Producers and viewers The city of Albuquerque is recommending to the city council that operation of the public access/free

speech channels 27 and 26 pass from quote unquote to a marketing/ public relations firm called upublic. How will this affect free speech and public access? This move will end free speech and public access on these stations. Quote- unquote has operated these stations for 30 years. It is a 501 c 3 non profit run by a community based board of directors. It provides access without censorship to individual community producers. uPublic is hardly public. It is a privately owned marketing and public relations firm whose owners also own affiliated for profit businesses. It has no experience in operating a TV station. Its claimed 501 c3 status is a lie having been revoked by the IRS prior to their submission of their proposal to take over the stations. It is only accountable to its private owners, the city of Albuquerque and the sponsors of their business and their proposed programs. Yes, they will have sponsors and advertising just like any commercial TV station. It claims to be responsive to the public by seeking votes on programs, elevating the popular and moving or removing the least popular shows. The uPublic private owners will alone decide content, themes and what gets on the air. They will censor anything they want to for any reason without explanation or appeal. Quote- unquote provides access to local people to present whatever they wish (subject to federal and state laws). Individuals for $ 65 dollar (or down to zero for the poor) get instruction on how to produce. Individual producers host, select topics, music, themes content guests etc. These stations presently function as an electronic soap box for free speech accessible to the entire community through quote-unquotes management. Upublic will limit local shows to independent film producers, and shows hosted by uPublic staff; not the people. If a person wants to produce their own show they will have to pay all production costs, easily amounting to hundreds or thousands of dollars per show. This will limit public access to those with money. Upublic will substitute entertainment for information and marketing for creativity. The present local shows of music, news, information about health, and religion will be forced out because of cost, content, or so called popularity. Upublic previously received the contract to operate the education channel. Since they have no experience in operating a TV station they have failed to produce anything on the air. They intend to combine their as yet unprepared education productions

with the free speech/public access stations. They will use the success of quoteunquote to mask their own failure in education TV production. In the process, they will reduce public access because they will take airtime for so called education programming, from public access. This will further dilute free speech. The day may come when reruns of childrens television shows will replace Democracy Now live at 9:00 AM To top it all off, there bid was $117000 (over 40%) higher than quoteunquotes bid. The money comes not from the city but from money collected by Comcast from its subscribers which is administered by the city for public access / free speech. What is to be done? The city employees decided to make this change. The mayors office believes that anyone running the station is all that is needed for public access and free speech. They are both wrong. The city council must decide to accept or reject this new contract. City councilors are very busy. They dont know about these issues. They need to be told about this change and why it is wrong for Albuquerque. Producers and viewers, subscribers to Comcast and those who believe in free speech and public access need to contact their councilors. They need to be told that this change is wrong. They need to understand that all the religious shows, news shows, public information, and otherwise unheard voices of real people will be cancelled or censored. They need to be urged to support free speech and public access by denying the contract to uPublic and returning it to quote unquote instead. This is not a matter of politics. All city councilors support the idea of free speech and public access. If they understand the impact of this change they will vote with the people. Quote-unquote has no political agenda. It welcomes all political and information points of view provided live with audience call in and comment. Urgent action is required. Call and ask your friends and co workers to call the council. You can call 311 to get the name and access to your city councilor. This may come up before council at any time, so time is off the essence. Act now to save public access/free speech TV.