roundtable: URGENT: HELP KEEP THE 90'S CHANNEL ON THE AIR

roundtable: URGENT: HELP KEEP THE 90'S CHANNEL ON THE AIR

URGENT: HELP KEEP THE 90'S CHANNEL ON THE AIR

Free Speech TV (fstv@freespeech.org)
Tue, 10 Oct 95 17:49 MDT 

Message-Id: <m0t2oQd-000JbgC@rmii.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 95 17:49 MDT
To: roundtable@cni.org, iaj-futuremedia@igc.apc.org
From: fstv@freespeech.org (Free Speech TV)
Subject: URGENT: HELP KEEP THE 90'S CHANNEL ON THE AIR


Would you be willing to write a letter today to the FCC on behalf of 
The 90's Channel, in order to prevent TCI from forcing us off the air 
at the end of this month? Will you ask your friends and colleagues to 
write as well?

BACKGROUND: In brief, The 90's Channel is currently the _only_ fulltime
cable network for progressive, alternative, and activist media. We 
currently lease seven fulltime channels from TCI, the world's largest 
cable operator.  Our lease expires on October 31, 1995. TCI is trying 
to raise our rates astronomically to force us off the air, effectively 
silencing progressive voices. We have protested to the FCC and asked 
for emergency relief to gain a stay of the rate increase. (Attached 
below is a press release which provides further details; updates can be 
found on the Free Speech TV website at http://www.freespeech.org)

CALL TO ACTION: The FCC has established deadlines for public comments
supporting our petition for emergency relief. We are asking our 
colleagues in the media arts and progressive political communities to 
write a brief letter on our behalf to the FCC. Such letters should 
comment on the merits of our service--namely, providing much-needed, 
high-quality public interest programming from a progressive perspective 
missing from mainstream media.  Letters can also stress the importance 
of leased access from a First Amendment point of view. 

DEADLINES, CASE NUMBER & ADDRESS: Comments should be _received_ ideally 
by October 13, but will be considered as long as they are _received_ no 
later than by October 18. (For logistical reasons, letters which will 
be received after 10/13 should indicate that they are "replies" to other 
comments.)  PLEASE NOTE: all letters must refer to our case number 
CSR-4595-L. Letters should be addressed to: 

        Secretary
        Federal Communications Commission
        1919 M Street, NW
        Washington, D.C.  20554

Letters can be brief; the most important fact is that they are received.

THANK YOU: Your support of The 90's Channel (& the Free Speech TV
programming it carries) at this time is urgently needed and greatly
appreciated. Please feel free to contact me if you would like any 
additional information.

In solidarity,

Jon Stout
Program Director 
The 90's Channel/Free Speech TV
p: 303-442-8445
f: 303-442-6472


                              PRESS RELEASE

          THE 90'S CHANNEL PETITIONS FCC FOR EMERGENCY ORDER 
        TO KEEP TCI RATE INCREASE FROM KNOCKING IT OFF THE AIR

        Fledgling Network Accuses the Cable Giant of Undermining
                a Federal Law Intended to Prevent 
        Cable Companies from Operating Information Monopolies


     BOULDER, COLORADO, September 27, 1995.   The 90's Channel--
this country's only full-time progressive television network --
today petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for an
emergency order that would allow it to remain on seven cable
systems operated by Tele-communications, Inc.  The petition asks
the FCC to stay TCI's implementation of a massive rate increase
that would force The 90's Channel off the air.    

     "TCI is demanding almost three million dollars a year for
channels serving about 600,000 subscribers," said John Schwartz,
The 90's Channel's  president.  "This is an astronomical increase
that we can't afford---and no other cable channel could either. 
That pricing would drive anyone out of business."  

     The 90's Channel is unusual in that it leases cable channels
to deliver its programming, and it thus has to pay for cable
carriage.  Such leasing is regulated by the FCC.  The network's
current lease expires on October 31.  

     Rather than lease channels, it is typical for cable networks
(like CNN, ESPN, etc.) to be carried pursuant to affiliation
agreements, under which cable operators such as TCI pay the
programmer compensation for the right to carry the network. 
 
     "The reason the law requires cable operators to lease
channels is to keep them from exercising monopoly control over
the programs they transmit," said Tillman Lay, The 90's Channel's
Washington attorney.  "There's an insightful part of the
legislative history that says cable companies exercise bottleneck
control over programs carried on their systems.  So channel
leasing is for networks the operator would rather exclude.  TCI
is trying to knock The 90's Channel off the air through this
massive rate increase."  

     The 90's Channel's FCC petition points out that although the
Cable Act requires TCI to lease an average of approximately nine
channels on each of the seven systems, only one of the systems
carries even a single "leased access" channel other than The
90's, according to TCI's channel line-up cards.    

     "The crackdown on independent voices delivered by channel
leasing is occurring at the same time that massive consolidation
in the media industry is concentrating editorial control in fewer
and fewer hands," said Jeff Cohen, executive director of FAIR,
the New York-based media watch group. "If Time Warner acquires
Turner Broadcasting, as it has announced it plans to do, TCI will
trade its Turner stock for a major interest in Time Warner.  That
would put TCI in position to influence even more of the
information and entertainment received by America's cable
customers."  

     In an August 31, 1995 Wall Street Journal article on media
mergers, Ben Bagdikian, former dean of the University of
California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, comments
"We're evolving into a pattern in which a relatively small number
of huge firms control every step in every process in the mass
media."

     TCI already owns major programming interests, including
MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, which makes the MacNeil-Lehrer News
Hour for PBS. TCI also operates its own news division, which has
announced that it will produce a daily show, Damn Right! 

     This is not the first time TCI has tried to dump The 90's
Channel. In 1992, TCI advised the network that it planned to drop
The 90's from all of its cable systems.  The channel took TCI to
court, and the parties negotiated the current agreement for
carriage through October 31, 1995. 

     Since going on the air in 1989, the Boulder Colorado-based
90's Channel has carried a diverse mix of programs with strong
political and social themes. The network's programming has
criticized the Persian Gulf War, challenged inhumane prison
conditions, reported on President Bush's Iran-Contra connections,
advocated political and civil rights for gays and lesbians,
backed trade union organizers and exposed corporate polluters. 

      
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