Free Speech TV (FSTV) is an American progressive news and opinion network. It was launched in 1995 and is owned and operated by Public Communicators Incorporated, a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1974. Distributed principally by

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

, and the network's live stream at freespeech.org and on

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company. As of 2024, Roku is the U ...

, Free Speech TV has run commercial free since 1995 with support from viewers and foundations. The network claims to "amplify underrepresented voices and those working on the front lines of social, economic and

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...

," predominantly from a progressive perspective.

History

1995–1999

Free Speech TV is an outgrowth of three projects that attempted to establish wider dissemination of progressive perspectives on television: '' The 90's'', a landmark television series seen on public television and cable; ''The 90's Channel'', a network of seven full-time cable channels dedicated to independent media; and the part-time Free Speech TV Program Service, launched in 1995 as an innovative approach to curating and distributing independent media to a distribution network of community access cable stations. Public television stations carried some Free Speech TV's special series, such as ''Just Solutions: Campaigning for Human Right''. The network's efforts in streaming media online won it a 1998 Streamers Award and 1999

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

2000–2006

In January 2000—as the result of an FCC-mandated public interest channel set-aside—Free Speech TV became a national, full-time channel on the

satellite television system while continuing to build a national network of part-time local cable affiliates. Program highlights from the channel's formative years included live field reporting of the

anti-globalization movement The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...

spawned at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle; the 2000 US presidential elections, including ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...

''s premiere as a television program at the Republican and Democratic conventions; the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, to which FSTV responded with a daily news report and weekly current affairs program; and extensive coverage of the large global anti-war mobilization and the subsequent U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

2007–2010

In 2007, FSTV moved from Boulder to Denver, covering events inside and outside the

2008 Democratic National Convention The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial United States presidential nominating convention, presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform an ...

, where

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

accepted his party's nomination for president. Over the following years, the network stepped up its daily coverage of national politics with the addition of ''GRITtv with Laura Flanders'', '' The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann'' and

Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English (AJE; , ) is a 24-hour English-language News broadcasting, news channel operating under Al Jazeera Media Network, which is funded by the government of Qatar. Al Jazeera introduced an English-language division in 2006. It is ...

. FSTV's daily news programs—led by ''The Thom Hartmann Program'' and ''Democracy Now!''—became FSTV's top programs in terms of popularity and "stickiness" (a measure of audience engagement and loyalty). During the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...

, FSTV pre-empted much of its regular non-news programming to Al Jazeera English's reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square and other locations.

2011–2012

In 2011 and 2012, FSTV coverage provided a window into efforts to reform workers' rights in Wisconsin and other states, as well as into the Occupy Wall Street movement. The network secured a national channel on

in 2010; piloted its first OTT ("over-the-top") channel, on Roku, in 2011; and launched full-time cable channels in

Burlington, Vermont Burlington, officially the City of Burlington, is the List of municipalities in Vermont, most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the county seat, seat of Chittenden County, Vermont, Chittenden County. It is located south of the Can ...

, and

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 in Oregon, Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population w ...

, in 2012. FSTV and GM Jon Stout were the recipients of the 2010 National Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award, presented by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. This award recognizes individuals and organizations for "a profound commitment to free expression; ethics; media criticism and accountability; racial, gender, and cultural inclusiveness; and public service."

2013–present

In 2013, FSTV started conferring with public television stations to gain over-the-air and cable carriage in major urban markets. The shutdown of the progressive channel

Current TV Current TV was an American television channel which broadcast from August 1, 2005, to August 20, 2013. Prior INdTV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, with Ronald Burkle, each held a sizable stake in Current TV. Comcast and DirecTV each held a small ...

and its replacement with Al Jazeera America had major ramifications on the network. In August 2013 Free Speech TV lost its popular '' Al Jazeera English News Hour'', '' The Stream'' and '' Fault Lines'' shows when Al Jazeera launched Al Jazeera America. The news programming was replaced with news from

France 24 France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb ...

. On September 9, 2013, Bill Press joined the channel with his simulcast of '' The Bill Press Show'', which moved over from the defunct Current TV. In January 2014 the channel added '' The Stephanie Miller Show'', also from the defunct Current TV after a successful

Indiegogo Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...

campaign to raise funds to build the show's new radio/TV studio, buy equipment and produce the show. This reunites the former Current TV morning block on Free Speech TV. In October 2013 Free Speech TV and Karel.Media in association with Brandon Riley Miller Productions launched Karel's Life in Segments starring

Charles Karel Bouley Charles Karel Bouley, known on-the-air as Karel, is an American talk radio host, singer, TV personality, and author. He began his career as a comedian and singer. Karel released one album and multiple singles in the 1990s, including the album ''Da ...

. In October 2014, Free Speech TV launched '' Uprising with Sonali'', featuring Sonali Kolhatkar in partnership with

Pacifica Radio Pacifica may refer to: Art * ''Pacifica'' (statue), a 1938 statue by Ralph Stackpole for the Golden Gate International Exposition Places * Pacifica, California, a city in the United States ** Pacifica Pier, a fishing pier * Pacifica, a conce ...

station

KPFK KPFK (90.7 FM) is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, which serves Southern California. It was the second of five stations in the non-commercial, listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio network. KPFK 90.7 FM be ...

