Philadelphia Community Access Coalition
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MS. SPIVEK: Hello. My name is Roberta Spivek. I was a founder of the Philadelphia Women's Cable Coalition, one of many community organizations which organized in the earlier phase, in 1982, to try to get public access cable in this city. I'd like to speak on behalf of public access cable both as a means of empowering women and countering our historic and continuing exclusion from the mass media, and on behalf hundreds of Philadelphia citizens who are disenfranchised by having our voices disregarded in the earlier cable franchising process.

I personally spent hundreds of hours organizing to get a woman's channel and other women's interests represented in Philadelphia public access cable. And the City Council and Mayor and cable companies have broken their promises to me and to hundreds of other citizens of this city.

So I thank you very much for having these hearings today. And we look forward to having this finally resolved.

Philadelphia women began organizing in the fall of 1982 in response to the cable franchising process in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Women's Cable Coalition was endorsed by 40 women's organizations, including the Girl Scouts of Greater Philadelphia, the YWCA, the Lutheran Settlement Women's House, the Black Women's Educational Alliance, the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women, and many other organizations representing a diversity of women's voices and organizations in this city.

We ask the cable bidders in this city to make a clear commitment to women's access and programming where they can provide a model of representation and access around the country. We all know what's happened to that model.

Philadelphia women spent hundreds of hours working to ensure that our voices would be heard in the cable franchising processes. We reviewed each franchise proposal, we met with each of the cable companies, we testified several times before City Council, we organized a Positive Visions Conference on Women and Cable, including a woman's video conference, and we endorsed cable companies to win the franchises in three of the four areas. In Area 1, we didn't endorse anybody.

In our April 1, 1983 testimony to City Council, we supported interconnected women's channels in each of the four areas, satellite and local origination programming geared to women, especially programming that would counter stereotypes of women in the mass media. Public access programming by Philadelphia women's organizations, we applauded Comcast's commitment to access programming and Comcast's commitment to supporting the training of women by women trainers.

I'd like to just mention some of the promises that the four cable bidders made on public access at that time. I have copies.

Wallens (ph.) Cable promised three public access studios, a mobile training unit, five access channels under the public access corporation control;

Greater Philadelphia promised four neighborhood studios, five channels under public access corporation control, and fifteen session training courses;

Wade promised four studios, basic and advanced training, $10,000 a year to community organizations to produce programming;

Comcast promised access provisions based on citywide proposals, public access control of theme channels, and a contract with the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association to provide training.

None of these promises have been met. I don't know why, I don't know what's happened to the money. All that we heard was corruption. I challenge the Inquirer, the Philadelphia Weekly, and the other media to do some serious investigative reporting as to what's happened to that money and to why these provisions were not met.

I'd just like to speak briefly to the issue of pornography. And Philadelphia Women's Cable Coalition struggled with this issue. We do not advocate censorship of cable programming; however, we were very concerned about the Playboy Channel coming into our city and the potential for cable to make images of women in the mass media even worse.

And in the 15 years that have elapsed since we became involved in this, I think we can all agree that images of women in media have gotten much worse. There are now many more vehicles for sexist programming -- over the Internet, over cable, over all kinds of channels.

However, because we did not want to take a negative stance and endorse censorship, we requested that financial support be provided by the franchise holders to produce programming that would help to counter the negative impact of pornographic images. We requested financial support for a woman's channel, for promotion of that channel on all local cable channels, and for production and airing of public service announcements to be produced by Women Organized Against Rape and other local groups, to be aired on prime viewing hours, to educate the public about issues of gentrification and violence against women, and other resources available in Philadelphia to counter such violence.

I finally would just like to say that as a citizen who moved here in 1982 from Berkley, California, which is a city that's very well organized, that has a lot of activism, I feel personally very disenfranchised. This was my first involvement in a local issue, and there were many citizens that got involved in this issue.

We all know that photo participation is declining in this city and nationwide, and many Americans feel disenfranchised. When citizens get together to lobby their politicians to organizing groups to testify, I think we have a right to be taken seriously and to expect that when legislation is passed, it will be enacted; when ordinances are adopted, they will be enacted. And I'd like to know why this wasn't enacted.

And I agree with my colleague here that I hope it doesn't have to take litigation and voter anger to get public access television in Philadelphia.

Thank you.

COUNCILMAN ORTIZ: Thank you.

(Applause.)

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Please identify yourself go ahead we welcome you.

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