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Producers and viewers
The city of Albuquerque is recommending to the city council that
operationof the public access/free speech channels 27 and 26 pass
from quote unquote to amarketing/ public relations firm called
upublic. How will this affect free speechand public access?
This move will end free speech and public access on these
stations.Quote- unquote has operated these stations for 30 years.
It is a 501 c 3 non profitrun by a community based board of
directors. It provides access without censorshipto individual
community producers.
uPublic is hardly public. It is a privately owned marketing and
publicrelations firm whose owners also own affiliated for profit
businesses. It has noexperience in operating a TV station. Its
claimed 501 c3 status is a lie having beenrevoked by the IRS prior
to their submission of their proposal to take over the
stations.It is only accountable to its private owners, the city
of Albuquerque and
the sponsors of their business and their proposed programs. Yes,
they will havesponsors and advertising just like any commercial TV
station.
It claims to be responsive to the public by seeking votes on
programs,elevating the popular and moving or removing the least
popular shows. TheuPublic private owners will alone decide content,
themes and what gets on theair. They will censor anything they want
to for any reason without explanation orappeal.
Quote- unquote provides access to local people to present
whatever theywish (subject to federal and state laws). Individuals
for $ 65 dollar (or down tozero for the poor) get instruction on
how to produce. Individual producers host,select topics, music,
themes content guests etc. These stations presently function asan
electronic soap box for free speech accessible to the entire
community throughquote-unquotes management.
Upublic will limit local shows to independent film producers,
and showshosted by uPublic staff; not the people. If a person wants
to produce their ownshow they will have to pay all production
costs, easily amounting to hundreds orthousands of dollars per
show. This will limit public access to those with money.
Upublic will substitute entertainment for information and
marketing forcreativity. The present local shows of music, news,
information about health, andreligion will be forced out because of
cost, content, or so called popularity.
Upublic previously received the contract to operate the
education channel.Since they have no experience in operating a TV
station they have failed to
produce anything on the air.They intend to combine their as yet
unprepared education productions
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with the free speech/public access stations. They will use the
success of quote-unquote to mask their own failure in education TV
production. In the process, theywill reduce public access because
they will take airtime for so called education
programming, from public access. This will further dilute free
speech. The daymay come when reruns of childrens television shows
will replace Democracy
Now live at 9:00 AMTo top it all off, there bid was $117000
(over 40%) higher than quote-
unquotes bid.The money comes not from the city but from money
collected by Comcast
from its subscribers which is administered by the city for
public access / freespeech.
What is to be done? The city employees decided to make this
change. Themayors office believes that anyone running the station
is all that is needed for
public access and free speech. They are both wrong.
The city council must decide to accept or reject this new
contract. Citycouncilors are very busy. They dont know about these
issues. They need to be toldabout this change and why it is wrong
for Albuquerque.
Producers and viewers, subscribers to Comcast and those who
believe infree speech and public access need to contact their
councilors. They need to be toldthat this change is wrong. They
need to understand that all the religious shows,news shows, public
information, and otherwise unheard voices of real people will
be cancelled or censored. They need to be urged to support free
speech and publicaccess by denying the contract to uPublic and
returning it to quote unquote instead.
This is not a matter of politics. All city councilors support
the idea of freespeech and public access. If they understand the
impact of this change they willvote with the people. Quote-unquote
has no political agenda. It welcomes all
political and information points of view provided live with
audience call in andcomment.
Urgent action is required. Call and ask your friends and co
workers to callthe council. You can call 311 to get the name and
access to your city councilor.This may come up before council at
any time, so time is off the essence. Act nowto save public
access/free speech TV.
