Erik Möllberg, Chair of the Indiana Chapter of the Alliance for Community Media, also runs the public, educational, and government (PEG) TV channels in Ft. Wayne. On January 29, he attended a hearing entitled “Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age” convened by the Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in Washington, DC. Committee Chair John Dingell (D-Michigan) initiated the hearing to look into to Comcast’s attempt to move PEG channels to the more expensive digital tier in Michigan in response to the state’s new video franchising law. The Right-of-Way is pleased to present some of Erik’s impressions:
After the closing of Comcast's public access television studio in December, the City of South Bend selected the local PBS affiliate, WNIT, to record its three remaining Common Council meetings for 2007. But when that contract was extended through 2008 without an open bidding process, African American Council members and previous bidders cried foul during a meeting of the Information and Technology Committee on February 6, 2008.
A year and a half after the enactment of the Indiana
Telecommunications Reform Act of 2006, Comcast notified producers in South Bend, Hammond, Merrillville, Mishawaka, Plymouth, Goshen, and Portage -- and Edwardsburg,
Michigan - that it would be
closing production studios and playback facilities for public access TV.
It's how we, the people, see and govern ourselves," explained Gloria Tristani on the importance of public, education and government (PEG) access channels to Americans. Tristani, an FCC Commissioner from1997 to 2001, was the keynote speaker at the Alliance for Community Media's (ACM) biennial Central States Regional Conference on November 9. Access Fort Wayne, housed in the newly renovated Main Library of the Allen County Public Library system, hosted the conference. Access Fort Wayne runs the city's three PEG access TV channels, PEG studios and a computer training center.
