Can Public Access Television Survive the Telecom Revolution?

Public access channels on Cable TV provide access to city council meetings and other official events, and to anyone else who can figure out how to produce a program. They were a quid pro quo in the days when cities had the power to grant monopoly franchises to cable operators. Now the state performs that function and, in the City of Los Angeles, Time Warner Cable has decided to eliminate all four public access channels. We get several perspectives from public policy analysts, telecommunications officials and current and former public access hosts, including City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.