The rise in so-called cord cutters — customers who have switched from traditional paid TV plans to online streaming platforms — has decimated revenues to local public, educational and government access stations, which rely on fees levied on cable subscriptions to fund their stations, operators said.
Without an expansion of those fees, station operators told lawmakers Tuesday that they may be forced to shut their doors.
“We’re done,” warned Joanie Walker, the executive director of Nutmeg TV in Farmington. “I can have the best equipment here, but the lights won’t be on and the doors will be locked because we’re bleeding.”
A bill before the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee would task the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority with establishing a new fee on cable, internet and video streaming services to ensure continued funding for public-access television.
Yet, despite the showing of support for public-access TV during a hearing on Tuesday, the legislation has drawn the opposition of a host of industry groups representing cable and internet companies, satellite providers and streaming platforms, who said those fees would simply be passed on to their customers.
In testimony submitted to the committee, those groups argued that even a $5 annual fee to fund public-access TV could quickly pile up for customers who subscribe to multiple streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ or Hulu.
They argued that there is no effective way to limit the fee to a single charge per household, as the companies do not share their customer lists with each other.
“This bill is overreaching and imposes duplicative taxes on your constituents who may subscribe to video streaming services, especially the many state residents who are already paying a fee toward community access programming through their cable television subscription,” said Angela Miele, a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association.
Major internet service providers, including Frontier, Optimum and Verizon, also argued in written testimony submitted to the committee that public-access stations lacked sufficient demand for their programs to justify the broadly-levied fee.
“To the extent Community Access providers are impacted by viewership changes, like all video providers, they must adapt,” said Frontier Vice President Allison Ellis. “Adding new taxes to streaming customers is not the answer, it penalizes customers who have adopted new technologies and does not incentivize the evolution of services.”
Proponents of public-access television, which included other nonprofits and local advocacy groups that lent their support to the stations, argued that the fees amount to pennies per month to ensure access to government meetings, community news and a host of programming for non-English speakers.
Some also argued that the largest internet and streaming services earn billions in annual revenues, and can afford to pay the fees without passing the costs along to customers.
John Ecay, the executive director for Sound View Community TV in Stratford, said his station has an “active” online viewership on its free website, despite a drop in cable fees that forced the station to reduce its staff in half to three full-time employees.
“I very much doubt subscribers are cutting the cord due to the 16 cents per week, or two to three cents a day, that they are paying for public access,” Ecay said.
The committee did not take action on the bill Tuesday following the lengthy debate.
The co-chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee, state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, suggested Tuesday that lawmakers will likely have to refine their efforts to secure funding for public-access television before moving forward with legislation.
“I’d like to get a bill done,” Needleman said. “There are a lot of people telling us the loss we’re facing by losing this [public-access television], but the devil’s in the details.”
There were forty public-access television stations operating in Connecticut as of 2017, according to a list compiled by PURA.
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