Legislation pulls plug on public access

TV programming may disappear in some 20 states

The host, crew, and audience of ''The John Kerwin Show'' taped what may be the show's last episode last month in Los Angeles. (Michael Robinson Chavez/Los Angeles Times)

LOS ANGELES - For decades, public-access programming on cable television has provided a virtually free forum for community activists and aspiring entertainers, for preening star wannabes as well as serious-minded political watchdogs.

But in Los Angeles and across California, that forum has begun crumbling, a development that advocates say will strip ordinary citizens of a valuable First Amendment platform.

A provision of a law passed by the Legislature in 2006, which took effect Jan. 1, allows cable television providers the option of dropping their longstanding obligation of providing free studios, equipment, and training to the public. In return, providers must pay a substantial annual fee and continue to provide a minimal number of public education and government channels.

The new law is designed to make it easier for phone companies to enter into the lucrative cable market by relieving them of certain money-draining contractual obligations. In Los Angeles, 12 public-access studios that provided programming for 11 community channels have been closed by Time Warner Cable Inc. That means much of the city's diverse, neighborhood-specific public-access shows may disappear.

If that happens, Los Angeles cable subscribers would be losing an outlet for their particular communities' programming, said David Hernandez, president of the Los Angeles Public Access Coalition. "It's the regional broadcasting capability that's lost," he said.

Twenty other states, including Texas, Nevada, Florida, Illinois, and Michigan, have enacted legislation similar to California's Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act, or DIVCA, according to the nonprofit Alliance for Community Media. In several of those states, the loss of production studios was bitterly fought by opposition groups to little avail.

But the waning of public-access programming in California would carry special significance for the nation, said Ron Cooper, a public-access advocate and regional treasurer of the Alliance for Community Media in Sacramento, the state capital.

"The rest of the country is watching," Cooper said. "And not because it's a good example - quite the opposite.

"For the city of Los Angeles - the city of angels, the media capital of the world - to say there is no room for public" access, Cooper said, "I don't even know how to describe it."

Time Warner says it is only complying with the provisions of the new law, which still requires a limited number of public, government, and education channels funded by a fee calculated by 1 percent of gross annual revenue. In Los Angeles, that fee for Time Warner amounts to about $5 million, which is in addition to a $25 million annual franchise fee.

"The spirit of DIVCA was to create a level playing field for all competitors," said Patricia Fregoso-Cox, vice president of communications for Time Warner Cable for the western region.

The cavalcade of characters, gadflies, and watchdogs that populate the city's public-access channels aren't going away without a fight. Hernandez has written to City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and California Attorney General Jerry Brown to ask for injunctive relief against the 12 studio closings.