Do not fucking come for the Seattle Channel by Hannah Krieg As part of his 2025-2026 budget proposal, Mayor Bruce Harrell wants to cut $1.6 million a year in funding to the Seattle Channel, a beloved municipal television station that broadcasts city council meetings, press conferences, and original programming on cable and online. The mayor’s plan would lay off six full-time employees, drop four contract workers, and cancel all original programming, including Art Zone with Nancy Guppy, Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, and City Inside/Out, a long-running show in which seven-time Emmy Award winning journalist Brian Callanan covers local news, conducts longform interviews with elected officials, and hosts debates on the most pressing issues in City Hall or on the ballot.  The Mayor’s Office said, “We are grateful for the work of Seattle Channel employees and the programming they have produced and continue to produce. We recognize this was a difficult decision, but given steadily declining franchise fee revenues, it was a necessary decision to reduce programming.” The Seattle Channel did not respond to my request for comment.  But advocates for the press, government transparency, and Callanan’s work in general say the city council better keep their hands off the Seattle Channel and find the money elsewhere.  L E G E N D S. Seattle Channel Journalist Solidarity Essex Porter, a retired KIRO 7 political reporter and giant in the local media scene, told The Stranger that he’s “stunned” that the mayor would consider cutting original programs at the Seattle Channel, particularly City Inside/Out.  “The program is really part of connective tissue that keeps Seattle together,” says Porter. “I really think that Seattle would truly, truly miss it. And I think it would be a great loss.” Porter appeared on City Inside/Out many times throughout his career to recap the news.  Porter praised Callanan, who has hosted the show for 13 years, and Susan Han, the eight-time Emmy Award winning journalist who has produced it for 17 years.  “Being on the show, I hoped I could share some knowledge, but I always ended up learning something that I didn't know or hadn't seen in a particular light,” says Porter. “The Seattle Channel enlightened me, and, I'm sure, always enlightened the audience.” The Society of Professional Journalism Western Washington echoed Porter’s points.  “Programming at the Seattle Channel, like City Inside/Out, is a valuable source of information and reporting for Seattle residents, and losing it would be a loss for journalism and a loss for keeping residents well-informed. Transparency in government is hard to achieve. This only makes it harder.” For Transparency’s Sake The cut seems to fit into a greater pattern of the City’s disregard for public access, where Seattle elected officials seem more keen to ignore press inquiries, decline interviews, sow distrust with the public, and stifle dissent.  George Erb, the secretary of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said the City of Seattle boasts a “dismal record” when it comes to government transparency. For example, the city council and Mayor Jenny Durkan appeared to violate the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) when they secretly plotted to repeal the head tax in 2018. City Attorney Pete Holmes settled a lawsuit against the City for $4,001, paying in full the civil fees associated with breaking the OPMA but never admitting guilt. More recently, Seattle came under fire for Durkan deleting 10 months of texts around the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement.  Erb told The Stranger he’s glad the Mayor’s proposal would not end the broadcast of public meetings or press conferences. However, with six employees up for layoffs, Seattle Channel insiders worry the Mayor may overestimate that station's ability to keep up with current demand after laying off people responsible for the programming he intends to maintain.  The budget document implies the City will manage the loss in capacity by “minimiz[ing] overlapping coverage.” But even if Harrell’s hack-job only kills original programming, Erb said that cut would constitute a huge loss to transparency.  Erb said that municipal TV stations such as the Seattle Channel have an increasingly important role in the media landscape as privately owned newsrooms shutter across the country. Between 2005 and 2023, almost 3,000 newspapers stopped production in the United States, according to the State of Local News Project. There’s only about 6,000 newspapers left in the entire country as of 2023. Erb said that the City of Seattle must treat the Seattle Channel and City Inside/Out as a “priority, not an option.”  When public officials “hide out” from the public, Erb says it “distorts the civic conversation.” If the public has better, more complete information, Erb says they can more effectively contribute to a policy discussion. Former Council Member Andrew Lewis seems to agree.  Lewis bets he appeared on City Inside/Out more than anyone else among his council cohort. He tells The Stranger he appreciated that the show gave him an opportunity to dive into issues at length to inform his constituents perhaps more deeply than they might get in a daily news story. Lewis said council members should see great utility in City Inside/Out and fight to keep it.  “Presumably, if you're a council member and you take that role seriously, you’ve seriously studied and learned extensively about a given issue from peer-reviewed research and various constituencies,” says Lewis. “And there should be a forum like the Seattle Channel where you present what informed your position on that issue. I think that if you are rendered uncomfortable by that obligation, maybe this isn't the right line of work for you.” An Unlikely Hero And the city council still has plenty of time to save the program. Budget Chair Dan Strauss could undo Harrell’s attack on the Seattle Channel in his budget package, which he will unveil on October 30. And of course, any council member could propose an amendment to that package to restore funding. Council President Sara Nelson tweeted about the issue Thursday morning, distancing herself from the mayor's attack on Seattle Channel.  “Let me be clear: Council just received the MAYOR’s proposed budget on Tuesday,” Nelson tweeted from her official account. “As someone with a tagline of ‘I watch the Seattle Channel for fun,’ you can expect I’ll be looking into proposed cuts to @SeattleChannel.” Seattle Channel fans unite https://t.co/PuJYN1NpDm— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) September 26, 2024 Strauss made similar noises about “looking into” saving the Seattle Channel. In a phone call with The Stranger, Strauss says he personally really likes the programming on the Seattle Channel —“If you don’t know who Nancy Guppy is, you’re not a real Seattleite,” he said.  But Strauss recognized the legitimate loss in revenue that led to the cut.  Harrell’s office pointed to a decline in revenue from franchise fees levied on cable companies as people end their subscriptions in the switch to streaming platforms. The cable franchise fees brought in $9.2 million at its peak in 2017. That’s about $11.9 million based on the value of the dollar in 2024. The revenue dipped in 2018 when the fees only generated about $7.7 million, the equivalent of $9.8 million in 2024. The downward trajectory continued steadily, save one exceptional year in 2021. But only now, when the City projects $5 million in revenue from the cable franchise fee in 2025, did the City threaten original content.  Regardless, Seattle Channel supporters argue the City can find the money elsewhere to fund the original content.  The Mayor’s Officer says, “Should the revenue forecast improve or other funding solutions present itself, we would be supportive of restoring this additional programming. Work will continue to explore revenue concepts and partnerships to restore some services from the Seattle Channel that would be reduced or eliminated.” Harrell’s support after attacking the program sort of falls flat. Sure, the mayor had a massive deficit to deal with in the 2025-2026 budget, but he could find $100 million from new spending on his priorities, including $62 million to the Seattle Police Department. Harrell can not excuse relatively small cuts to long-standing, public institutions such as the Seattle Channel by pointing to declining revenue or a deficit. This is an intentional policy choice, and the city council needs to correct it.  Strauss wouldn’t promise he would find money elsewhere or raise new revenue, but really, $1.6 million per year represents 0.084 percent of the total $1.9 billion general fund–—it’s a drop in the bucket.