Among the hundreds of cable channels available to local viewers, a few gems remain relatively unknown. If you're a Bright House Cable customer in Farmington, Farmington Hills or Novi, you'll find public access television on Channel 12, educational programs on Channel 10 and government programs on Channels 8 and 15.

Administered by the Southwestern Oakland Cable Commission, or SWOCC, these "PEG" (an acronym from the words public, education and government) channels provide residents with information about their communities and opportunities to have their voices heard. The educational channel is handled by Farmington Public Schools, and SWOCC oversees public access and government programming. 

The PEG channels are funded through fees charged by the cable company. Each city receives credits based on the number of cable subscribers within its borders. The fees can be used to produce meeting broadcasts and other programs. Representatives from the three cities serve on a governing board.

Recently, SWOCC lost one-third of its $660,000 annual budget. Since then, the board and Executive Director Caren Collins have been trying to come up with creative ways to find and fund programming. But a number of difficult "painful but necessary" cuts have been made, said Jerry Ellis, Farmington Hills mayor and chairman of the SWOCC board.  

Fortunately, these cuts have been all but seamless to viewers, thanks to the efforts of SWOCC’s staff.

“We’ve been working smarter and more efficient,” Collins said. “Last summer, we had an efficiency consultant analyze everything. Some of the stuff we did to save money include cutting back on tapes and relying more on technology.”

One of the ways SWOCC adjusted has been by providing Video on Demand on its website. “That made the video and programming available to people who don’t have cable and at the viewer's convenience, rather than ours,” explained Collins. 

Club aims to preserve public access

Public access, an avenue for residents to produce their own programs, was most affected by budget cuts. The popularity of home-grown Web videos, along with the lifting of a mandatory requirement for cable operators to provide public-access channels, made it difficult for SWOCC to sustain the service, Collins said.

“Unfortunately, public access is disappearing in many communities,” she said. “It has a very limited audience, but it is absolutely a good thing. I believe 100 percent in public access. Those productions are competing with productions that cost millions of dollars.”

The survival of SWOCC's public-access channel is largely due to its state-of-the-art studio and equipment. “Some communities were not set up like us," Collins said. "They did not have their own studio and relied on cable operators to provide a location."

SWOCC also has a core group of volunteers who want to make sure public access survives.

“Because of the downturn in the economy, we wanted to establish a Public Access Club—independent of SWOCC—to do fundraising,” said Farmington resident Brian Golden, a volunteer who came up with the idea to establish a nonprofit organization. The club will offer people classes to learn how create programming and let them use the SWOCC facility for a nominal fee.  

The best part, he said, is that the club, which will be staffed by volunteers, will be open to video enthusiasts in all cities, not just Farmington, Farmington Hills and Novi.

“The club won’t have restrictions to people who live and work in adjoining cities,” Golden said. “There are no formal training classes in this area, unless you go to Oakland Community College and take courses there.”  

The classes will teach people how to produce programming, do webcasting and submit videos to YouTube and other video websites. While exact fees have not yet been established, Golden expects classes to cost between $20 and $60.  

“The hope is that it will draw a lot of attention from surrounding areas,” Golden said. “People can learn it as a hobby or as another income stream. … The intention is not a money-making venture, but an outlet for people who live in the community to learn an alternate trade and pay a little money for this.”

Any money raised will go directly to SWOCC public acceess, he added.

“The Public Access Club—all of these ideas—are only as good as the people who are behind them,” said Ellis. “If anybody can make it work, Brian (Golden) will make it work.” 

SWOCC also hopes to generate revenue by taking over management of cable access in West Bloomfield. A bid has been placed, but nothing has been decided yet.  

In the meantime, it is going to be up to you, the viewers, to pause your channel surfing for longer than a moment and really admire what your local access channels are all about and to appreciate the talent and information behind them.

To get involved in the new Public Access Club, contact Golden at bgolden@pastways.info or 248-701-8112.