July 1 brings the latest chapter in Access Tucson’s recent struggle to stay alive in the midst of funding uncertainties. On that day, the city of Tucson and AT will enter a new licensing agreement that forces the local cable-access station to reduce its output from three channels to one.
The deal also all but guarantees that the city will take in less money from cable licensee Cox Communications—which doesn’t help the prospects for Access Tucson, an organization that has faced the city’s chopping block in the recent past.
Access Tucson will have to shoehorn 209 hours of programming per week that is spread across three channels into 168 programming hours on one channel—all while transitioning from a largely city-funded organization to one that relies on community support and fundraisers.
The good news is that local producers, by way of a lottery, will still be able to get their time slots. “It’s our job to ensure that there’s appropriate access for every community member,” said Lisa Horner, Access Tucson’s executive director. “… It’s not just 3 in the morning when you’ll be seen—though your replay might be there.”
The bad news is that syndicated programs such as Democracy Now! will air only once a day, down from three daily airings. “We’re pretty sure we’re going to hear about that,” said programming coordinator Vikki Dempsey. “We’re trying to create a balance between producers, our nonprofit organizations in Tucson, viewers and underwriters.”
The cause of the squeeze is House Bill 2812, a product of the 2006 Arizona Legislature. It established a limit on how much municipalities may charge for new cable-television licenses and reduces the number of public, educational and government channels that cable providers must maintain.
Tucson’s last agreement with Cox was finalized in May 2007, a month before HB 2812 took effect. As a result, the city was able to secure a fixed fee of more than $5.25 million per year from Cox. At the time, Access Tucson was drawing more than a fifth of that funding for its budget—$1.09 million in 2008.
But under the new law, the city may charge cable providers no more than 5 percent of their annual gross revenues. So the city expects to make only $3.5 million this year from its agreement with Cox.
“Cox supported this legislation on behalf of our customers in Arizona,” Cox spokesperson Andrea Katsenes said in an email. “With the passage of this legislation … Cox customers today pay lower fees and taxes and are not required to pay extra subscriber fees for channels that have very low viewership. Cox support of this legislation was to help relieve the tax burden that cable customers have shouldered for more than 30 years.”
Today, Access Tucson’s annual funding from the city sits at $303,500. That’s just enough to keep studios open to the public two days a week and maintain three full-time staffers.
Yet it wouldn’t necessarily have to be that way if the Tucson City Council hadn’t passed a resolution in early 2001. At the time, Access Tucson’s funding came directly from cable-licensing fees—specifically, the PEG (public, educational and government channels) fee that cable subscribers find in each month’s bill. As the subscriber base grew, so did Access Tucson, with a budget that was growing at a rate disproportionate to that of the city.
In February 2001, then-City Manager James Keene recommended that a new agreement be made between the city and its public-access station to alter the way Access Tucson received its funding. Under the council’s resolution, the money went straight to Tucson’s general fund, where it was doled out to Access Tucson and other “outside agencies.”
When the recession hit, the cuts loomed. Yet Sam Behrend, Access Tucson’s executive director at the time, doesn’t hold a grudge. “You can’t really look at what happened and say it’s surprising, or blame the city,” he said. “(They) were broke, and they were laying off people, so they were going to grab any pile of money they could get their hands on. It’s just unfortunate, as this is money that cable subscribers are paying, ostensibly, for a particular purpose.”
Even with the current difficulties, Access Tucson producers remain hopeful.
“Any time you make a change, you’re inviting pros and cons,” said Access Tucson board member Clarence Scotton. “I’m very confident in the team that runs this place.”
A veteran of the Iraq war, Scotton made his way to Tucson to recover from head trauma suffered while in the service. After a period of homelessness and bouncing between jobs, he turned an aptitude for auto repair into Cars 4 Vets, a charity that fixes cars and donates them to veterans. His break came after appearing on Access Tucson producer Dan Dougherty’s Up and Coming.
“The very next day, I was nationally known and getting calls from all over the country,” Scotton said. “In two months, I had opened up two shops in two other states, all the way out to Massachusetts and all the way up to Wyoming.”
Though Scotton has grown Cars 4 Vets nationally and worked on other organizations, he’s spent much of the past year raising money for Access Tucson.
Fundraising is crucial for keeping Access Tucson alive in its current form. During the last year, the organization raised more than $40,000 with art auctions, media-education classes and April’s Celebration of Free Speech event.
“That’s not the budget that we need to run on, but that’s not bad for getting out of the gates in these efforts,” Horner said.
Access Tucson would love to be able to raise enough money to extend studio hours and provide better equipment, Horner said. But even with the recent focus on fundraising, Access Tucson has not lost sight of its ultimate goal: enriching Tucson through community media.
“We got a letter from a woman in a nursing home, saying, ‘This is how I see my community, and I don’t get to get out and see my community in a real and in-depth way,'” Horner said. “Those are the moments when it is important. It doesn’t matter who’s doing it; it just matters that somebody is dedicated to hanging on to that very important and really intangible bandwidth for community discourse.”
