Hey U-Verse, I want my MTV -- er, GOV-TV

I recently signed up for AT&T’s new digital cable service, U-Verse, and I have to say I’m reasonably satisfied with it, except for one thing. (Well, two things, if you include the four- to five-minute wait to get a real, living, breathing person on the toll-free help line.)

Where’s KGOV? You know, the Kern County government television station that broadcasts Board of Supervisors and Bakersfield City Council meetings, among other important programming. Answer: Coming soon —but maybe not on Channel 16, the easily accessible place on the dial where Bright House and virtually every other Kern County cable provider has positioned the not-for-profit government station.

AT&T is likely to add KGOV in October, but it plans on putting the station on Channel 99. That’s inconvenient enough, but here’s the thing: Viewers will then have to cursor through a secondary menu to find KGOV broadcasting.

That’s just not acceptable. KGOV provides a wealth of essential information. The airing (and re-airing) of local government meetings puts hundreds of thousands of Kern County residents in position to participate in this thing we call democracy. In a time when rumor and exaggeration seem to drive the public debate, we need unfiltered access to the business of government more than ever.

The 200-channel U-Verse package I signed up for has four MTV stations, 15 or 16 sports channels, and more shopping networks than I can count. Is U-Verse really saying that that stuff outranks local government (and its management of our tax dollars and community resources) in importance? I hope not. But if AT&T plans to force viewers to jump through hoops just to stay abreast of such things, it sure seems like the intimation.

Consider this, too: U-Verse may actually be violating state law by relegating KGOV to Channel 99.

The Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006, or DIVCA, which sets the rules for government access programming by cable companies, stipulates (in Section 5370, part B) that “the channel numbers for the PEG (Public Education and Governmental) channels shall be the same channel numbers used by the incumbent cable operator unless prohibited by federal law.”

For most viewers, "the incumbent cable operator" is Bright House, and in Kern County, that’s Channel 16.

Kern County legislators need to step in and remind AT&T of its obligations under DIVCA. The rest of us ought to remind AT&T of its obligation as a corporate member of this community — to further that cause of participatory government in every feasible way. Surely this is feasible.