can communicate on cable television their criticisms of local government — speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
While the recommended budget cuts off funding to TBCN, it contains $900,000 in increases for the Tampa Sports Authority and Tampa Sports Commission as well as a $1.6 million increase to the Tampa Convention and Visitors Bureau and more than $300,000 over the next two years for the Tampa Convention Center.
Just like the Education Channel, TBCN has not received an increase in funding from the County for seven straight years. Our budget has been stagnant at $355,443 although we have asked for increases during every two-year budget cycle. Keep in mind as well that, as cable subscribers, we are contributing a portion of the $27 million the County receives from communications services taxes.
If the County does not reverse its position on funding TBCN, we will not be able to serve County residents beginning October 1, 2007.
Budget workshops will take place over the next 60 days and a final budget approved before the end of September. See www.hillsboroughcounty.org for dates.
Please phone and write your County Commissioners and tell them that you want them to protect the First Amendment in Hillsborough County by reinstating funding for TBCN.
Pinellas County is going through the same de-funding process, and CL’s Alex Pickett has a story being published tomorrow on that subject (link to come). Troxler and Deggans have already written about it, as well.
Funny how both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties largely leave their own government access channels intact, with their multimillion-dollar production budgets that are little more than naked political public relations and spin financed by your cable television payments. Troxler called it “a vigorous propaganda engine.” One of my first columns for (then-Weekly Planet) CL outed these government spin factories and the millions that are wasted.
It is this same kind of capricious, self-serving spending of government money that Sen. Charlie Justice tried to stop when he filed a bill earlier this year to prohibit local governments from spending your tax dollars in political campaigns for referenda. It was voted down after opposition from (taxpayer-financed) lobbyists for cities and counties.
(Disclaimer: Creative Loafing Media’s President Ben Eason is a longtime board member of TBCN/Speak Up Tampa Bay.)