-FM, Los Angeles. Uprising Radio was the longest running daily morning show on Southern California public radio before premiering as a television show on Free Speech TV. In recent years, FSTV's television footprint has grown to more than 40 million homes. The network's monthly viewership (cume) nearly doubled to more than 1 million households over a two-year period between 2012 and 2014.

Funding

Free Speech TV is a project of Public Communicators, Inc., a non-profit, 501c3 tax-exempt organization FSTV is supported primarily through philanthropic contributions from thousands of viewers and from foundations dedicated to independent media and social, economic and environmental justice.

Availability

FSTV is currently available in more than 40 million television homes nationwide, airing full-time on Dish Network (269), DirecTV (348), Burlington Telecom (122) and Ashland Home Net (96). Select programs are syndicated on 177 community cable stations in 40 states. FSTV is also available as a 24/7 linear feed and as videos-on-demand—on freespeech.org and on Roku, an "over-the-top" distribution platform that streams video over the Internet onto connected television sets. FSTV also has a feed on the

Sling TV Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aim ...

service. Other content is syndicated on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Vimeo Vimeo ( ) is an American Online video platform, video hosting, sharing, and services provider founded in 2004 and headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices and operates on a ...

and other social networking sites.

Programming

Free Speech TV broadcasts syndicated news programs and documentaries that deal with social, political, cultural and environmental issues. Independently produced news programs broadcast on FSTV include:

News

* ''

'' – Award-winning news coverage from Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. * '' France 24 World News'' – A one-hour news program from

. * ''

The Last Sip ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...

'' – Current events program with Imara Jones, focusing on women and

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

people of color, with an emphasis on

millennials Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s a ...

* '' Rising Up with Sonali'' – News program that emphasizes connecting global issues with local ones and hosted by veteran broadcaster Sonali Kolhatkar. * ''

Source Code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

'', stylized as ''SourceCode'' –

News magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio, or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories in greater depth than newspapers or new ...

(TV show) launched in 2007

Talk shows and radio shows

* '' The Thom Hartmann Program'' – A daily call-in news and leftist political program with author and host Thom Hartmann, based in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. On Fridays, it includes ''Brunch With Bernie'' – A one-hour talk segment with Senator

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

. * '' The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann'' – A Liberal nightly news program hosted by Thom Hartmann. * '' The Stephanie Miller Show'' – Syndicated Liberal talk show hosted by

Stephanie Miller Stephanie Catherine Miller (born September 29, 1961) is an American political commentator, comedian, and host of '' The Stephanie Miller Show'', a Progressive talk radio program produced in Los Angeles, California, by WYD Media Management and ...

. * '' The Bill Press Show'' – Liberal morning talk show. * '' The David Pakman Show'' – A daily call-in news and political talk program hosted by Pakman from

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence, Massachusetts, Florence and ...

. * ''

Ring of Fire The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) is a tectonic belt of volcanoes and earthquakes. It is about long and up to about wide, and surrounds most of the Pa ...

'' – Liberal morning talk show hosted by Mike Papantonio * '' The Randi Rhodes Show'' – Liberal morning talk show hosted by

Randi Rhodes Randi Joyce Robertson (née Bueten; born January 28, 1958), better known by her Stage name#Reasons for use, air name Randi Rhodes, is an American progressivism, progressive political commentator, activist and talk radio host. ''The Randi Rhode ...

. * ''The Rick Smith Show'' – American working class talk show hosted by Rick Smith * ''The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow'' – Progressive radio and TV show hosted by Richard "RJ" Eskow. *

Other programs

* '' Gay USA'' – A weekly news program dedicated to gay and LGBT issues and news, hosted by Andy Humm and Ann Northrop from

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, NY. * ''OpenLine Media Presents: News With Davy D'' – A news program hosted by historian, author, rapper and talk-show host Davy DMX. * ''

Bioneers Bioneers, under its parent foundation, Collective Heritage Institute, is a non-profit environmental and social justice advocacy organization based in New Mexico and California. Founded in 1990, the organization's philosophy says that there is val ...

'' – Interviews with personalities involved in social and scientific developments in sustainability. * '' Pirate Television'' – Offers talks, interviews and documentaries about independent voices. * '' Enviro Close Up'', – Hosted by Karl Grossman * ''Every Church Is A Peace Church'' * ''Occupy the Media'' * ''Meet the Farmer'' – Hosted by Michael Clark * ''Chicago Independent TV'' – Produced by Chicago

Indymedia The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seat ...

* '' Rox'' – in the early days of Free Speech TV, this was "the network's most popular show." * '' The Empire Files'' – documentary and interview series hosted by Abby Martin. * ''Act Out'' – "Covers the news corporate media won't touch", hosted by Eleanor Goldfield

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Free Speech Tv American public access television shows Television networks in the United States English-language television stations in the United States Freedom of speech in the United States Public television in the United States Progressivism in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1995 24-hour television news channels in the United States