City should cough up cash for CAN TV RCN's financial straits underscore the need to reshuffle cable access funding

Chicago Journal
Published August 12, 2004
[Our Views]

The news that the local RCN cable subsidiary has joined its New Jersey parent company in a bankruptcy reorganization is yet another reason that the City Council should throw out the current funding formula for CAN TV and fund the cable access station itself. Under the current setup, CAN TV depends on fees from cable franchising arrangements to survive, and needs payments from at least two companies in each cable area to make a reasonable go of it.

Two years after the first round of hemming and hawing over payments, RCN now owes the cable access station $1.275 million in both franchising fees and capital improvements for 2003 and 2004. At the heart of the problem is that RCN, despite holding franchising rights in much of the city has concentrated its efforts on the north lakefront, the only area where it is competitive with ComCast. Meanwhile, RCN, while signing on to provide cable service in several other cities since coming to Chicago in 2000, has failed to provide much in the way of service in the rest of the city save for 1,400 subscribers in Presidential Towers.

It's obvious that the telecommunications giant has overextended itself, and has neither the time nor the inclination to set its Chicago affairs in order. And that's why an ordinance that would instead send $2.5 million of the cable franchising fees the city receives every year directly to CAN TV desperately needs to pass. 50th Ward Alderman Bernard Stone has championed the proposal and moved it through the city's Finance Committee; a full vote before the City Council is expected Sept. 1.

RCN's continued unwillingness to both aggressively compete with ComCast and pay up on its obligations in its franchising areas has endangered 40 percent of the public access station's yearly budget. CAN TV executive director Barbara Popovic has already made a series of staff cuts of the past two years to stay afloat, leaving little room for another round of belt tightening.

CAN TV one of the only ways the average Chicagoan can get their voice heard on broadcast television, shouldn't have to depend on the vagaries of the cable market to survive. And it's up to the City Council to provide a more stable source of funding before the lights go out at CAN TV.

back to top