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2012.
Translation: Cox corporation bribed enough legislators to pass this execrable anti-public broadcasting law in order to fatten their wallets — MORE PROFITS!
Since they already “provide” 500 channels of sh*t for the masses, and are CONSTANTLY extorting more and more money for their “service” anyway (FOR MORE PROFITS!), their argument that they’re trying to “hold costs down for the ‘consumer'” is obvious bullsh*t!
My reaction to their latest robbery will be to cancel my Cox cable on July 1st with a complete explanation to their corporate “leadership” as to why!
PS: I hold the City responsible for half of this travesty. First they pulled the same kind of crap that the legislature has and STOLE the PEG money for their own use in the general fund…
Then they caved to Cox in the latest contract negotiations when THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO!!!
Don’t buy into Cox’s lame attempts to “greenwash” their way into our community with a few crumbs from their groaning table to get their name on every major Civic event while they ROB US BLIND FOR THEIR CRUMMY “service”! They’re just as evil as Bank of America, Raytheon, Monsanto, ADM and Dow Chemical.
Thank you Tucson Weekly/Mr. Mendez. The example, I heard/read some place on, is the only necessary.
As a nonprofit any objective rating would give it an F as the commercail value of what it does with one exception has evaporated- and that acceptions cost has become utterly negligible except likewise for one aspect– production of content, and distribution of content.
It has a handpicked board that it’s employee’s have gamed the election system to maintain- I know I and may who turned in our names- and staff nor the board has any discretion, all names are to be put on the ballot, saw our names not being put on the ballots, and instructions to the accounting firm to destroy ballots as asap, and publish as little as possible about the ‘tally.’
IT used to have a problem with the memorability of the channel numbers not being matched by there tunability- you could accidentally or not touch the 9 and hold it long enough or bounce it and watch it, or press the channel down button down once and find it as the first channel from set on if you did.
MOre importantly these channels where not in home movie quality- not in VHS quality, they used to be broadcast quality. Not just several, on memorable channel numbers, but like 4, 6, 9, 11, 13 etc, with even stereo when CBS didnt’ bother to invest in equipment to allow that for viewers. Stereo sound was and is a very very very big deal. I watched Miami Vice for example in Stereo when the actors on it where young, handsome, talented even much more so then now- but the music, the music is why I watched it because Ihad an analog stereo tuner that with a seperate video tuner plugged into a computer monitor and decent headphones living in a city that got cable long after we did here at the time tears and insights about incest etc. where brought to me like Shakespeare brought wisdom to leaders of his time.
IN the early days long form drama or at least soap opera’s got produced and watched community wide- and this article quoting utter propiganda unchecked is not amusing. COX makes it’s money on the ‘tv’ side from charging father’s fortunes to watch women who look like there daughters naked- they are a porn peddler primarally, it’s what drove vhs, what has there claim they cater to in essence ‘broadcast’ network customers pure fraud- they cater to ever fetish- there system as mentione din my first line so degrades video quality they can have everyone it tucson watch porn at ther convenience, even if with little diversity in content. “Advanced TV” as they put it isnt’ broadcast at all, it’s internet- only for idiots who are gouged and enticed to waste tons of coal sowhat commercials they watch etc. can be matched up more easlly with what they buy at not just the Grocery store but online as well.
TUSD recently restarted channel 20, and is now where? Only on the internet and only for people paying for cable tv essentially more then basic cable costs- much more.
THat Mr. Behrend is quoted seems a violation of a reported gag order agreement, apparently he was given not just his pension, to shut up and let the same s henanigans contineu with the further from collecting social security as well left behind crowd there and leaves us unable to set the record straight.
I’ve known him from day one and known his friends as employees of my family even- seen them not have to bother with hte lottery to get prime slots it seems and join him on the congressional like resort junkets the access crowd internationally decayed into community exploiting monstosities- they are no different then any other entity- when good people look away…
It is very personal for me. I would love to be sued by anyone I speak truth about. If only tehy had skin in the game that is! But these people are poor, are nonprofit industrial welfare spongers.
It’s taken me these weeks to resond to the chair’s letter about getting 20 because it glosses over the fact the 20 was already PEG, and more then one or two channels just got lost- basic cable wise in other words. The cost to watch TUSD went way way up- by tens of dollars a month per family.
The staff at the time coudl of organised resistance to this phx outcome- weno longer have a viable entity- we are just paying unemployement salaries to Sam and three others indefinitely- you only have to look at the agenda’s dominent item in recent years to see that’s all the board has done, is take money that would of instead been used to upset the status quo- the foothills empire over the brown domestics in military fodder mainly valley.
INstead tehy look only monhts or funding there next years salary ahead. THEy have not promote dthere content online, have not uploaded all of it to free cloud archives that even microsoft uses! Paid for by there competition!
