The Hidden Cost of Cord Cutting: Losing Access to Civic Life

The same medium that brings you high school football games is an underappreciated pillar of local civic and democratic health. While advocates for democracy reform are increasingly turning their eye to the importance of local newspapers, another critical local information source–the local cable access channel–is also in danger of disappearing. As residents “cord cut” cable television in favor of streaming, they are unknowingly defunding the local cable access channels whose programming capabilities are now being stretched to the breaking point.

Local cable access channels are a window into local government, providing coverage of local selectboard and council meetings, town meetings, zoning hearings, community events, high school sports, and everything in-between. These stations are, for many towns, the only outlet covering these local events and doing so in an on-demand, digital format residents expect. As a critical piece of digital civic infrastructure, the stations allow residents to see, understand, and participate in local government and civic life, with over 3,000 communities nationwide having used local cable access channels for over 40 years. While long the butt of comedy sketches, these local nonprofit stations actually play an important role in providing the information necessary for local democracy to thrive. As their funding mechanism continues to erode at an alarming rate, policymakers must act quickly to preserve this public good.

Local Democracy on Air in Massachusetts

Local cable access channels produce what is known as PEG programming–public, educational, and governmental content. Massachusetts has more than 250 local cable access channels that serve as the primary producers of PEG programming and are a main source for viewing town meetings, hearings, local sports, and other community events, especially for those who are elderly, disabled, or otherwise can’t make the meetings in person.

These local cable access channels also often fund the technological infrastructure that is necessary for communities to hold remote and hybrid meetings. As a piece from the Harvard Nieman Lab notes, “when Covid halted in-person community activities, PEG media practitioners used their technical expertise and neighborhood networks to help struggling communities including local government officials, teachers, and elderly residents — transition to virtual public life.” In rural communities where technical expertise and infrastructure is limited, these local cable access channels fill an increasingly important gap.

The funding for these local cable access channels comes from the fees that cable operators pay in exchange for access to local rights-of-way and infrastructure. Under Massachusetts law, cable operators, like Comcast and Astound, are required to pay an annual License Fee of $1.30 per subscriber. The fee is split between the subscriber’s municipality and the Commonwealth, with the municipality receiving 50 cents and the Commonwealth receiving 80 cents per subscriber which goes towards the state’s General Fund. Additionally, local officials, in negotiating a cable license, may require cable operators to set aside channels and funding for PEG use, up to 5% of the cable operator’s annual gross revenue from operating in the municipality. Cable operators are allowed to be reimbursed for both types of fees by recovering the costs from subscribers.

In practice, this means that whenever a Massachusetts resident has a cable subscription, a small amount of additional fees on their bill allows the cable operator to use the local infrastructure to deliver service and, in exchange, the resident traditionally has access to PEG programming. The fees received through the municipality from cable operators usually make up the vast majority of the revenue for local cable access channels.

Photo from WCA-TV Website for Watertown, Massachusetts

Funding Decline of Community Media 

While this arrangement lasted for decades, state data show that cable subscriptions in Massachusetts have fallen more than 50% from their peak, dropping from about 2.19 million in 2013 to just over 1 million as of December 2025. The national trend is even more stark, with only 36% of US adults subscribing to cable. Fewer subscribers means fewer license fees and less gross revenue, which has led to less overall funding for local cable access channels.

Source: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-cable-subscriber-data

Cord-cutting isn’t the only pressure that local cable access channels are facing. In 2019, the FCC allowed cable operators to deduct the non-cash support they already provide, like equipment and channel space, against the cash fees they owe to local governments, leading to even less funding for local cable access channels. Senators Markey and Baldwin and Representative Carter introduced the Protecting Community Television Act in June 2025 to reverse this, but the bill has remained stalled in committee.

If the main provider of video access to local government is forced to scale down operations, regionalize, or otherwise reduce services due to budget constraints, what will this mean for access to local democracy generally? This trend is compounded by the disappearance of local newspapers and other forms of local media, including mostly recently the shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which for nearly 60 years provided federal funding for more than 1,500 local public television and radio stations.

Keeping Public Goods Alive in the Digital Age

As local cable access channels are the main source for residents to watch local government meetings and also often enable communities to hold remote and hybrid meetings, a risk to these services is a risk to resident engagement and government transparency.

Policymakers have the following options to sustain local cable access channels:

• Modernize funding legislation: Efforts from states and municipalities to charge comparable fees on streaming services based on existing law have largely failed in court because streaming services do not own or operate physical facilities in the public rights-of-way as cable operators do. States are now turning to new legislation in order to gather funding. In 2024, Maine passed An Act to Support Municipal Franchise Agreements which allows municipalities to collect franchise fees from any video provider using public rights-of-way regardless of technology and New York is pursuing the same idea through the TEAM NY Act. The Massachusetts legislature has also considered several bills to charge comparable fees on streaming entertainment services but has yet to pass any such legislation.
• Reverse the 2019 FCC decision: Revive and pass the Protecting Community Television Act in order to restore the full value of franchise fees to the stations they were meant to support.
• Pursue dedicated public funding: Efforts could simultaneously be taken to reduce the dependency of local nonprofit cable stations on license fees by identifying more stable funding sources, such as state or local appropriation, so that one of our most valuable public goods is not tied to consumer entertainment delivery. In Vermont, instead of waiting on a streaming assessment, the legislature built community media into the state budget for FY26.

“All politics is local,” said Tip O’Neill, the long-serving Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Massachusetts native. But politics can only be local if residents can actually find out what is happening. As we consider how digital civic infrastructure plays a role in strengthening democracy at the local level and supporting civic engagement, community access stations must be a part of the conversation. These stations play a vital role in ensuring residents have transparency and access to information, along with providing the infrastructure and support for transitioning communities into the digital age.

Sarah Hubbard is a researcher at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Her research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, democracy, and civic life.

Kenneth Woodland is a mid-career Master in Public Administration student and researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School. He focuses his legal practice in municipal law and is a former city councilor.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.