Public-access Television - Principles

Principles

PEG access may be mandated by local or state government to provide any combination of television production equipment, training and airtime on a local cable system to enable members of the public, accredited educational institutions, and government to produce their own shows and televise them to a mass audience.

Municipalities must take initiative and petition the cable operator to provide the funding for PEG access as laid out by law, but municipalities may also choose to take no action and will instead keep the Cable television franchise fees in a general fund. A municipality may also choose to allow Government-access television (GATV) but not Public-access television or may replace it with Governmental access television or may take away Public-access television altogether, depending on the disposition of the local government or its voters.

Municipalities have a broad spectrum of franchise agreements with cable television service providers and may not create a monopoly through these agreements. Depending on the size of the community and their contractual agreement the PEG and local origination channels may take many forms. Large communities often have a separate organization for each PEG type, smaller communities may have a single organization that manages all three. Because each organization will develop its own policies and procedures concerning the commercial content of a program, constituent services differ greatly between communities.