Council cuts MediaSource budget
The Chronicle's Matt Stiles gets us up to speed on yesterday's Council vote to cut funding to Houston MediaSource:
The City Council today extended the contract with the organization that runs Houston's cable public-access channel and gave it some extra money for equipment upgrades, but cut its budget by a third.
The action came a year after profanity and nudity on the public-access channel sparked controversy. Voting against the renewed contract with non-profit Houston MediaSource were Council members Addie Wiseman, who first complained last year about the channel's content, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Michael Berry.
City officials insisted that the budget cut isn't related to the few examples of racy programming that aired last summer, among the hours of religious, community and political shows produced by the public for the channel. They said they plan similar spending cuts for Municipal Channel, which airs council meetings and other official programs.
[snip]
A little-known accounting move in the late 1990s played a key role in the decision, say city officials, who told the council they discovered in December that the channels had been getting more money than they were entitled to under franchise agreements with cable companies.
[snip]
Some at MediaSource, which spent its reserve funds and lost its executive director because of the programming scrutiny last year, are bracing for staffing cuts and worrying that they won't be able to serve the public effectively with less money.
In the minds of at least three councilmembers, the channel's past "service" to the public is the issue.
In a later story, Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck argues in favor of using the spending cuts to hire more police officers. That sounds like a winner!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/08/06 09:51 PM | Houston Media | Print | Comments (0)
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