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The official Open Mic page is on Access SF's web site.
Open Mic at Access SF was the brainchild of Bobby Watts. He is the person who should be stating his intentions, but as long as he's under Zane Blaney's thumb, I doubt he'll be able to speak up.
As I understood it, Open Mic was intended to be (just as the title suggests) an opportunity for any San Francisco resident to get a few minutes of live air time to express free speech, whether it was to give a speech, rant, sing, or perform. This 1/2 hour show was live on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., and repeated periodically in the cablecast schedule. This was an opportunity for San Francisco residents to express themselves on Access SF without having to go to all the trouble to produce their own shows.
Bobby produced the show. It was staffed by a mix of paid Access SF staff, and volunteers. It was done prior to the normal Main Studio hours, so it did not impact on the limited available studio time slots. The show ran for quite a while, until Zane Blaney got involved.
Open Mic was never adequately promoted. Even though Access SF has an ongoing "outreach" effort, that effort is focused on non-profit and corporate outreach. That's another topic of discussion in and of itself. The only promotion Open Mic received was an announcement screen displayed occasionally between programming. It was promoted primarily through word-of-mouth. As a result, over time we began to get the same set of participants returning each show.
Zane Blaney started to complain that if Bobby couldn't attract new participants, he would cancel the show. A few staff members prepared an ad hoc promotion campaign where posters were posted around the city in other Open Mic venues. It was a decent start, but Zane wouldn't give them time for this new campaign effort to take effect. Zane placed the show on hiatus. Zane said Open Mic would return only when Bobby could guarantee a full show of new talent.
Marc Smolowitz started to hijack Open Mic shows to promote his other "outreach" efforts. He stacked a show a show with participants from his Youth Festival. This started a precedent where the public was excluded from Open Mic, because ringers had preempted the public access. Many staff members contested this move in staff meetings, my making the case that this was no longer open access. Zane replied that he can do whatever he wants to do with Open Mic, including pre-booking participants or even canceling the show all together.
For many months, the only Open Mic that Bobby as been able to produce are ones where talent from non-profits were pre-booked, and the public was excluded from participation. Some non-profits had even been given multiple episodes of "Open Mic". You should not complain to Bobby about this, because he had no choice in the matter. The blame here is with Zane Blaney, who believes his authority includes excluding the public from a show alleged to be open free speech by and for the residents of San Francisco. The blame also goes to the SFCTC Board of Directors for allowing Zane to abuse his authority in this manner.
Demands should be made to the SFCTC Board of Directors. Bobby Watts is not in a position to act on your concerns. Zane Blaney doesn't care about your concerns.
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