As California reports the loss of 70 community TV channels due to the state's passage of state franchising legislation in 2006, one new center in the Central Valley is coming to life.

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The long-deferred dream of a public access channel on Fresno cable TV is on the cusp of reality thanks to stepped-up efforts by the Community Media Access Collaborative.

The group recently hired an executive director and leased the second floor of the Fresno Met building in the city’s downtown for a production studio. Darden Architects of Fresno got the contract to design the space, while CMAC officials are choosing what recording and broadcast equipment to buy before finalizing renovation plans.

The nonprofit’s goal is to have a state-of-the-art studio ready by the end of June, said Jerry Lee, executive director of CMAC and former vice president of programming and partnerships for Valley PBS.

“I have my fingers crossed,” he said, noting that CMAC already has production sites at Fresno City Hall and the Fresno County Office of Education. “We’re planning on adding a fourth one in Clovis. We have a good location picked out, but that is not finalized yet.”

Local cable providers Comcast and AT&T U-verse are committed to providing “public, education and government,” or PEG broadcast outlets, and the current city government and county education channels fit the bill for the latter two. Yet a public access channel has lagged for subscribers since consolidation shifted the cable TV market around through the years.

“In the early ’80s, there was public access on Continental Cablevision, probably one of the first providers that was in Fresno,” said Mike Rhodes, a member of CMAC and a longtime backer of local public access.

He said different companies acquired that firm, which ultimately was bought in 1999 by AT&T. Along the way, Rhodes said the public access channel “got lost in the shuffle. It really shouldn’t have happened. I wasn’t watching the bouncing ball.”

Rhodes said the latest effort to bring public access back to Fresno County has been going on since about 2000, when a short-lived program by a progressive political activist called “The Right Stuff from the Left” ran for about 10 weeks.

“He had to get it on commercial stations and pay for the time, about $300 or $400 a week,” Rhodes said. “He raised money, but it became unsustainable. Everyone thought, ‘Too bad.’

“With the cost of production and airtime, it really limits people’s free speech. It’s important that people have a voice. I started looking around at what other communities do and found that most places had a public access channel.”

Eventually that interest led to the formation of CMAC and talks with county staff on funding it through cable company revenue. Lee said the cities of Fresno and Clovis collect 1% of gross revenue from Comcast cable TV business for an account that funnels to CMAC, now holding about $1.4 million.

“A lot of that will vanish very soon,” Lee said. He said the first year’s rent for the Fresno Met space is $300,000, while building the studio and equipping it for production and broadcast is estimated to cost $700,000 to $800,000.

Another CMAC revenue source is producing programs for the city’s education and government channels, he noted.

Marty Dietz, an architect and principal with Darden Architects, said a studio with lights above needs about a story and a half, hence why CMAC chose the second floor of the Fresno Met building, the former home of the Fresno Bee. “The original space there was kind of that grand entry lobby for the Bee,” he said.

An acoustics engineer is part of the design mix, as well as mechanical and electrical engineers. They could finalize the plan within a couple weeks, then solicit a building permit from the county and put out bids for contractors.

“I don’t think the renovation will be that expensive,” Dietz said. “Probably under $400,000.”

Lee said a key consideration is HVAC, or heating, ventilating, and air conditioning, to keep the equipment cool. On the other hand, he said technology has evolved to where overhead studio lights can be LED or fluorescent rather than arc or incandescent lights that use more power and give off more heat.

“The television industry, just like the IT industry, is changing very rapidly,” he said.

High-definition cameras will be installed, and Lee envisions a mobile production facility someday that high school and college students can take on the road to do location shooting. Discussions are taking place with local schools to offer training for students, but Lee said he would wait to share the details while they are being sorted out.

Rhodes said students might want to record a soccer match their school is involved in, or create a cooking show or produce a tutorial on how to do claymation.

“People might want to do a one-time thing, others might do a weekly show,” he said. “I can see community groups using the equipment, like Central California Legal Services. They might do a series on tenants’ rights.”

Not all of the public that could utilize the public access channel is socially benevolent, though. Still, Rhodes insisted there would be no content censorship on the channel.

“If there is someone with the American Nazi Party who wants to put something on the air, they have the same right to free speech as everyone else,” he said. “That’s just the cost of having free speech. There are legal limits; there are slander laws. You can’t say, ‘(Police Chief) Jerry Dyer stole my car.’”

People will need to get certified to operate the studio equipment, Rhodes said. Yet there is already content about that could be aired while newbies are getting trained and developing their storytelling strategies. Lee said churches have programs ready to go, and independent filmmakers have DVDs just itching to find an audience.  

“I’m going to be the happiest guy when the first hammer strikes inside the second floor of that building,” Lee said of the long road to making public access a reality. “When we throw the switch and that studio comes to life, and we’re providing content to Comcast and AT&T U-verse, we’re going to feel like we’re floating on air. A dream come true.”