Proposed FCC rule could be a hard hit to public access stations like Vermont's GNAT

Public access stations such as Vermont's Greater Northshire Access Television (GNAT-TV) are facing an uncertain future following a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission that would change the way subscriber fees are collected to fund programming and broadcast services. On Sept 25, the FCC issued proposed rulemaking — Docket 05-311 — which, if adopted, could allow cable operators to reclassify certain in-kind services and subtract their monetary value from the 5 percent that cable companies are required to pay to fund public access stations. 

In-kind costs can include the value of the cable channels themselves as well as any other services provided. However, the FCC ruling fails to set any guidelines or limitations to the values that cable companies can assess. That would likely leave GNAT, an independent non-profit, without about 92 percent of the funding that fuels its annual operating budget of about $434,000, station executive director Tammie Reilly said. "The important point to note is we are not funded by Comcast. We are funded by subscribers of the cable system," Reilly said. Comcast merely collects those funds from customer bills and passes them along to the public access stations, she said.  "The concern is it's a unilateral thing [the cable companies] can do without much oversight," Reilly explained of the potential impact. "If we have no operating revenue, it would make it very difficult for us to provide services to the community and provide the access to the community that's required."