Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA — People TV, a community-run and operated public access channel that appears on Comcast Cable channel 24, aired its last day of live programming yesterday, December 04, 2010, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

“It’s not the last day of programming.  It’s actually the last day of live programming.  What we’re seeing is a reduction of services.  Live programming has been around since the beginning of public access.  It’s not just talking heads, people can call in, it’s two-way,” Adrian Coleman, a supporter of People TV, told APN.

“The end of live programming is setting the stage for cuts we expect in 2011.  They’ve been doing staff cuts in the last year.  2011 will be a turning point for public access, whether it will survive or not,” Adrian said.

As a result of the most recent franchise agreement negotiated between the City of Atlanta and Comcast in 2009, People TV was promised three more payments totaling 500,000 dollars, including 300,000 for 2010; 100,000 for 2011; and 100,000 for 2012.  After that time, People TV does not have any more scheduled payments from the City.

“Before this, the funding from Comcast and the City of Atlanta was upwards of, between 600,000 to 700,000 in cash money [per year],” Coleman said.

“Now you drop them down to 300,000, no capital funding, we hope you can make it,” Coleman said.

“So now, we’re at the end of 2010.  The next installment is gonna come in January in the amount of 100,000 dollars.  And the question is whether or not People TV will be able to sustain itself with that funding, recognizing that is the bulk of the funds that they get,” Coleman said.

Coleman added People TV paid the rent for its studio space already for 2011, but will struggle to operate.

“People TV does not have any fundraising model in place.  They do not raise any outside funds [from viewers].  Unlike WRFG or GPB, they don’t have any kind of telethon.  They’ve been laying off staff, cutting services,” Coleman said.

One staff member, Antoine Haywood, left to pursue another job opportunity in Philadelphia a couple months ago.  Jae Foster will also be leaving after his position was reduced to part-time and he chose to pursue another job opportunity as well.

“People TV gets 90 percent of its funding from the franchise agreement between Comcast and City of Atlanta.  As a result of HB 227, which passed a couple years ago, before that legislation local municipalities could enter into franchise agreements with operators in their cities.  HB 227 said now the states [can also] issue franchise agreements,” Coleman said.

“I’m supportive of People TV,” Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong (District 5), Chairwoman of the Public Utilities Committee, told APN.

“People TV is saying, we’ve been part of the City, we want to have the same level of support we’ve had over time.  The conversation now is changing to limited resources, and where do we go from here?  The Committee didn’t get the sense People TV was being aggressive as they could be to bring funds to the table,” Archibong said.

“I do believe People TV needs to respond to this- we’ve exhausted this, we’ve exhausted that, that would be helpful,” Archibong said.

According to the final copy of HB 227, the Consumer Choice for Television Act, which became effective July 1, 2007, the bill allows the State to issue cable franchise agreements to cable companies through the Secretary of State’s Office.  Cable companies now had the choice of whether to provide local cable service through a franchise agreement with the city or county; or directly with the State.

Proponents of the bill, including companies like AT&T and lobbyists, had argued it would provide more competition.

If a cable company decided to terminate a local franchise agreement and enter a state agreement, it would have to provide the same public, educational, and governmental (PEG) programming through 2012; or through the end of its current contract.

In the case of Comcast and Atlanta, Comcast decided to continue to keep its local franchise.  However, the ability of Comcast to negotiate with the State instead, gave Comcast the upper hand in negotiating the new local franchise with the City of Atlanta.

AT&T, on the other hand, went with the state’s franchise option.

Had Comcast gone with the State franchise for Atlanta, they would have been able to reduce its number of PEG channels to three [there are currently four] after 2012.  And municipalities are required to have a certain number of hours of original progamming–including government meeting footage–in order to justify keeping their channel.

Under the City of Atlanta’s new franchise agreement with Comcast, they were required to have sufficient original programming in order to justify keeping their channels.

Senior advocate Ben Howard said that Channel 20, which used to be the City of Atlanta’s fire department channel, is now a home shopping network channel.

“The channel that was allocated from the fire department, that channel has already been forfeited,” Archibong said.

“A little investigation into that revealed, last budget cut, the fire department terminated the person there who was programming all the channel stuff to meet the number of hours they had to have per day or week on the channel; no one at the fire department was paying attention to that channel, so that was unfortunate,” Archibong said.

The City currently has Channel 22 for Atlanta Public Schools TV; Channel 23 for Clark Atlanta University TV; Channel 24 for People TV; and Channel 26 for City of Atlanta TV.

Channel 25 is currently unused and appears to be another channel that Comcast took back.

Channel 21 is Fulton Government TV, and is run by Fulton County through a direct franchise agreement between Fulton and Comcast.

“The significance with the end of live programming, it’s kind of the first of significant changes that we can expect.  It’s really about shutting out the community, the citizens of the City of Atlanta, it’s closing their outlet for free expression,” Coleman said.

“We have not been organized, the community has not made a demand to City Council leaders, this is what we want.  But seeing these cuts in services has really been an eye-opener for anybody who’s in support of public access,” Coleman said.

“What’s happening in Atlanta is happening throughout the country.  A lot of states have implemented the state-level franchise agreement.”

People TV has served Atlanta viewers for about 25 years.  People TV was founded as a nonprofit organization in 1986, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s corporations database.

The current CEO of People TV is Charlotte Engel.  The current CFO and Secretary is Theodore Lewis, Jr.

Prior to People TV, there was public access under a cable company called Prime Cable.  Then in 1986, the City created People TV as a non-profit entity, Coleman said.

Dozens of local programs are available on People TV, in addition to nationally syndicated programming like Democracy Now and Free Speech TV.  Programming is on People TV every day from about 8am to 11pm.

Countless Atlanta activists and entertainers have had programs on People TV, including activists Hosea Williams and Jack Jersawitz, and drag queen Ru Paul.

CORRECTIONS: As noted by Haywood in a comment posted below, Haywood was not let go due to budget cuts, but chose to take a new position in Philadelphia.  In addition, Foster will also be leaving to pursue other interests after his current position with People TV was changed to a part-time position.

According to Engel, Adrian Coleman does not work for People TV and is not a spokesperson for the station.

Engel noted that while the station used to receive about 600,000 dollars per year for operations, it did not receive annual capital funds.

Engel also said while 2011’s rent has been paid, it came out of the station’s savings and not from the 2010 budget.

Engel clarified that while the station does not have annual fundraiser for viewers, that it does get some outside revenue from membership, training, and some grants.  Also, a Paypal button on their website does lead to some viewer financial support.

Finally, while Comcast could have reduced Atlanta’s PEG programming by going with a state franchise, they could not have done so until 2012.