happy chinese new year indeed we're here at the community media center and i've always been curious what is a community media center it probably has a different meaning in every different community but i would say in the field that we're in community access television it typically means that's where your studio is located and your playback facilities it's a it's a place the community can come in produce content and gather content and then distribute it so in our case it's a studio connection with public access television are the twenty one in the same are they cousins what's the relationship i would say public access television is a part of the work that is done by community media centers  but the term public access television i'd say more specifically means community members coming in members of the public and having their own voices heard directly and content that they produce and community media might be also include government agencies education institutions organizational acts and organizations using the facility for public access it can also include nonprofit organizations and other things but once you get into government agencies or education institutions those are typically described as education access and government access so the whole realm of community media is the realm as we look at it courses radio and other aspects of community media but in community media in the sense of cable access and community media centers generally would refer to all three of those government education and public access ok and i have heard the acronym peg public education government access our most media centers are public access stations do they have all  to do probably not although many do and it's considered a best practice to blend the three because you might be missing out on things that are sort of in between those definitions like if i do  a documentary and i'm using all clips from government meetings and i want to advocate for a position that's not government access that's more like public access but it wouldn't exist if you didn't have the government access creating that original raw material to work twelve are we don't call them public access we call it community access because we don't like the narrow we don't like to narrow the definition that way but essentially we do program the channels according to those categories have another question how long has public access television been around and how did originate back in the day oh you know you're going to meet some people in sacramento who are part of the origins early forms of access already happening i happened to them in a little town in northern virginia called reston virginia and they had a cable system there and they were starting already to do local origination and then that the idea of being sold without answering a question directly i'd say it came with the beginning of cable television ok because cable television would need the local government to allow it them to run wires through everybody's across the streets and under conduits and poles and all that so the industry offered to communities hey we could be your local television we can give you channels for your own community to have a voice we can pay for a media center so your community has access to a studio and equipment that they need and it was all part of an industry trying to get access to the rights of way and permission from local governments to build the systems and so really it goes back to the roots of cable television it's from the beginning of the cable education and government access not so much education and education actually c r had a chat had access to a channel that had happened before that but they had not done well independently and they were well structured  two thousand and six was the year that access what was formally created well could you tell us where and when a person could come to the community media center if they want to check it out oh  sure media center is based at the rico high school campus so it's in eureka and it's right on the campus but it's open sometimes when the school is closed so you if you know where your eco high school is it's near it's at the corner of norte is the main building and if you come around the del norte side all the way to the far end of the parking lot you'll see our signs and you come around the back and that's where the access center is we're open from tuesday through friday from noon until eight pm and then every nd saturday from ten to six well thank you very much that was a great introduction to our local community media center