The Ely Echo reports on the City Council’s support of ( SF 2045 and HF 1740)…

As consumers choose new ways to access television programming, entities including Ely TV are feeling the consequences.

That’s prompted a request by the city of Ely, via its telecommunications access board, to get behind legislation that would expand collection of franchise fees, which support the broadcasts of local public access programming.

The city is appealing to lawmakers to approve legislation that would make broadband subscriptions subject to the franchise fee. Currently, those fees are only collected for cable television service.

The move comes amid declines in franchise fees, as more consumers shy away from traditional cable television subscriptions, and amid a push to expand local broadcasts beyond cable television to the internet and avenues such as YouTube.

“While we distribute our programming only on cable, we have received many requests to livestream our meetings on the internet and replay our content for those without cable,” mayor Heidi Omerza wrote in correspondence to State Sen. Grant Hauschild (D) and State Rep. Roger Skraba (R). “Without franchise revenue from data subscribers there is no financial ability to provide access out of cable subscribers.”

Ely joins other municipalities, trade groups and the League of Minnesota Cities in supporting SF 2045, dubbed the Equal Access to Broadband Act. It would allow cities to franchise broadband similarly to how cable systems are currently franchised.