2. THE AG E N T S

Television is not the lead technology in this telecommunications revolution. It will have a large part to play in the revolution, and it is vital that television should be involved in all the planning and development,but television is,at the moment,playing catch-up. It is only now beginning to go digital. It will be two or three years, maybe longer, before it is fully capable of providing the new services and programming that will be called for, and it may be quite late in the decade before most American homes finally switch over to digital receivers or set-top converters.

The Approach of Broadband
Unlike television, the personal computer is already a digital instrument. As users begin to benefit from broadband connections (as opposed to the slow and somewhat cumbersome telephone connections that most of us still rely on) computer technology is already extending its range and capabilities to include many of the functions we traditionally associate with print, broadcasting, and other “old-fashioned" media. It can stream video to the desktop;its MP3 technologies are beginning to take over the music business by delivering hi-fi stereo sound as good as the CDs we buy in shops;it can reach out across continents to retrieve information (in video, stills, audio, graphics and text) from a million different sources;it daily develops new facets – as stock exchange, shopping mall, games arcade, research library, daily newspaper, travel agent, post office. Very soon the computer will be a language translator, a home cinema and a television receiver as well.

The most important development of the next few years will be the adve n t of digital broadband connections. M a ny workplaces already have access to t h e m , and so do a few privileged colleges, schools , libraries and about 1.5 million households. Basically, a broadband connection is a pipeline that has much greater capacity than the phone lines and cable wires that enter most of our homes. It provides high speed access to the Internet, the ability to remain permanently online, video quality as good as anything we will find e l s ew h e re (short of HDTV), much greater interactivity than we have been used to and the capacity to carry all incoming services (phone, cable, utilities ) in a single pipe. It is expensive to prov i d e, and it will not be cheap to the customer, but it is like ly that competition will quickly bring down the cost. Besides telephone and cable, which have a clear lead, t h e re are two other methods of delivering broadband – one via satellite; one through the use of “ w i reless cable systems" which use microw ave radio frequencies to transmit data in metropolitan districts.

And there is yet another system – still not proven,but one that has intriguing possibilities,especially for broadcasters. Geocast Network Systems in Silicon Valley, iBlast in Los Angeles (which has twelve newspaper groups as investors and partners), and the Broadcasters’ Digital Cooperative are all developing methods of providing high quality interactive programming to PCs, using digital television broadcast signals as their conduit. At least 27 commercial station ownership groups, together representing hundreds of stations, are already locked into bandwidth and content deals with these companies. If they are able to deliver CD quality audio, full-motion video and software downloads to desktop PCs, using broadcast signals to do so, then digital television could become a major player in the revolution much more quickly, and much more effectively, than looked likely until recently.

Broadband is clearly going to be the principal distribution method of the future, and probably the near future. A number of technical and policy questions remain to be ironed out (such as agreement on a single standard for streaming), but it is safe to say that broadband proclaims the real beginning of the digital age – the moment when the computer and the television receiver become compatible and interchangeable.

Commercial Broadcasting
This does not mean that television has lost its place in the media universe. It has the unenviable task of maintaining its analog transmissions at the same time that it is investing heavily in digital hardware and digital programming (programming that very few people are going to see in the immediate future). For years,commercial broadcasters have fought for the right to be regulated entirely by the marketplace. Now that they more or less have this right,they are finding that the marketplace is a very unreliable indicator. It cannot tell them when the majority of Americans will throw out their analog sets and start viewing in digital. It cannot tell them whether digital viewers will want high definition television, or whether they will prefer the somewhat lower definition of standard digital transmission in return for the greater range of choice they will get through multicasting. Nor can it tell them how much of their territory will be preempted by computer technologies in the meantime.

In these circumstances, commercial broadcasters are not waiting around fo r a n swe r s . T h ey are moving into non-broadcast technologies. The mergers and alliances re p o rted almost daily are proof of what is going on – though that is only the tip of the iceberg: the most significant moves are being made by local stations establishing themselves on web sites and preparing for the b roadband revolution.

