Archive for the 'ditch mitch' Category

May 17 2008

The End of Cable Access TV in Northwest Indiana?

Published by admin under ditch mitch, local tv, politics, valpo

Welcome back!


This came across the wire in my e-mail box. Apparently, the Indiana Assembly, in their infinite wisdom, passed a telecom reform bill, HB 1279 that took control of cable franchises away from local authorities in Indiana and gave it to the state for centralized control, allowing the cable companies to screw localities on their contracts. In exchange for some pathetic promises of jobs and infrastructure, the state let them basically write the new regulations. 

The new law basically gave carte blanche to the cable companies to do whatever they wanted. Some of the provisions of the law include (taken from www.indyaccess.org):

  • Eliminate basic cable rate regulation (yay, they can raise rates! woohoo!)
  • Reduce franchise fees paid to local government (20-30% for Indianapolis) and eliminate audits (they have to pay less to operate in each town)
  • Threaten the financial viability and growth of public, education and government (PEG) access TV channels (basically get rid of public access)
  • Eliminate basic telephone rate regulation and enable local measured phone service (yay, they can raise these rates too! woohoo!)
  • Curtail the development of municipal broadband projects, including those with corporate partnerships (say good-bye to free local Wifi provided by the city, bye Valpo Wireless)

So, what has this meant on the ground? Well, cable access television in Northwest Indiana and statewide is pretty much gone. The law does not force or even compel the cable operators to continue providing the public service of providing cable access.

According to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, last fall Comcast sent notice to many municipalities such as Valparaiso and informed them they did not have to provide facilities anymore for public access TV. They demanded all the towns in NWI get together and jointly create and manage new facilities. Of course, this did not happen. 

Public Access broadcasts ceased in Northwest Indiana last December. Now, granted most of the stuff on cable access was crap. But it provided a valuable creative and political outputs to the communities. Now, there is practically no outlet at all. The people of Northwest Indiana have been silenced by Big Media.

It’s very clear that HB 1279 is a terrible law for the consumers of this state and Northwest Indiana most of all. It has given more monopolistic controls to the big media conglomerates and silenced local voices. Nice to know Mitch continues to be on our side! 

I’m sure if the cable companies had their way, they’d get rid of C-SPAN too. It’d be great if Indiana had a Citizen Utilities Board like Illinois. You do not want to mess with those guys, they are actually looking out for consumers in Illinois. Yet another reason Northwest Indiana should succeed and join Illinois. We already get their TV, so it’s like we’re with them already. One would hope that the local PBS station, WYIN - Lakeshore PBS, steps in and provides an outlet for people wishing to get on the air.

Or maybe it’s time for cable access programming to move to the internet.

5 responses so far

May 15 2008

Costas for Attorney General

Published by admin under ditch mitch, politics, valpo

I heard on the new wires today that Valpo’s Mayor, Jon Costas, is running for Indiana state attorney general and has been endorsed by Governor Mitch Daniels.

I wish Mayor Costas the best of luck. He may need the endorsement to succeed in getting elected, but I would have avoided being endorsed by Mitch. Or Bitch as I like to call him. Mitch Daniels has been very bad for Indiana for reasons I don’t need to recount here. Ditch Mitch or Ditch the Bitch as I like to say.

I look forward to voting for whoever is running against him this fall. Now, the question on my mind, is who will step in to replace Costas as Mayor of Valpo. I think he’s been a pretty good steward of the city and Valpo has gotten a lot of great things over the past few years thanks to his leadership.

Here’s hoping at least he’s replaced with someone competent. God, I hope Michael Essany doesn’t show his face in politics again and run for Mayor…

4 responses so far