Can Community Access TV cable stations broadcast church services?

Factual Questions
1

A nearby community runs several PEG (Public/Education/Government) cable TV channels, often called “Community Access.” The signal distribution is handled under the franchise agreement with the local cable monopoly, and the playback equipment to run the stations is provided by the government at their expense.

6 local churches videotape their Sunday services and drop off a tape each week that is then aired twice in the following week. Of course, there are government meetings, humane society tapes, and other public service, non-profit shows on the air also. No one is charged for the airing, and the government even picks up the tab for taping most of the (non-religious) shows.

My question is, how can this government-run enterprise be justified with the “separation of church and state” concept?

Is airing of church services common at other PEG channels? How about the ones in your neighborhood? And it so, have there been any repercussions?

2

If I understand what your saying correctly (I don’t have cable) the gov is picking up the tab for the broadcast of these church services, correct?
If so I don’t see a problem with it as long as they would broadcast a Jewish service (Don’t know the name) on Saturday, a Muslim (ditto) on Friday, and a Neo-Pagan groups full moon right. If they were to pick and choose which religions to alow then it’s wrong.

3

Are you sure the government owns the cable channel? The FAA requires by law that cable televisions system that provide service to a certain number of customers provide a cable channel and studio facilities for everyone to use. This is suppose to be one of the perks for the consumer of a monopolistic cable tv system. And first amendment rights apply to these channels, they cannot censor the material broadcast. About the only thing not allowed is porn, even nudity is okay. I was with a group that attempted to start a local motorsport information show for public television but the only timeslots available were very early Sunday mornings when our potential viewer base was zero. The area I live in is big enough that we have 3 goverment channels (state, county, city of Seattle) and 2 public broadcast channels. Or if it is a small cable system, the public and government channels may share the same channel on the dial. In this case it may appear the government is violating the church/state doctine when they actuality they are not.

4

A PEG channel is one of the things a cable service offers the local politicos to get the franchise.
The government doesn’t really own it. The local cable channel offers it.
If the local government wants to get interactive it will appoint a cable advisory committee to “oversee” that channel. If you have a complaint against what you see on that channel you can direct it to the CAC.
The cable company will accept any programs that are free and meet community standards.

The government does not own that channel.

5

To answer racer72: First, I think you mean the FCC (Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority).

I cannot speak for other communities, but the franchise agreement between this local government and the cable company provides one or more channels (depending on community size) to the government. The cable company supplies only “dark fiber” and a video modulator that converts a NTSC video signal to light and shoots it down the fiber. The cable company does NOT provide studio facilities, VCRs, personnel, or even a TV to monitor the signal; that is all up to the government.

A franchise fee, here 5%, is assessed to all cable customers’ bills, collected by the cable co. and remitted to the government. This is sufficient to pay for a modest amount of equipment and personnel to run the station.

I’m sure First Amendment rights apply, but the cable company has warned us that since this is supposed to be a non-profit enterprise, they would look upon blatant commercial ads as competition to their own commercial channels, and would not accept that kind of content.

No, I haven’t read the exact text of the franchise agreement (it’s about 50 dense pages long and IANAL), I am relying on a spokesperson from the cable company that handles community relations.

As far as porn or even nudity, the community I’m in is of a very bible-belt mentality; I’m sure the slightest attempt at this kind of thing, even at 3AM, would result in copious quantities of complaints. The same mind-set in reverse may be what’s allowing the 6 churches to be on the air; if any outspoken atheist were to challenge it, I’m sure the community would shout him down pretty quickly.

I guess I would have to wade thru the fine print to find out who really “owns” the channels. Nevertheless, this particular community has a contract with one person – who does not work for the cable company – to handle the day-to-day matters of running the stations. He accepts tapes and PSAs (Public Service Announcements), makes some original recordings of community and government events, and schedules them for airing. He would reject anything that was not appropriate. Presumably, any complaints about his performance would be addressed to the overseeing committee as you suggested.

But the cable company is not involved in any programming; they merely accept the audio/video signal as provided to them. They never show up unless we have a video signal problem and I doubt if they monitor the content at all.

The government picks up the tab for 100% of all costs up to the point where the cable co’s fiber takes over.

As far as I know, no one has ever complained about the twice-weekly church services, and I’m not about to pull a “Madelyn Murray-O’Hair trip” and make waves. I’m only asking about the legal justification for a 100% government-run (if not -owned) station to play religious services. Or is this possible here only because everyone looks the other way?