Public Broadcasting
Commercial broadcasters play a large part in community life, but their priority is to make profits for their owners – whereas public broadcasters, who are also licensed on the basis of localism, have a mission to make community interests their most important focus. That, at any rate, is the theory. In practice, things are very different. Public broadcasting may not have to make profits,but it does have to find funding for every one of its activities. Unlike its European equivalents, it has no firm, or even semi-firm, financial foundation. The history of public broadcasting in this country clearly demonstrates that maintaining a single channel is a bit of a stretch,but it can be done so long as stations are not expected to create much (in many cases any) original programming for themselves. Most of it is therefore provided by satellite feed from PBS in Virginia, or by acquisition from national and international syndicators. The number of public television stations producing their own local programming is low – a 1998 survey by Current,a biweekly newspaper on public broadcasting, showed that less than 20 out of 179 licensees had a local nightly news show.

Yet public broadcasting is a large resource, and fundamentally a local (or state) resource. Now, with its new digital frequencies,it is potentially an enormous resource – not just because digital frequencies have much greater capacity, but because digital code is now the common language of all the electronic media. Public broadcasters,like their commercial brethren,can begin to operate on non-broadcast platforms, and make their programming compatible and interactive with online technologies. But they still have to find a way of funding these developments,and it is clear they cannot do it on their own.

So, suppose public broadcasters are prepared to share their new resources with their communities – to say “Here we have all this digital firepower. We cannot make proper use of it on our own, but we have a duty to use it in the public interest, and that interest is the community interest to which we are licensed. We must remain legally responsible for the way in which it’s used (that’s part of the license requirement), but, that said, we p ropose to join an alliance with all the other significant institutions and interests that make up our community to ensure that our frequencies and our expertise are used to maximum advantage. In return, the community must join with us to help fund these developments, and, in doing so, create a resource that will serve all parts of the community, all levels and activities of our society.”

That is a revolutionary change of direction for public broadcasting, but it makes sense for the stations (how else are they going to fund or make use of their capacity?). It also makes sense for the community. Digital television is a powerful adjunct to online technologies; it will be in every home, every workplace, every classroom; it will enable community institutions that have not previously had regular access to television (such as libraries, museums, colleges, health providers and civic organizations) to reach much deeper inside the community.

It is clear from the examples cited in this report that some public broadcasters are beginning to work closely with their communities in this way. They are providing the first models of what is possible, and how best it can be achieved.

Community Networks and Public Access Cable
The PEG channels on local cable systems (reserved for public, educational and government use) and community Internet networks (also known as “civic networks" or “free nets") are two other important local public media outlets. While they have been seriously underfunded and often not utilized to their full potential,some of them have become important forums for communities.

The La Plaza Telecommunity in Taos, New Mexico is an outstanding example. Launched in 1994, it offers local residents high-speed access to the Internet through a T-1 line, as well as wireless connections to local institutions. Thus, it connects Taos to the world at large. But it is also “local-centric” – it has become a virtual library for the whole of northern New Mexico; it has developed impressive content on health and medicine, local culture and many other subjects;and it has enabled local users to create and maintain their own home pages and their own projects.

When the state of Texas authorized $10 million in 1999 for grants to c o m munity networking and technology centers, the Telecommunications Infastructure Fund board put out a request for proposals. “Thousands of public schools, libraries, community colleges, universities and not-for- profit health care clinics have re c e i ved funds to build advanced local networks,” it said . “N ow it’s time to utilize these networks to invo l ve and benefit the wider commu n i t y.”

The Community Media Center in Grand Rapids,Michigan has been built with exactly that idea in mind. It is an alliance of noncommercial media organizations – a radio station,a public access cable channel,a media advocacy institute and an organization that helps non-profits get connected to the Internet. Together, they offer multi-media transmission possibilities,including cable TV, radio and the Internet – all for the purpose of “building community through media.” Among the Center’s projects is one called the TeleDemocracy Project, which brings together not just the Center’s affiliates but a number of public partners,including the office of the City Clerk,to raise awareness of (and participation in) the electoral process.

Grand Rapids,Taos and the Texas initiative are not unusual. The case studies in this report include other good examples of community networks and public access cable channels at work. It is clear that they can play an important role in the development of community alliances. In some places, they may even become the focal points.

Content | Introduction | Opportunity | Agents | Alliance Concept |Case Studies | Conclusions

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