Public Access Porn Irks Conservative Activist

Federal regulations prohibit cable companies from censoring public access stations, much to the chagrin of anti-porn activists in Ohio who are campaigning to have free porn thrown off the air.

The Cleveland Scene reports that while channel-surfing last month, Bonnie Valentine, leader of the fight against porn on public access, discovered hardcore porn on Channel 15, a Time-Warner public access station serving the Akron-Canton region.

"What I saw was intercourse," Valentine told the Scene. "This is beyond obscene. This had crossed into pornography."

As president of Actively Reviving Ohio Communities (ARCO), a conservative activism group, Valentine then vowed to get "public access porn off" of Channel 15. Valentine sent e-mails to Time Warner and a variety of government officials from the Akron City Council to the governor seeking to have public access clean up.

Valentine had landed upon a sex scene shown during Illmatic TV, described as an amateurish variety show that occasionally shows porn clips provided by a friend in Los Angeles that runs an adult video business.

"He would send me some footage of his girls and whatnot," show creator Al Henderson said, telling the Scene that he considered the “previews” to be a public service.

Illmatic TV isn’t the only Channel 15 show that includes the occasional pornographic clip. The channel’s most popular show, The 5 Dolla Half Hour, is mostly about marijuana, but occasionally dabbles in Adult. "We never have full-blown penetration," a producer of the show told the Scene. "But, you know, on the intro, there is a vagina smoking a cigarette."

Another show has topless segments and yet another has hardcore sex scenes, including amateur videos.

Dave Muntean, assistant to the Akron law director, explained why the offending shows couldn’t be forced off the air. “It's a public forum. Neither the city nor Time Warner can edit or make any judgment about the content."

A 1996 Supreme Court decision declared that cable companies could not censor public access programming.

The only thing a cable subscriber who objects to the programming on Channel 15 can do is to have the public access channel filtered out.

Adult programming on Channel 15 is allotted to the "safe-harbor hours," between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Bill Jasso, the vice president of public affairs for Time Warner in Akron, acknowledged that some of the programs on Channel 15 were not suitable for everyone. "Is there programming on that channel that I would not want my daughter to see? Absolutely. And I would take steps as a parent to block out that channel."