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THE ARTISTS TELEVISION NETWORK
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Interim Report
April 1978

In September, 1977 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded the Artists Television Network (formerly Cable SoHo) a grant for $4500. These funds were given to support research of the development of a cooperative cable network of art centers in the SoHo area of Manhattan, and the transmission of arts programming from these centers through Manhattan Cable Television.

In 1971 the City Planning Commission made an important zoning change in the SoHo industrial area in response to the needs of artists for large, inexpensive space, then available in underutilized buildings. The Commission sought to achieve "three major policy objectives:

1. Insure the economic viability of industrial and commercial building types;
2. protect manufacturing jobs from the impacts of unregulated conversion activity;
3. provide new housing."1

This change opened the doors to artists. They came and the area has since undergone a striking renaissance. The most noticeable result has been the establishment of a centralized community of artists who work in all media.

The goal of this research is to provide this community with a tool of expression, and at the same time provide the larger community the opportunity to view the full harvest of artistic endeavor originating in SoHo. Simply stated, the goal of this project is to establish a live cable-television transmission center in SoHo, and to link this center with the available local art and video centers.

Manhattan Cable's licensing agreement with the city stipulates that it provide a Live Injection Point (LIP) to each Community Planning Board district in Manhattan. To date, there is only one such LIP: Planning Board #8's at Automation House on East 68th Street. There is no LIP in lower Manhattan but the talent and interest, as well as the organization, does exist to bring cable-television to this community. This is the first small step.

In October a project outline was devised. This outline (pp. 2-3) still serves as the basic operational plan. The nucleus of the project is the determination of the population demographics. It was expected that these statistics would be readily available. This has not proved to be the case. A recent City Planning Commission report states that "as of September 1977, Certificates of Occupancy were issued to only 8.5% of the total conversions."2 Since so many occupants of the area

1 City of New York, Department of City Planning. Residential Re-Use of Non-Residential Buildings in Manhattan. December 1977, p.1.
2 Ibid.p8.