Legislator backs privatization of IPTV
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
A state senator who has pushed a debate over continued
public funding of Idaho Public Television (IPTV) said in Ketchum last week
he probably will not submit a bill on the subject this legislative
session. He will, however, continue to promote privatization.
"I want public television to succeed, but I don’t
want tax dollars put into competition" against Idaho’s commercial
television stations, said Sen. Mel Richardson, R-Idaho Falls, in an
interview at River Run Lodge on Thursday night.
Sen. Mel Richardson, R-Idaho Falls
Richardson visited the Sun Valley area last week to
welcome a team of Ukrainian biathletes to Idaho for a winter training
trip. He made his comments regarding privatization in a brief interview at
the reception.
He said he continues to support privatization despite
public comments and a state Board of Education vote opposing the idea.
"It’s a public that doesn’t understand the
issue," he said. "We haven’t done the job of selling (the
benefits of privatization)."
At a statewide public hearing two weeks ago, 51 Idaho
residents testified about the future of IPTV. All but two urged the
Legislature to allow IPTV to remain as it is. The state Board of Education
also received written comments by mail, e-mail and fax. Of the 867
responses, 807 opposed privatization, 31 favored it, and 29 expressed
support for IPTV in general.
The Board of Education voted 5 to 2 Thursday against
privatization. It had asked for, and reviewed, an $80,000 study of
privatization after some of Idaho’s conservative lawmakers spoke out for
privatization and the Idaho Republican Party passed a platform resolution
supporting the idea.
The study concluded that IPTV probably could not survive
without at least some state funding.
Public TV licenses can’t be used for commercial
broadcasting. Of four states that have converted their systems to private,
nonprofit systems in the past decade, three still get 10 to 20 percent of
their funding from the state, according to the study, and the fourth is
looking for funding.
Still, Richardson pointed to the four states as indicators
that IPTV could be privatized successfully. Under Richardson’s plan, the
state would continue to provide limited funding by buying back
"services we need."
Richardson didn’t specify the services the state might
need.
IPTV gets about 28 percent of its funding from the state,
with about 57 percent of its budget coming from private donations.
Members of the Legislature, including the chairmen of the
House and Senate education committees, asked the Board of Education to
take a position on the privatization issue. The Senate Education Committee
had voted unanimously against privatization, while the House committee was
awaiting the board’s action.
Though Richardson has advocated privatization for years,
the issue entered the limelight in 1999 when IPTV aired a program called
"It’s Elementary," a one-hour documentary on how schools in
several states deal with homosexual issues.
Last June, IPTV aired another program called "Our
House," a one-hour documentary about children with gay and lesbian
parents.
The airing of these two programs, and the public debate
that surrounded them, resulted in the state Republican Party passing its
platform resolution that called for the privatizing of Idaho Public
Television.