If you go to Media One, it's free, and by all means, scout out your neighborhood cable company.
Cable television has what are called public access channels.
A relic of openness from the 1970s, federal law once required cable companies to offer public access broadcasting on all cable systems. That's one of the regulations Reagan killed along. So, whenever the cable companies wanted to drop public access, all over the country the producers and viewers rose up and the regulators sold out the cable companies. Nothing irks a businessman more than when a bought politician doesn't deliver. It helped in L.A. that some of the regulators were promoting their own public access programs.