List of public-access TV stations in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

that is served by one or more cable TV companies has the right to collect a Cable television franchise fee

Cable television franchise fee

A cable television franchise fee in the United States, the stems from a community's basic right to charge for use of the property it owns. The cable television franchise fees represent part of the compensation a community receives in exchange for the cable operator's occupation and the right-of-way...

, based on the Cable Communications Act of 1984 Section 622, from those cable companies to fund a Public-access television

Public-access television

Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...

cable TV channel. In addition, the cable television companies must make Public, educational, and government access

Public, educational, and government access

Public, educational, and government access television, refers to three different cable television specialty channels...

(PEG) channels available for the Public-access organization to distribute the locally originated

Local programming

The term Local Programme, Local Programming, Local Content or Local Television refers to a television programme made by a television station or independent television producer for broadcast only within the station's transmission area or television market...

Nonprofit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

's programming produced by or made available to the organization

Organization

An organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...

.

This list was initiated based on a list of Public-access stations listed by Alliance for Community Media

Alliance for Community Media

The Alliance for Community Media , previously known as the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers , is an advocacy and lobbying organization in the United States in support of Public, educational, and government access cable tv channels...

(ACM), with some defunct organizations removed. The distribution of organizations here does not always correlate to population; for example, although California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

has the most stations listed, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

and Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

each have more stations than New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

.

Charter Type:
P = Public-access television

Public-access television

Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...

E = Educational-access television

Distance education

Distance education or distance learning is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional educational setting such as a classroom...

G = Government-access television

Channels

See also