Pulling Plug on Public Access TV?

Maybe his next public access television show will be titled “Saying Goodbye to Public Access TV.”

David Thompson has certainly become an unwitting expert on that subject as he struggles to launch his own program on Los Angeles’ public access TV--that free-wheeling bunch of cable channels whose shows range from the weird to the wild.

Problem is, some of those shows have become too wild. And after 15 years of guaranteeing TV access to anyone who wants to put on a show, city officials and cable company executives may be on the verge of pulling the plug on every show.

Thompson, 65, of Silver Lake, has been trying for nearly a year to stage his own public access show aimed at recovering drug addicts.

But the cable company he deals with--like others around the city of Los Angeles--has quietly started charging a “studio fee” to do-it-yourself producers that Thompson says he cannot afford.

At the same time, a citywide “public access” channel carried on all 14 of Los Angeles’ cable systems has dropped all of its public access programming in response to criticism that some of the shows were too risque.

Cable officials, in the meantime, are preparing to begin the renegotiation of their city franchise contracts, this time perhaps omitting the requirement that they offer public access programming.

They suggest that the need for such a service is ebbing thanks to home computers, the Internet and other new technologies that offer free speech opportunities unheard of in 1984, when Los Angeles began demanding public access channels as a condition of awarding exclusive cable TV franchises.

That’s bad news to Thompson, who moved from San Diego to Hollywood 11 months ago in hopes of creating a show called “Solutions to Drug and Alcohol Problems” to be regularly shown on Los Angeles’ cable systems.

A retired former public health counselor who describes himself as a recovering drug addict, Thompson--who goes by the stage name “Sky Knight”--was looking for a bigger audience.

In Los Angeles, though, Thompson discovered that the public access studio he wanted to use was imposing a $35 fee for producers who needed a studio crew to videotape public access shows.

Thompson protested that the fee slammed the television door shut for him. “I live on $678 a month in Social Security. By the time I pay the utilities, phone, food and a bus pass, it’s gone,” he said.

He discovered that the $35 fee was legal when he protested to the city’s Information Technology Agency, the organization that oversees cable television franchises. But when he perused the agency’s cable company franchise agreements, he noticed that the companies were required to offer two public access channels, not just one.

The second channel was supposed to be citywide--one managed by a nonprofit corporation and carried simultaneously on the same channel over all 14 cable systems, according to the franchise contracts.

But it turns out that the nonprofit corporation--whose $375,000 annual budget is financed almost entirely by the city--eliminated public access programming Jan. 1 on its cross-town “cable interconnect” Channel 36.

Up until then, the channel had offered a mixture of public access and educational programming. But some of its shows--particularly one featuring interviews with porn stars--drew criticism from some city officials.

“We went all educational--we had to to save the channel. And that’s the truth,” said Dyke Redmond, director of the Los Angeles Cable Television Access Corp.

Raunchy public access shows have prompted plenty of viewer gripes, local cable executives confirm.

Century Communications, which serves west Los Angeles, the Eagle Rock area and parts of the San Fernando Valley, moved its public access programming from Channel 3 to the more isolated Channel 77, said Bill Rosendahl, senior vice president of operations.

Time Warner Cable in the western San Fernando Valley has dealt with viewer complaints by shifting adult-themed public access programming to the late hours, said Alan Popkin, the company’s director of production.

New franchise agreements the city will begin negotiating Aug. 1 with the five cable companies that run the city’s 14 systems could put an end to those types of programming headaches.

Federal law doesn’t require that cable companies offer public access channels, Ed Perez, an assistant city attorney who works with the Information Technology Agency, said Wednesday. “It’s never been mandatory. It’s something that can be negotiated.”

Los Angeles officials’ skittishness over X-rated programs on the citywide Channel 36 has fueled speculation that the city won’t force such programming on cable operators when franchises are renegotiated.

“The environment is shifting,” said Perry Parks, a vice president of Media One. “Public access has become a challenge.”

Parks and others predicted that the Internet--with its coming high-speed access, video-streaming and growing penetration of Los Angeles homes--will replace cable public access as the public’s soap box.

All of which doesn’t present a pretty picture to David Thompson.

“I don’t have access to the Internet,” he said Wednesday. “I have access to public access.”