Cable Television Public Access and Local Government

The cable television industry has been expanding at a phenomenal rate within the last twenty years.According to recent projections, it is estimated that as of August 1983, 34.5% of all households with televisions had cable television services.This figure is particularly impressive because according to the same statistical report, cable television is only accessible to 63% of all television households.This penetration of over fifty percent of these households is indicative of the rapid rate of expansion.'Originally, cable television was designed to provide service to remote areas for signal pickup and enhancement.More recently, however, the cable industry has evolved into a multi-faceted source of both entertainment and services.Concurrent with the growth in the number of systems and market penetration, there has been an improvement in technology and the state of the art in the cable industry.Nowhere is this more apparent than in the increase in channel capacity available to subscribers.Many of the initial systems were built with an extremely limited channel capacity (some were capable of carrying only three channels).'On the other hand, the more recent cable systems are being built with a channel capacity of 104 channels or greater.3 The increased technology, state of the art and cable capacity affords a community the opportunity for diversified programming which will address the public interest and concerns of the community which the cable system serves.Public access is the production and distribution of programming by the public, municipal agencies, institutions and similar organi-Deputy City Attorney, Miami, Florida.