01 - Laserfiche WebLink

Attachment 2 Senator Tammy Baldwin U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin and Edward Markey Preserve Public Access to Local Television Channels, Ensure Diversity of Programming Tuesday, December 10, 2013 Washington, DC—U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin(D-WI) and Edward Markey (D-MA) today introduced the Community Access Preservation (CAP)Act, legislation to ensure public access to local television programming. "The 80-plus public, educational, and governmental access channels in the state of Wisconsin deliver invaluable public programming on a daily basis, commercial free and with the sole purpose of informing and educating our communities," said Baldwin. "As local budgets tighten and television delivery methods change, we must ensure that our local public access channels are able to continue to reflect local interests and bring diverse programming to the public." "PEG access stations are televised town squares where local citizens can see and hear what is happening in their own community, and respond with their own voices to the issues affecting their cities and towns," said Markey. "I have long admired the goals of education and participation heralded by these TV channels, and I will continue to support the work of these vital local resources." Across the country,there over 2,000 public, educational, and governmental (PEG) studios/operations and an estimated 5,000 PEG channels. In a time of media consolidation, these local, non-commercial access channels bring unique voices, perspectives, and programming to communities. Local school districts operate PEG channels to feature school board meetings and forums, homework helpers, interviews, lectures, and sporting events not otherwise broadcast on television. And religious programming represents 20-40 percent of local access programming. PEG channels receive no federal funding. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 grants municipalities the right to assess a small franchise fee, which is paid to local or state governments to support community media centers. Several states,while intending to preserve PEG and community media, have adopted statewide video franchising standards that have devastated PEG funding. Since 2005, PEG access channels have suffered severe setbacks as a result of these statewide franchising laws passed in 23 states. These laws took away a local community's ability to negotiate with cable operators, resulting in six