The concept of "public access" to cable television first appeared in the United States in 1970. Since that time, access has grown substantially. The majority of cable television systems built since the early 1970s have some level of public access service. About 2,000 communities in this country now have at least one channel on their cable television system reserved for access purposes. These channels, and the production facilities used to create programming by the community, are often managed by a non-profit access corporation like Access Sacramento.
Sacramento was one of the last urban areas of the United States to be wired for cable television. On December 22, 1983 Sacramento Cable was awarded a franchise to construct and operate a cable television system in Sacramento County and the Cities of Sacramento, Folsom, and Galt. In its original application, Sacramento Cable proposed to provide a significant amount of locally produced programming on its system and to provide channel space, facilities, equipment, and funding to support the development of local programming. These resources would be divided up to support the production and programming activities of a number of organizations:
- Public access programming would be managed by Access Sacramento.
- Educational access programming would be managed by the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium.
- Government access programming would be managed by the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission.
- Religious access programs would be managed by the Religious Coalition for Cable Television (RCCTV).
- Additional cable-only TV and radio programming would be provided by KVIE and KXPR.
By early 1985, Sacramento Cable had signed contracts with each of these organizations. Each was required to fulfill portions of Sacramento Cable's local programming commitments, in return for specified amounts of production equipment and facilities, channel space, and funding.
Access Sacramento hired its Executive Director in July of 1985. Additional staff were hired, plans and procedures were adopted, a training curriculum was implemented, and a production/playback facility was constructed in the following months. All resources were made available for public use beginning on October 2, 1986. Sacramento's public access activities have been maintained and expanded despite a stunning federal court ruling in August 1987 that upheld a challenge to the local cable TV franchising process. That decision led to a succession of other lawsuits that put access in jeopardy. Eventually, an agreement was reached that transferred all requirements to support access programming from Sacramento Cable to the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission. Unfortunately, the funding level provided for access support was only about one third of the amount previously committed by Sacramento Cable.
Throughout the very difficult period since the court ruling, Access Sacramento received tremendous community support (testimony at public hearings, letters to government officials and newspapers, etc.) and positive editorials from local media. Such aid was crucial to Access Sacramento's efforts to retain the level of funding support that it now receives from the Sacramento Metropolitan Cable Television Commission, since proposals that would have cut off all funding for access were rejected by government officials.
Access Sacramento must meet the new challenge to raise additional revenue if it hopes to keep up with the current and future demands on its resources by the Sacramento community. Such supplemental funding could be used to purchase more production equipment (and replace existing equipment when it wears out), hire additional staff to assist community producers, increase program promotional efforts, and expand the access facilities' operating hours and programming schedule. Your membership fees help this effort.
Like most access centers across the country, the success of Access Sacramento's outside fund-raising activities will be crucial to meet the needs of Sacramento's residents in the years ahead.
The Sacramento Community Cable Foundation aka "Access Sacramento" has become an internationally recognized center for audio-visual, video, television, radio and related new media arts.
Visitors from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, as well as from around the United States, visit our facilities in Sacramento to see how one organization...especially one so small in comparison with organizations in similar-sized American communities...could have won so many awards.
Access Sacramento took "Best in the Nation" honors twice, won numerous media competition awards...and had its users group "CUE" named "Best in the Nation" in 1993!
And winning awards is not limited to the organization itself...on a common wall at the Coloma Community Center are displayed some of the many awards our community producers have won from local, regional and national competitions, showcases and media festivals!
Quality programming is the result of quality training and responsible local programmers. That is the secret behind Access Sacramento’s fame and success.
If Access Sacramento and its colleagues in the public access, education and government channels were a network, they would be the largest and most popular network in the world!
However, "large" and "popular" are not the two most important words that we would use to measure success in these endeavors.
For Access Sacramento, success is viewers seeing and hearing important and timely ideas, thoughts, sights and sounds...especially minority and other-than-English programs...that commercial and public television and radio don’t find economically viable.
At Access Sacramento, the value of a program lies in whether the diverse Sacramento County community is served by seeing and hearing the program, not in whether there are sponsors out there willing to underwrite the program!
Thousands of hours of unique and locally produced and provided programs are seen and heard each year. That is success.