YouTube and Cable

The rise of YouTube and other video content services have contributed a lot to the corpus of local communication. YouTube videos are cool to watch on your fast computer and broadband connection. I needed to explain to someone who Marian Anderson was, so I logged on to YouTube and in thirty seconds had her Lincoln Memorial performance running. That is a powerful assist to face to face communication that you cannot get with legacy television.

It is therefore a little too easy for a critic to discount access cable television by claiming that YouTube is a perfect replacement. This opinion seems to be most prevalent in cities that collect PEG funds but prefer not to share them with other legitimate stakeholders.

The problem with that claim is that it is intellectually dishonest. Consider this; access to YouTube in a comfortable mode, without stuttering requires a fast, (expensive), computer and a broadband, (expensive), connection. So, fewer people, and historically the people able to derive the greatest benefit from community television are shut out because of cost. Some people can't afford cable either but there are less of them.

YouTube and other Web entities do not subtract at all from the legacy television audience. San Jose State Business Professor Randall Stross points out that: "The video mode has been reinforced by the rise of YouTube. In December,[2009] almost 100 million viewers in the United States watched 5.9 billion YouTube videos, according to comScore. Tellingly, YouTube has not cannibalized TV viewership — it has instead carved out another chunk of our leisure time for video on a screen."

The answer here is not either/or but which is the best pathway to larger distribution. YouTube movies generally make for poor cable television programs. But programs produced by trained, skilled local citizen communicators for cable transmission sure do look good on YouTube and the other dozen or so venues. So when the YouTube dodge is invoked remind that person that The idea is to feed both expressions, not one or the other.

Hiatus is Over

This blog was basically abandoned in October 2009 because the values and ideas presented seemed no longer valid for Contra Costa County. The Access Contra Costa proposal for public and educational access management and rollout was dismissed in the usual way judicatories discourage petitioners-'thank you for providing substantive information but please come back and give us much more information so we can ask you for even more.' That charade had lasted three years and was a deal breaker for everyone involved. The Access Contra Costa applicants listened as a city official berated public access once again and, of course, invoking YouTube as a sufficient alternative to a public access television channel.

But times change and so do ways of creating public media. With this posting I wish to announce that The Martinez Lightworks is the newest community media center in Contra Costa County. At the start it will be privately held with myself as principal, and steadily build the basic components of a public/educational access facility. The first project is to create a flash studio, a one-person station where one can record a webinar, podcast, turn a slide presentation into a video or produce local promotional videos.

Income for the media center development will come from community media services performed professionally by the Martinez Lightworks.

The idea of a public service institution being a for-profit venture is very new to access television. However, one only has to look as far as Heald College or the Job Corps to see how privately held companies can provide excellent value for scarce dollars.

Just about every other path to a media center in Contra Costa County has collapsed, perhaps free enterprise might at last save the day. Please wish us luck folks.

What is at Stake Here.

My first visit to Contra Costa County was thirty years ago when I met with a gentleman about television. At the time the very last UHF TV Channel was operated by a commercial religious broadcaster. Channel 42 was supposed to be a regional station for all of us and he wanted to change that quotient. Not to be. Eventually, when it all faded away at Contra Costa's own local station, it was taken over by Azteca Television and is now a Spanish language station. At least somebody is getting served in Contra Costa.

So the last resort is what a lot of people have worked for and that is a regional television presence such as the public access channel 26 that serves a potential audience of 144,000 people. Do the numbers- 144,000 is a major market folks and it is about to be dumped for no good reason at all.

A major market station is probably worth 5-10 million dollars. The County Cable Commissioner has suggested a multimillion dollar valuation to a PEG channel.

And it is not only headed for the trash bin. Its preservation is not seen as being very valuable - not a big priority. What better excuse could a city have for hoarding PEG funds than to dismiss the whole thing as unnecessary because 'there is the Internet for public expression.'

Excuse me. If that is so then why do Comcast subscribers pay $.71 a month, (times lot and lots of folks) for PEG channels if the people that take our money don't believe it themselves.

The value of community communication is evidenced by the rise of so many blogs and postings on viral sources like YouTube and Blogspot. There is more than a little yearning for community awareness. Its a big yearning and more and more people are learning that no one will inform them better then they inform each other.

Television has a place in that infrastructure and cable access television may be the remaining way to actually have a television presence worth calling our own.

Access Contra Costa

Access Contra Costa is about locally produced cable television in the cities of Concord Clayton, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek, Martinez and others in Central Contra Costa County, California. In these communities Comcast Cable has negotiated a franchise that expires in 2021. It provides both TV channels and capital funding for community television enterprises in government, education and public access. These monies are not gifts, grants or a tax. It is a portion of the rent Comcast pays for access to the public right of way.

In the City of Concord. Comcast pays 5% of their gross (non-Internet) revenue to the City general fund. Comcast also pays an additional $.71 per subscriber per month for equipment to operate the community (PEG) channels as well as operate community data networks (INET).

If you compare these amounts to other franchises, Comcast seems to be getting off pretty easy.

Consider the garbage company in Concord. They pay a franchise fee of 6%, and provide free trash pickup at most city operations. Apparently they are putting out more resources than the cable company and at a lesser profit.

And, if you compare the cable franchise itself to other recent franchises in California it should be obvious that Comcast got the wheat and the rest of us are receiving the chaff.

This blog is about using these television channels to edify our community. To permit each citizen an opportunity to know what is happening. As our newspapers fail to deliver local news, we turn to the Internet and local blogs like www.Claycord.Com. These venues help us learn what is happening in our communities.We migrate from the television oligopoly to community media an open pathway to see and hear the events around us.

This blog will voice support for a system of local public and educational television that addresses both public desire and the fiscal realities of this enterprise. This blog will put forth credible, workable and innovative solutions. And finally, this blog will offer ways of improving the communication of those who serve their community and give them a greater voice.

In future postings there will be background information about cable access television, who is who in community media in Central Contra Costa County. This blog will be joined by other contributors who will create both a lively dialog and some serious action.