Hastings Community TV (HCTV) joined a statewide effort to preserve community TV across Minnesota, seeking residents to contact their representatives in support of several bills that would change how community TV is funded in the future.
In the era of streaming, traditional sources of revenue like cable TV subscriptions have declined, dramatically cutting funding for local TV stations. 2026 projections for total US households that pay for cable TV are barely half the number from 2013.
This dilemma was laid out by HCTV Executive Director Mike Bremer in December of last year where Bremer spoke before the school board seeking to waive the rent paid by HCTV to the district.
At that meeting, Bremer spoke to the “more than $30,000 shortfall on a less than $290,000 annual budget” at HCTV.
While the school board did waive the $9,250 rent for HCTV, how the organization would continue given declining revenue was unclear.
“We are trying to survive basically until this additional funding arises by pulling money from our savings,” said Bremer.
Several bills are currently in the state legislature that would provide a way forward to local TV stations.
The Equal Access to Broadband Act (HF 974/SF 2045) would, among other changes, collect a fee from broadband providers that would go to funding community media.
Another bill, HF 1740 would appropriate funds from the arts and heritage fund for “a grant to the Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators for distribution to Minnesota public, educational, or governmental cable television channels to provide programming that supports community and civic engagement.”
In a March 17 letter support the bill, Bremer wrote: “This Legacy Fund appropriation is essential to sustaining public, educational, and government access television stations that provide hyper-local programming and vital community services.”
HCTV recently launched savecommunitytv.com, a website that lays out the issues facing HCTV and how residents can go about contacting their representatives in order to voice their support for these various bills.