Public Access TV

Public access is a way for citizens to put their own shows on cable TV. Baltimore City currently has one public access channel, Ch. 75. Approximately 115,000 households in Baltimore City—about half the households—get cable TV and Ch. 75.

Public access was made possible by the Cable Act of 1984 that allows municipalities to require that cable TV companies provide channels for public, education and government (PEG) access in return for having access to right-of-ways to run their cables and make lots of money (for a short history of public access in Baltimore, see the timeline). This is currently under threat in the U.S. Congress from the COPE Act.

We at Baltimore Grassroots Media try to provide useful information about public access TV in Baltimore (place your mouse pointer over "Public Access TV" on the menu on the left side of this screen for more options) and assist producers, viewers and advocates.

Residents can submit tapes or DVDs right now and have them played, but public access (the P in PEG) operations in Baltimore are currently run out of the Mayor's Office of Cable and Communications (MOCC), whose main mission is the operation of the government (the G in PEG) channel, Ch. 25. An independent public access organization, to be called Community Media of Baltimore City (CMBC) is being formed, at first by a Board of Incorporators and now by the CMBC board, but is not yet operational.

The first meeting of the initial 13-member CMBC board was Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007 at Sojourner-Douglass College.

For more information on public access television, see the Wikipedia article.