For more than 30 years, Access Tucson has given Tucsonans the opportunity to learn how to work cameras, soundboards and editing equipment to create their own TV shows for broadcast on the local cable system. And until a few years ago, the nonprofit was among the best public-access facilities in the nation.
But in the face of fiscal troubles, the city has been steadily cutting back on Access Tucson’s funding—and a few weeks ago, it issues an RFP to see if a new entity wanted to create a community media center to teach video classes, manage the public-access channels, broadcast the Tucson City Council classes and create a new marketing campaign highlighting the city as a positive place to do business. There’s little longterm funding for the Community Media Center and it likely won’t be allowed to remain in the current downtown home of Access Tucson and Channel 12.
Yesterday, Access Tucson Executive Director Lisa Horner announced that Access Tucson would be closing on May 31. Here’s her statement:
Dear Members of Access Tucson and supporters of Community Media,
It is with great sadness that I must announce the closure of Access Tucson Community Media. At the end of May, Access Tucson will close its doors to the public.
At the end of this month, Access Tucson will have only enough funds to cover the costs of ending service. We will pay the employees and the final bills. We will continue to program the channel through June. If no additional funding has been received by this time, a message will be programmed on the channel informing viewers why they are no longer able to see the wide spectrum of vibrant content they once enjoyed.
There will be no local arts and culture programming;
no civic information and debate,
no inspirational or spiritual shows,
no interactive, live call-in opportunities,
no more alternative, national news programs,
no classes,
no summer youth programs,
no equipment checkout for independent media producers,
no public place for meetings and community engagement.
Nothing, nada, zero, zip. Lights out. Fín.
The only hope?
As you may have read, the City of Tucson has issued an RFP (Request for Proposal) to create a different kind of community media center, one that serves not only the public, but the City of Tucson’s interests as well. The new center would provide coverage for City Council meetings, engage in workforce development training, create promotional materials to attract business to Tucson AND serve traditional community access services.
You can bet that serving the community is last on the list for a reason. At the City of Tucson’s pre-proposal meeting, representatives from the Procurement Department and the Economic Incentives Office, indicated that they were looking for a better “product” in both City programming and community programming. Any time that there is talk of a better product for community content, you can bet that that means that there is a desire to eliminate programming. Free speech is great, just the RIGHT kind of free speech—not all that crazy stuff. They would argue that this is not censorship—just quality control. You tell me the difference.
Access Tucson is exploring the submission of the RFP application currently. It is a lot to commit to for the proposed budget of $300,000. That amount is less than one-tenth of the monies received through the cable franchise fees the City receives. The RFP exploration committee will look at the feasibility for writing and committing to this endeavor. Members of the Board of Directors, Advisory Board and staff will carry out this task. The process is already underway.
We will move forward to lobby our City leaders for extended funding through the RFP evaluation period. We are proposing a month to month payment which could extend services and or programming on the channels until a final decision is made. The award for the Community Media Center contract could take 3-9 months.
Access Tucson is not the only is not the only one affected
The City’s own channel, Tucson 12 and their staff that provide operations are also facing the same uncertain future. The current RFP proposal reduces their staffing and puts control of the City channel and programming into the hands of another operator. While the initial move-in for a City-mandated co-location of Tucson 12 and Access Tucson was tense and awkward, we have grown into a relationship though working side-by-side which has revealed our common interests in serving the community of Tucson.
The staff of Tucson 12 have created award winning programming while at the same time making sure that the process of local government remains transparent and available to all through their coverage of the City Council meetings.
Those individuals who have dedicated their employment to this service will be reassigned or laid off. I wish them well through these difficult times and value our friends in-service with whom we have shared space with at 124 E. Broadway.
I thank each and every one of you who has supported, programmed, volunteered and participated in this grand social experiment where the government actually gave some power to the people. The power to express themselves, voice their opinions on somewhat equal footing with corporate-owned media, the power to have access to the most influential communications medium of our time, the power to create change, the means to share the stories of our lives…
It made a difference. It does make a difference. I can cite many examples of how this community organization has affected change, improved the quality of life for individuals and the populations served by organizations. The list is long. The recorded documents are there in our programming library—30 years of television—by, for and about Tucson.
