Public Access

An unprecedented look inside one of the greatest media experiments to hijack American screens. Rare archives from New York’s underground capture a world of creators who shattered rules, defied censors, and transformed our televisions into a free-speech battleground where anyone could be a star.

The internet and social media platforms may have given birth to influencers and content creators, but decades before their popularization, public access television such as New York City’s Manhattan Cable Television opened up the floodgates for technological free expression. With no editorial input allowed, ordinary New Yorkers had carte blanche to create — from the interactive Grube Tube to Glenn O’Brien’s underground scene free-for-all TV Party and the pioneering LGBTQ+ series The Emerald City. But when sexually explicit programming pushed the boundaries and stirred public debate, First Amendment court battles followed. David Shadrack Smith takes viewers through the unfiltered creativity and chaos of this paradigm-shifting new technology, which presaged today’s media-driven world. As Public Access cheekily warns, “Brace yourself! Nothing you have ever seen before can prepare you for this.” — BT

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