Survey says residents like local television Survey says residents like local television (January 23, 2004)

Community-based programming is important, they agree

By Dan Stapleton

That mainstream television is important to people is no surprise, but KMVT, Mountain View's local television station, discovered something new -- community access television is important, too.

Preliminary results in a KMVT-led survey, which is being used to determine where people turn for local information and gauge their level of support for community access television, indicate strong support for the community access station.

Sixty-three percent of Mountain View survey takers responding that community access television was important or very important to them. Fifty-six percent said they were willing to pay a small increase in their cable bills that would go towards a local center to provide equipment and training for community access television. All results have a 10 percent margin of error.

The survey, which also included Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, and Milpitas, polled 301 residents, including 91 from Mountain View. Participants were asked questions on subjects such as what kind of access they have to cable television and broadband Internet connections, and how important the availability of community access television is to them.

"The number of people surveyed was relatively small, but we felt the demographics were representative of the community. And even 50 people per city can tell you a lot," said KMVT Executive Director Doug Broomfield.

Broomfield says the results of the survey, which are still being compiled, will be used to develop the station's new five-year plan to ensure that it meets the needs of the Mountain View community.

"We weren't really interested in getting viewing numbers for our shows," he said. "We wanted to get a sense of the support for people being able to share their voices on community access and the Internet."

Due to the unusually high percentage of survey respondents with broadband Internet access over cable or DSL, Broomfield sees a great potential for streaming KMVT video over the Internet from their Web site. "Someday soon, you're going to turn on the TV and not know or care if the signal is coming over cable or over your broadband Internet connection," he said.

Broomfield expects more complete and thoroughly cross-referenced results from the survey to be available this March.

E-mail Dan Stapleton at intern@mv-voice.com

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