BTW, I know of no church that was ever rejected. This community doesn’t have any Muslim or Jewish worship houses; the most exotic cult would be the Methodists. :eek:

6

The Public Access channel is usually separate from the government channel (and around here, our govenment channel has been showing nothing but OTB results for 30 years). Public Access has always been “first-come, first-served” broadcasting. If a church wishes to drop off a tape, they’re treated like anyone else.

Cable companies aren’t the government, so the “church and state” separation doesn’t apply.

7

Well, here in Austin, Madalyn Murray O’Hair herself used to do an access television show! So, it’s not as if anybody is being denied the opportunity to show controversial subject matter simply because it conflicts with Christianity.

Currently, MOST access television programming in Austin pretty tame stuff. That was NOT the case when I first moved here! In the late 1980s and early 1990s, sure, there was religious programming… but since ANYBODY with $100 and a few hours on his hands could get a show, there were also Neo-Nazi/skinhead shows, a senior citiizens’ exercise show, a nudist show (they showed a lot of hilarious/disgusting full-frontal videos, designed to show how wholesome the nudist lifestyle was), a gardening show, several gay shows, and LOTS of drunk frat-boy phone-in shows. It seemed a trendy thing for college geeks to do! Half the shows on access TV used to consist of drunk college guys sitting on a couch, taking phone calls… usually from OTHER losers, who just wanted to belch or yell “you suck” or “fuck you, dude!” on the air!

To some, this was a delightful symptom of Austin’s admirable weirdness. To me (and to many others), it was a stupid waste of time, money, and two viable TV channels.

At any rate, this era of TOTALLY free access programming came to a halt in the early 80s, because a few shows started crossing too many lines (most notably, some of the gay shows starting broadcasting explicit gay porn, CLAIMING it was of educational value). Since then, there have been a lot of stupid, sloppy, amateurish shows, but very little that should be of offense to anyone.

8

That may be the case in your community, but here is the situation in mine and one other close by:

Community #1, population 10,000, has 4 channels available. (The cable company says the number is a function of the subscriber base – more people, more free channels given away.)
[ul][li]Ch 7 - the all-school channel, run by the schools. I confess I don’t know what the source of their funding is.[/li][li]Ch 19 - Government only[/li][li]Ch 18 - Community/Public Access – this covers the churches and almost anything else that doesn’t fit as govt or school. If a private citizen would drop off a tape (and at least one teenage wannabe comedian has) at the cable office, this is the channel that it would air on.[/li][li]Ch 23 - Tourist Information. This is a 45-minute, continuously running show, a blatant propaganda piece of pretty beach scenes, pretty trees, pretty boats, pretty festivals, etc., with a voiceover touting the reasons you should come here for your vacation. At the bottom of the screen is a crawl that announces current events; places you can go and things to do. Presumably a tourist checks in to a motel, turns on this channel, is kept entertained and the community is boosted.[/ul][/li]The tourist channel is funded by a hotel/motel room tax, which funds other projects as well. The govt & public access channels are funded 100% thru the franchise fee asessed on cable customers, collected by the cable company, and remitted without strings to the government.

Off the record, the cable company spokesman has said that the tourist channel may be skirting the rules, as the crawl sometimes advertises commercial functions. He says they will look the other way for now, but warned us not to push it. And we certainly can’t charge for any ads.

Community #2, population 2700, has only one channel available, and it is not yet on the air, but we hope it will be soon. This channel is funded just like the government & public access ones outlined above; a franchise fee collected by the cable co, remitted to the govt, which pays for operating expenses. Since this is a single channel, we expect to mix school events (public and parochial), government meetings, and anything else that local citizens may request or supply, subject to simple guidelines (non-commercial, non-porn, etc.).

I suspect that may be exactly the reason the churches get on the air. A church service, a parade video, “my fishing trip,” some guy spouting about the meaning of life; as long as it doesn’t offend community standards, it gets aired.

I don’t think I agree with this statement. If you read my other posts in this thread, you will see that in this case, the cable company does not select the material to be aired, and the government (thru the tax-like fee) does pay for the channel’s operation. I’m pretty sure that if the same funds were handed, carte blanche, to a parochial school, there would be legal problems.

Interesting to read about your Austin experience, astorian. Let’s hope my community never has to face that challenge. We may be square, but we are homogenous.