Contrary to frequent jabs about its slow pace and amateurish production quality, a survey of 410 Arlington customers by MediaOne shows a quite reasonable demand. Seventy-four percent have watched the channel at least once, fourteen percent watch several times a month, and 3.4 percent watch every day. Think for a minute about that 3.4 percent. It looks like a small number, but these are probably the community leaders of Arlington. In short, public access television plays a role that cannot be determined by simply comparing its viewership to other channels.
Public access is where it can be rebuilt.
Seeing elected officials at work, local sports, and local arts, or even footage of the annual Town Day keeps alive everything that we value about our community. Other communities have found a more robust solution to the funding problem, one that can better survive competition. Funds from all competitors go to independent non-profits, who can then market their programs to any provider. As television goes digital, there will be more and more distribution opportunities. Once tied totally to the largesse of a single cable provider, public access stations may find distribution as easy as setting up a PC to be an Internet server.