Three times a week, Straight From Da Streets airs on Pinellas County's public access station. And each time the half-hour program airs, producer A.J. Ali maintains, it plants a seed, helping some would-be hustler to turn around his or her life.
Half roundtable, half youth talent show, Straight From Da Streets aims to educate youngsters out of drug dealing and violence. Through the show youngsters can learn to make money in legitimate ways. "From the courtroom to the boardroom," says Ali, who is also the CEO of Young Entrepreneurs.
City Councilman Bill Foster has appeared on the show, along with civic activists and Southside residents who have been victims of gun violence. Several up-and-coming rappers, dancers and singers have also performed. But most importantly, Ali says, his show has given a voice to a community not often represented in the media.
"It's more than just a TV program," he says.
But all that could end in September when the Pinellas Board of County Commissioners votes on a proposed budget that will slash all funds for Access Pinellas and effectively close the building on Sept. 30. Two employees will be laid off, the other two moved to another city department.
"How many people we can reach in person is nothing compared to how many people we can reach on TV," Ali says. "If we can't be elevated to some level of notoriety then our message will be lost in the sauce."
Station manager Lisa Inserra says that her producers, "almost without exception," get lots of phone calls and feedback from people watching their shows. And the programs' value isn't just a question of numbers, she adds.
"What's important are the community voices in the media."
Marcia Crawley, director of communications for Pinellas County, says under a mandated 15 percent reduction in her department she had no choice but to recommend cutting Access Pinellas' $331,930 budget. Access Pinellas, she argues, is a low priority, especially in the age of YouTube and Google video.
"There are a variety of ways for people to make TV programs and to put it on the Internet for a voice that reaches a global landscape," she says.
But public access television supporters say Access Pinellas — which features 100 shows produced by 1,000 volunteers using city-owned equipment — is a forum that cannot easily be replaced by cyberspace.
"People say there's YouTube and there's Google. … that's true, but it's not a local perspective," says Inserra. "The Internet does not bind a community together; public access does."
Some in the public access realm, like Louise Thompson of Tampa Bay Community Network (Hillsborough County's public access station), wonder aloud why the Internet is good enough for the citizens' channel but not for the government channel, which receives nearly twice the funding from the county.
"The Internet is not as convenient for people as TV is," she says. "The public deserves as many opportunities as possible, not just the Internet."
Many producers, like Candi Jovan of Democracy for America, contend it's a free-speech issue.
"If you just have the government channel, they can control whatever goes out there," she says.
Crawley maintains the decision was purely budgetary. "We did not approach the cuts in a piecemeal way to [end] one or two television shows," she says.
This is the second blow dealt to public access this year. In June, the state legislature passed a bill that eliminated the cable franchise fees that paid for public, educational and government channels. Even without the budget cut worries, Access Pinellas could face limited funding when the current agreements with Bright House and Knology expire in 2012. Until then, the government channel, Pinellas 18, will receive the nearly $400,000 annually in cable franchise fees.
"The cable subscribers should be enraged because they are paying for these services under the franchise agreements," Thompson says. "They're paying for it and deserve for it to continue."
Ali says if the budget cuts go through, Straight From Da Streets will continue in some form, but he worries the children he's targeting — many from poor households without a computer —will not be reached.
"This is going to be a great loss," he says, "especially for this community right here in South St. Pete."
Pinellas County commissioners will take public input at budget hearings on Sept. 4 and 18. For more information on Access Pinellas, visit accesspinellas.org. Straight From Da Streets airs Tues. 12 p.m., Wed. 6:30 p.m. and Sat. 8:30 p.m.
Hillsborough County's public access network, TBCN, is also endangered by budget cuts. See blurbex.com for further details.
This article appears in Jul 25-31, 2007.