SF Public Access TV To Be Taken Over by Non-Elderlies

A new piece by Lauren Smiley in SF Weekly chronicles the demise/transitioning of our local public access TV org, Access SF. The upshot is that Comcast doesn't cover operating expenses anymore, and the City can only pony up a fraction of what the station has been used to running on, providing us with such programs as "If the Christ Returned Today" (tonight at 7 p.m.), "Atheist Viewpoint," (today at 12:30 p.m.), "Tranny Talk TV," "Ace in Your Face," and our favorite nudist 9/11 conspiracy discussion group, "My Naked Truth." The producers of many of these shows are, shall we say, of a generation for whom YouTube is still a confusing and frightening world of flashes and buttons. They are currently in a bit of an uproar over a proposal by the kids at BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition) to take over and run the city's two public access channels on a YouTube/Current TV model, in which everyone shoots and edits their shit on their own equipment, uploads it to a site, and a minimal staff keeps the channel schedules rolling.

While the idea makes perfect sense to us -- and is based on a successful model taken up by Denver public access -- those who have been producing these shows since the early 90s, like 53-year-old roller-skate daddy, David Miles Jr. of "Skatin' Place," aren't comfortable with the idea of producing their shows without the hand-holding of Access SF's current full-time studio staff.