Documetary aims for Access TV survival

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In it’s almost four decades in Austin, access television has seen an estimated 10,000 people come and go at its studio. Some 2,000 hours of their work has been preserved. Now, some of the most memorable of those moments are about to find their way into a new documentary film.

The film

“ Access This ,” currently in production, will look back over the past forty years for the gems, ranging from the silly to the seductive to the super-serious, that poked and prodded the community at large.

Everyone likes to talk about Austin, 'Keep Austin Weird,’” said Linda Litowsky, executive director of channelAustin , the current iteration of access TV here. “We absolutely believe we are the Mother Ship; we are the home of that.”

With programming ranging from campy romps to serious debate to how-to shows and hard edged news, access TV was born when cable came to Austin.

“We do have the oldest continually operating public access channel in the world, Channel 10. They went on the air in 1973 and it has always been on the air with public access,” Litowsky said.

“But if we didn't have that, then we would be bombarded with commercialism and mainstream media. This is the one place that anyone can go and see things that they cannot find anywhere else.”

The change

For years, public access was funded from the proceeds of bills paid by cable customers. But a 2005 state law ended that practice and similar laws spread to other states around the country.

“Sixty access centers have shut down in California,” Litowsky said. “We no longer receive subscriber fees as our operational funds. We've had a 30 percent cutback and we may not be around (in the future).

So channelAustin is producing the documentary film, in part for the fun of celebrating an important birthday. There is, though, much more at stake.

“This documentary is absolutely aimed at trying to survive,” the director said. “The situation that we're in now is that we're celebrating our 40th birthday.

“In August, 1973, ACTV, Austin Community Television broadcast or cablecast from Mount Larson for the very first time for an extended period of time.

”And so we're celebrating that as our 40th birthday, but sadly, we may be looking at the demise of public access in Austin.”

The good, the bad and the ugly

Some of the access offerings over the years would likely not be missed. Even Litowsky acknowledges that.

“Just like everyone else in the community,” she said, “I do cringe sometimes at the technical level of some of the content that shows up on the air, but then again, it's every person's right to have a voice. It's every person's right to tell their story. And this is a place that allows everyone to do that.

“And some of the programming stinks, I mean, it does. And I try not to watch too much of it because I don't want people to ask me what I thought of their shows because I don't want to have to say.

“But from someone who has created a very high end cooking show to someone's gospel hour to someone talking about the Kabbalah or 'The Atheist Experience,' which has been on since 1979, almost continuously, starting with Madalyn Murray O'Hair, this is the venue for all of that.

“We have dance; we have culture; we have music. We are what Austin is. When people talk about what makes Austin uniquely Austin, channelAustin does that.”

Perhaps most importantly, the access system created a commercial-free and censorship-free opportunity for individual citizens to speak their minds on television, a medium that would have otherwise been completely unavailable to them.

The reach

“Television was so far out of everyone's reach,” Litowsky said, “that only people that worked in a professional television station could actually work to put things on the air. And it was very expensive to put things on the air.”

So access obtained equipment for shooting, editing and presenting video programs, taught people how to use it and offered the medium through which they could put their creations in front of thousands of eyeballs.

“It's not only launched famous people's careers, like (filmmakers) Richard Linklater or Robert Rodriguez, or even (conservative commentator) Alex Jones, it's also made it possible for the everyday folks, anyone, from any socio-economic group, to have a voice, to tell their story, whether it's a church service that they want to put on the air or it's a cooking show or they want to just talk to their viewership, answer phone calls and get advice or just visit. That's what it's all about.’

Just how many people watch access, however, has never been accurately counted. But Litowsky offers anecdotal evidence.

“Alex Jones,” she said, “has been on public access since the late-90s. In 2006, Lakeway, this nearby community, decided not carry public access any longer on their cable system. And the day that Alex did not show up on the air, we got 200 phone calls within thirty minutes of when his show should air.”

The Web

Also popular is Marie Hejl, who started her own cooking show at