In the heart of the media world, the City of Los Angeles, through California State legislation, appears to be shutting down public access television operations by the end of this year. Read and hear more about this action at Full Disclosure.net
A little closer to home, the City of Madison's Mayor Dave Cieslewicz recently mentioned an idea to remove funding for WYOU, Madison's public access TV channel, and direct these funds instead to Madison City Channel, broadcaster of City meetings and civic activities. As reported in the Madison paper, Isthmus, by Vikki Kratz, the Mayor's goal "is not to kill WYOU, but to find efficiences. Kratz quotes the Mayor: "I understand WYOU provides a service. I want to discuss with them if there's a way to do it differently." WYOU has since launched a petition for the Madison area to save its station.
Entry revised 10/01/08. Since this blog was posted, Madison's Mayor announced he would not cut funding to WYOU in 2009, but would seek to cut it by 50% in 2010, and to cut funding entirely in 2011. Read and view more on this story at WYOU.
Entry revised 10/03/03. Los Angeles isn't the only California city in which public access TV faces extinction. In Ventura County, public access TV operations to the City of Ojai face the end of operations by year's end. As reported on the Ojai Valley News Blog by Nao Braverman, "Public access cable services provided by Time Warner, which have dwindled over the years, will be terminated at the end of December, according to Time Warner’s spokesperson Patricia Fregoso."