The strangest aspects of the human experience

Public Access TV - A History

09/18/2026
"I learned everything I know from television. So in the early '80s, when cable television became king, part of their deal was they had to give the public access to certain channels on the cable box. So public access was a way for everyday people to produce television. And a lot of it was rotten, which made it so, so good. But when I saw it, I saw these irreverent, Monty Python, liberal, gorgeous freaks on their television show, I said that's my tribe. So I joined in and I started making television in 1982 with them."– RuPaul Charles

The history of public access television in the US can be traced as far back as the mid-1800s; this is, of course, before the invention of anything remotely close to the television. But some scholars note that the 1862 passage of the Morrill Act, where Congress endowed state universities with land grants, created a "philosophical precedent for public broadcasting and its public funding."

Episode: File 0163: Public Access Polyandry

Release Date: Sept 18 2026

Researched and presented by Halli


The long, winding road of making that space for people to revel in their First Amendment rights and air themselves and their views to those in their communities and beyond…well, it's certainly fascinating. And I'd love to do a huge deep dive into this topic, but for now, I'll try to keep it contained. Especially because public access television made nobodies into somebodies – including, yes, RuPaul, but also Alex Jones, Bernie Sanders, and Robin Byrd (there is a great documentary on Byrd on HBO right now).

It is no surprise, either, that the progenitor of public access television was the public access radio. In 1921, the US government issued its first broadcasting license to the Latter-Day Saints University in Salt Lake City. And only 4 years later, the Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations (ACUBS) was formed. ACUBS later became the National Association of Educational Broadcasters – a forerunner of PBS and NPR. We all have to start somewhere, right?

Tracing ACUBS' influence through the 1930s leads us to January 26, 1938, when the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) formed a class of noncommercial educational radio stations. Moves are made during the 1940s to expand noncommercial stations and channels, and by 1949, WNYC began shipping taped radio programs from station to station. It doesn't seem revolutionary, but it was – WYNC created their own radio content, and then shared it across the country. Only three years later, the FCC allocated local TV channels and another 242 channels for noncommercial, educational TV. It's a remarkable thing to think that the government, at one point, wanted to share educational content across the country. It's safe to say that wouldn't happen today - we're too busy letting RFK tell everyone it's totally fine to not vaccinate children and oh, look…two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania just passed away from measles. One of them was a baby.

Anyways, enough about that. A few more big highlights from the 1950s and 1960s:

  • 1952: The Educational Television and Radio Center (ETRC) was founded with a grant by the Ford Foundation's Fund for Adult Education, or FAE. The FAE distributed "educational television programs produced by local television stations in direct contrast with commercial TV networks like NBC, CBS, and ABC."

  • 1961: ETRC begins to import shows from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)

    • They started with the 15-part Shakespearean serial An Age of Kings

    • Programming was starting to move past more dry academic lectures and into its own cultural milieu

  • 1963: the federal government takes over FAE's grant program, the FAE changes their name to National Education Television (NET)

  • 1966: NET starts the program Net Journal and makes documentaries that "explored controversial social issues such as poverty and racism, which made the network popular with television critics and scholars but objectionable to conservative markets that saw these programs as having a liberal slant."

  • 1967: the federal government forms the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as a "distribution center for independent producers to create educational programming"

  • 1969: the Ford Foundation and CPB shut NET down, merge it with NYC affiliate WNDT in 1970, and change its name to the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS

PBS is now famously known as the home of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, The French Chef, Austin City Limits, Nova, Masterpiece, This Old House and many more programs that are permanently part of US culture and known world-wide.

And if you're like me, you grew up on PBS - Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, Wishbone, The Magic Schoolbus… and so much more.

But looking only at PBS or even a few big public broadcasting stations in New York or Austin (yes, we will talk about Alex Jones BRIEFLY cause fuck that guy) would do a deep disservice to how fucking weird and wonderful and gay things could get on those largely unmonitored local channels.

If you could have scrolled through a vast library of all the public access stations airing programs, on any given date in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s, you would have found the most eclectic mix of things to watch. City council hearings, water department meetings, church services, music performances, documentaries about drugs and AIDS, interviews with up and coming community members.

Or you could have watched Andy Warhol or John Waters share their own programs or favorite movies. Yes, truly. But so much of this strange and wonderful programming is rarely mentioned in articles and think-pieces about public access television. Thankfully, there is a wonderful doctoral dissertation by Lauren Herold: "Cable Comes Out: LGBTQ Community Television on New York Public Access Stations", submitted in September 2021 at Northwestern University. Herold is only covering New York, but it won't be a surprise to many that places like Austin, Texas also had their own weird, wacky, scrappy television producers and performers who made public access their own.

So let's start with Austin, Texas.

First, the not-so-fun part: yes, as mentioned, Alex Jones (formerly of InfoWars and all around douchecanoe) got his start in media on Austin Community Television (ACTV). I don't want to sit with this guy for too long, or spend many of my own words on him.