I’ll sign off with the Access Tucson tag—a little altered:
You have been watching Access Tucson where Tucson was on TV.
Stay tuned—for now—to the website for any updates.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2015.
Has the franchise contract been changed to allow the elimination of the public access facility? What are the levels of franchise fees being collected by the city in the last three years? Has there been a drastic change in fee collection by the carrier? The contracts put in place when the agreement for interactive services were first designed, engineered and implemented were clear in their intent to establish city interactive services separate from public access. Public access was mandated of the service provider. Tucson had a franchise structure that was a national model. I was involved in developing that and of course I’m concerned to see it deconstructed. I’ll watch for additional information.
Patric Hedlund
Served its purpose. Prolly time to move on. So few viewers…
Oh but look at the bright side: there’s now another building ripe for just what downtown is shrieking out for: a new Mexican fusion bistro featuring locally “curated” nopalito salads and margaritas hand-“crafted” using small-batch microbarrio tequila from cruelty-free blue agaves. Honey, why should we spoon when we can Urbanspoon together!
Dear Patric Hedlund,
Has the franchise contract been changed to allow the elimination of the public access facility? yes
What are the levels of franchise fees being collected by the city in the last three years? unknown, the City won’t say
Has there been a drastic change in fee collection by the carrier? Highly unlikely
More info? See if your Councilmembers will respond… Thanks for caring!
Al Tam you make it sound too damn rosy. Better stick to the forkin’ spoon. (‘in)
1) OK, the amount of the franchise fee collected by the city in the last three years (year by year) should be revealed with a public record request. Surely you have that protection for sunshine in public records in Arizona. Have you made that request?
2) Has the franchise contract been changed to allow the elimination of the public access facility? yes —
•When did that occur?
•Were there public hearings and ample reporting about that when it occurred? Where were your allies on the council?
The issue here, in my view, is free speech. Access Tucson has an impressive plan for transforming for this century without losing the very real mission of allowing Tucsonans access to media. In an era where companies and citizens are fighting for net neutrality, who will offer them the platform for their voice? Where is the soap box? If government has one job, isn’t it to protect the often fragile rights of its citizens? . With Citizens United for example, we have institutionalized the idea that money=free speech. Councilmen Kozachik got it wrong. The City wasn’t in the TV business. They were–and should remain–in the free speech business. The job training business. The public information business. The City WAS in the business of protecting and nurturing the rights of its citizens. Access Tucson was not supported by tax payer dollars. Those fees will be re-directed? You don’t know how much the City’s taking in? Isn’t that kind of a problem? Isn’t that an example of how we are not informed?
The City of Tucson gets over $3 million dollars a year in franchise fees, and is looking to spend less than a tenth on BOTH Public Access provision and Government Access (Channel 12) services.
$3 million? How much has this change been discussed in local press? Public Access is not about “mass quantities” of viewers. The commenter above got it right. It has to do with free speech and democratic dialogue. The franchise agreement for Tucosn was about maintaining infrastructure and opportunity for community individuals and organizations to share ideas, information and production skills. It provides a venue for people of all ages and persuasions to enliven community dialogue by making investigative documentaries and creating conversations. Social media is not a substitute for innovative use of interactive cable. Did they also remove the interactive capacity? The vivaciousness of the culture for which Tucson is respected was encouraged and catalyzed by the active CATV tools widely available though Access Tucson.
I believe those who were at the forefront of ACCESS Tucson had a dream that every last man, woman and child would be heard – no matter how absurd, dangerous or just plain crazy. Having said that, there has also been some excellent programming on the Channel that has really served this community. No reason that should not continue. But come on people – there also needs to be some standards, some way of bridging the gap between crappy free speech productions that only your Aunt Martha will watch because it’s her favorite nephew spewing junk – and quality programming that serves the community. Why can’t ACCESS Tucson also care about the number of people watching? The more people watch – the more voices are heard. The Executive Director of ACCESS Tucson and the Board seem to think that they are the ONLY ONES who seek to protect free speech and that they can do it better than anyone else. The proof is in the consistent product, which most in this community do not watch. I believe it may be time for a new and fresh approach to saving this valuable community asset.