People TV was Atlanta’s nonprofit public access media center and longtime home for community programming on Comcast Channel 24. Created in 1986 after the city’s early public access work under Cable Atlanta, People TV gave Atlanta residents, nonprofits, artists, churches, civic groups, and community organizations a place to communicate their ideas, services, opinions, and creative work through local television.
The station provided affordable production workshops, access to studios and equipment, and a cable channel reaching more than 100,000 households. At its height, People TV helped train thousands of Atlantans and carried a wide range of public access programming, including neighborhood talk shows, church services, civic organization programs, political commentary, arts and entertainment, and experimental local media.
People TV’s legacy is especially important because it captured parts of Atlanta that commercial television rarely preserved. Programs such as The American Music Show, which ran from 1981 to 2005, became part of the city’s LGBTQ and underground arts history and helped launch RuPaul’s early television career. After decades of operation, Atlanta’s public access Channel 24 went dark in 2023 when the city’s contract with the previous operator ended, closing the People TV chapter and leading to a city-led effort to restore public access in a new form.
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Atlanta’s public access story began in 1980, when the city’s cable franchise created space for residents to make television of their own. Under Cable Atlanta, Jabari Simama became the city’s first director of public access, and the early system was built around the idea that Atlanta residents should have access not only to a channel, but to the tools, facilities, and training needed to speak for themselves.
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