I write this mainly though because its’ not too late. We did this once- we can do it again. We can get the not 20 channels we are supposed to have, but the “original resolution” quality broadcast of ANY local nonprofit content to ANY household via free wifi like affordable housing in San Francisco offers. (youtube will stream 4k content right now)
SO what are the two exceptions? The cost of distribution requires right of way- fortunately it’s public already- and the second one? Freely shared content is very compelling- and would help fathers see there daughters or there neighbors daughters, or Octamom herself, as people, and want to listen to what they ahve to say, and so, COX would have a financial problem it’s current stockholders expecting Porn profits and it’s audience having been effectively cured of that addiction. COX makes money keeping women off the air, keeping htem silent and submitted- objectifying people, catering to violent simulations charging premium prices for interactivity only to better slaughter and rape in virtual reality created by highschool dropouts poring over 3d animation texts along with there ‘pretty friends’ offering up there bodies, risking there lives etc.
BUt for most of us we are content. War, hunger, effects others. We pay COX for CNN to make us proud of ourselves, to lie to us, instead. It is a major defeat some of us have been fighting as best we can agasint for years- and only the developmentally disabled on the board or the pathetically so narcissistic as to not have a clue there are not completely guilty in this scheme.
THE still channel 12 though rubbed some foothillers noses it today- and unlike in the ‘old days’ will go dark next sunday, andhte sunday thereafter, and the one after that even I think- so as to have mercy upon them. A quick trip that will bring another dozen or two stinking spilling nozzles to our town when on channel 12 we saw years ago the ony rason they didnt’ get banned is because they are already all bought- and would have to in essence be early retired? THe hotel will bring men mainly from out of town to pay our young women to demean ourselves, the honest and ethical relatively speaking among them will be stuck in there mansions- the dealershsp owning ones will just move further up the mountain with subsidised wheels to come into town only when a few minutes in some silk slacked meeting requries it.
Its’ about technoolgiy= about networks, about having a public one, people can use, to communiate information we care to know about OR need toknow about.
Let this be our bottom. Please.
the main thing is the potential loss of viewership to nonprofit content has been contained as far as cox is concerned. there business model requires access tofail to find viewers and the staff we havehad was happy to do thatfor them.
after all these decades the staff actually feels like there history is one of utter then absolute failure- they think about all the parties and allthe narrow casting and student and other activities but the fact that what is not fantasy but has actually occured in other places neveer ever came even even close enough to occuring here is avoided. They got there paychecks, have unbelievably there pentions, and life goes on.
THe world though has and is giong to hell- and much of this can properly be put on there feet because blame is not a mere game. There cynicism and all people who have it is the reason things are not infinitely better- they chose to have a job that in essence served to rob us of our better future- and there only defense is that better future was only a possibility not a certitude if they didn’t act selfishly. Well that is not there call. It’s what the purpose of the board in fact was to prevent from occuring.
THe idealisitc people who volunteered to create the entity that has since been looted for six figure salaries by people who would of otherwise earned half that or less in the real world can still thrive. It’s about giving the people with time and ability tools- TIME AND ABILITY. By definition those with time are not selling it- so have limited proceeds- they have time instead of money, and are distinguished from most by both that and by having special abilities. They are by definition not students, not overly challenged cognitively are ideally for most of them in any way.
THey are what happened briefly in NYC recently- on the dole temporally with ideals and skills ready and able to solve our problems.
And five days out of seven now the building is used for staff job searching and free airconditioning rubbing shoulders with city employees. The rest o fthe time it’s to say NO, we have no time on the air anytime soon- what’s wrong with you anyway dont’ youknow aobut the internet? So those of us who can leave town to goto someplace that might be better should perhaps, and htose of us stuck here need to organise a coup- use our friends on facebook that are local to overtaek the board, to radically restore free speech to this town.
The money that is in the bank for the pensions can be breached. It can sustain the entity for avery very long time without any need toseek donations. This is america- they’ll not starve without it. Worse people exist- outside of prison even. Perhaps donors would fearing similar goons might not be available in the future to sabotage nonprofits by ruthlessly hogging management positions ot undermine them if there pensions are not safe from that discovery spare us the hastle- regardless 20 channels is not the same thing as channel 20. 20 channels is what we are supposed tohave now- but now wehave none- no widescreen channell of even 480i quality, not one! Yet thousands of ‘1080i’ and simulated 720 p porno’s are rolling across this town 24×7…. at nearly 20 bucks a pop. And despite this tehy are happy to cahrge for relateively slow internet a monopolistic price instad so they don’t have to pay actresses at all. But there at basketball games in fancy clothes and so wholesome- as wholesome in appearance as moneyh can buy.
They dont’ tell the true story on there former channnels even obviously- about how tucson used to pay someone to brief the elected about the technology but that quickly became… unacceptable. What has happened would never have occured had we kept that position open. Only ignorance willful and wanton allows the recent meeting to occur. THE settled contract renewal- the whimper that remains, themanagement actually giving up the plant so as to keep there salaries, a kind of self dealing that is in fact a felony. When given a tour don’t expect there guide to say though “and here are the offices that sold what didn’t belong to them to the city instead of getting real jobs”