Public Access TV in Indiana Suffering from Telecom ‘Reform' Bill

May 15, 2008

Those of us in the Public, Educational and Government Access TV community believed that House Bill 1279 (transferring cable franchising from municipalities to state control) would not only fail to address concerns we had prior to its passage, but also would cause irreparable harm to every PEG access center in Indiana. State legislators assured us this would not happen. Now, two years after the bill’s passage, those trepidations have materialized.

On Aug. 28, 2007, Comcast sent letters to municipalities in northwest Indiana claiming there was no provision within HB 1279 requiring the company to provide production/playback facilities, even though these had been negotiated in good faith for more than 25 years on the local level. Comcast then unrealistically demanded that Hammond, Portage, Mishawaka, Valparaiso, Plymouth, Goshen, South Bend and Elkhart had 30 days to find housing for the old facilities, hire staff and develop a management organization. As of Dec. 15, 2007, Comcast stopped providing playback of local programming in these cities.

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