Cable Show Review Plan May Be Altered

A hotly contested guideline proposal for the city’s public access cable channel--already blasted by one opponent as “a denial of free speech”--will “very likely” be modified vastly, according to an official of the local cable advisory board.

Under the proposal, producers of all public access programs would have to submit their shows at least two weeks in advance of broadcast for review by the board. But now it appears that only producers new to the channel would be required to comply with a two-week review clause, and only on their first production, according to Ben Pruett, acting president of the Community Video Advisory Board.

Pruett stressed that submissions would be scrutinized largely for their technical quality, “because (the) product is unknown to us.” The board is scheduled to discuss the guidelines Thursday night.

K. Bradley Hudson, who produces a gay-oriented news program that airs over the public access channel, said Tuesday that he would have “no problem” with the modified proposal. “I can see their need to review new programming,” he said.

Hudson had argued that a two-week review period would render his show useless and said he would sue city officials. He had called the initial proposal “a guise for censorship” and “a denial of free speech.” The city has received letters criticizing the homosexual orientation of Hudson’s program, which is aired through Cablevision of Orange.