PEG Has Blurry Future In Golden State

Communities throughout California will see less public-access programming this year, as cable operators turn support of those channels over to cities and counties under the terms of the 2006 law that put the state in charge of cable franchises. Already, Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles has notified producers that 12 of the city's 13 public, educational and government (PEG) studios will be shut down, leaving only one facility, on the city's East Side, to serve all producers. Charter Communications closed its studio in Long Beach on Jan. 1. San Francisco's access corporation anticipates the loss of a monthly 52-cent per-subscriber fee, collected by Comcast to support access there, when that system opts into state oversight in June 30.