From Britannica.com:

"Jones started working at Austin's community-access cable TV station while he was attending community college. He soon began hosting his own radio show; but in 1999 he was fired because the station managers found his views too extreme. He frequently shared conspiracy theories about the Branch Davidian compound siege and the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. However, by then he had already started broadcasting over the then-nascent Internet, via his website infowars.com."









The unfortunate part about many of the sources I used, or tried to use for this piece, have 404-ed themselves. It's usually sad when we lose art, especially in an age where everything is digitized; how could we lose anything? Thankfully, the YouTube channel When We Were Live has "rediscovered and restored public access footage…captur[ing] the stories of the outsiders who transformed an Austin community TV station into a world-famous stage for self-expression." A documentary by the same name, directed by John Spottswood Moore, "features rare archival footage and interviews with some of the people who made the ACTV scene so eclectic."

In 1973, a group of students from UT (University of Texas), decided to take advantage of a little known law that required major cable companies to give you airtime for your own programming. Something this potentially consequential flew under the radar, and these students grabbed ahold of it with both hands.

From an interview with John Spottswood Moore in Texas Standard:

"They kind of bargained with the cable company…And they basically were told, 'yes, we'll give you some airtime. But we can't play your tapes in our facilities. But if you want to go live, you can drive to the top of Mount Larson on a bunch of unpaved roads, and you can sit in the dirt, and you plug your little consumer cameras into one of the broadcast towers up there, and you can go live.'" This is known as Channel 10 in Austin, and it is the longest running public access channel in the US."

Spottswood Moore's documentary kicks off in the 1980s, after Channel 10 had about a decade of growth under its belt. There were better facilities, better equipment, and the doors of the studio were open 24/7. People wanting to go on air had to pay a small fee, take a few classes, and then were allowed on air as long as there was a time slot available.

What's fascinating to me is how this kind of equal-access, no holds barred channel paved the way for YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Instagram. Constant access to the airwaves, and the eyes and ears of the public, wasn't done at this time. What a novel concept, and what came of it was both educational and riotously entertaining.

"We All Know How to Mince Around the Kitchen": Cooking in Drag, Unabashed Queerness, and Sex Ed



I know I often come to the podcast with pretty sad or infuriating stories (or both! I like doubling down!), but this is not that. Example: the sheer joy of cooking in drag with Carmen Banana. A loving, campy tribute to beloved Carmen Miranda, a "Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer, and actress. Nicknamed 'the Brazilian Bombshell,' she was known for her signature fruit hat outfits that she wore in her American films."

Carmen Banana is a hilarious, heartfelt drag version, but with bananas (of course) and cooking. I watched several episodes of "Carmen's Banana Cooking" which was filmed in the mid-1980s for Austin Community Television. It is joyful. It is ridiculous. Episode 2 features Carmen almost setting herself (and the studio) on fire. It is unscripted save for the recipes she cooks. Carmen wears big ol' papier-mache titties (Dolly Parton would be proud!). Her eye makeup looks so much like Divine's.


And it is DRAG. I fucking love it.

I think we need more Carmen Banana in our lives. But this was the kind of thing that ACTV aired with unabashed glee and queerness. It's just SO good. I recommend watching all of Carmen's videos if you need 10-12 minutes of joy at a time. Whole Foods even welcomed Carmen Banana in 1988 with a big board of recommended recipes with bananas, all in tribute to Carmen.

But it wasn't ALL about campy drag - how about Captain Condom? Using a cucumber (not a banana, gotta say I was expecting it!), Captain Condom informs viewers on the variety of condoms available, how to properly put one on, and remember… "You wouldn't properly buy a car without first test-driving it! Don't be bashful! Take a few condoms for a test drive and find the ones that are right for you!" I think we could all use a lesson from Captain Condom.

But it can't be all fun and games and drag and condoms…

The first AIDS walk-a-thon in Austin, Texas was on September 10, 1988 was meant to show their support for the victims of AIDS. Without ACTV and the open door available to all, this event and message wouldn't have been seen by so many, and likely would have been pilloried even more in Texas. Condoms were given away, participants wore shirts that said things like "Safe Sex is Great Sex", and even talked about safest sex being abstinence, followed by monogamous relationships, but otherwise…wear a condom!

The mayor of Austin at the time, Lee Cook, and Texas governor Ann Richards, showed up to support the walk. Remember this is in the late 1980s and Reaganism was in full swing. But Austin, like other super liberal (and weird) cities in the US did what they could to help those affected by HIV/AIDS. Richards in particular is held in high regard by the liberal sect of Texans, even now, and it's a good reminder that in the reddest of states, blue populations flourish. Not everyone in Texas, or in the US South, is a gun toting, hateful bigot.

If you want a full view of what ACTV was doing in the 1980s and 1990s, I really can't recommend enough the "When We Were Live" Youtube channel, where a lot of ACTV footage is lovingly archived and restored.

"Told entirely through rediscovered and restored public access footage, When We Were Live captures the stories of the outsiders who transformed an Austin community TV station into a world-famous stage for self-expression."

Take a deep dive into the YouTube channel. You won't regret it.

And next time, we'll talk about the queer public access TV found in New York.


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