E.A.T. continued to pursue opportunities for artists to work with television and developed a proposal for “Artists' Television Programming at Automation House”, for  “a one-year demonstration project in which artists work with broadcast television as a medium. Fifteen artists will plan and produce a series of television programs for broadcast using the recording and broadcasting facilities of Automation House. The series would be widely distributed to interested cable systems, and local UHF and VHF stations, and an effort made to establish an ongoing distribution network between these stations for future exchange of such experimental innovative programs.” E.A.T. also proposed to evaluate these programs and document the qualities that artists can uniquely contribute to television programming. Another report on the “experience of the project would serve as a stimulus to broadcasters to invite artists to participate in programming and as a guide for local groups to generate imaginative low-cost programming based on the experience of the project.”

To prepare the proposal, In February 1971 E.A.T. invited over forty artists to submit ideas for programs, not necessarily works of art, but rather what artists would like to see on television. In a letter to the artists: “This is part of our larger concern to develop methods for low-cost no-cost programming that would make it possible for minority groups, special interest groups, and local community groups to be able to do effective programming. We feel the artist has the imagination and flexibility to generate programming ideas, procedures and methods that could be used by groups in other situations and for other purposes. “ The artists submitting proposals to E.A.T. and their programming ideas included Robert Breer, for an informal talk on work and digression into other topics; Trisha Brown, for documenting street performances with community children in Middletown; Ann Douglas, for interviewing newsmen of major networks; Shirley Kaplan, for a serious/comic newsreel collage; George Kuchar, for a movie resembling an average hour of television but “souped up"; Claes Oldenburg, for newsreels and information programs; and Richard Serra, for films made by people in the Bronx and Bedford Stuyvesant areas. Other artists, composers, video makers who were invited, some of whom submitted proposals, included William Burroughs, John Cage, Jackie Cassen, Remy Charlip, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Gene Davis, Jean Dupuy, Allen Ginsberg, Global Village, Walter Gutman, Ann Halprin, Pauline Oliveros, Nam June Paik, Larry Poons, Raindance Corporation, Ed Ruscha, Shunk-Kender, Michael Snow, Keith Sonnier, David Tudor, Videofreex, Andy Warhol, and Andrew Wyeth. E.A.T.'s proposal completed in March 1971 named twenty-five artists who had "responded positively and made specific proposals." Of these, fifteen would be selected for the project.

E.A.T. proposed that the project would begin with a two-day conference during which the artists would be able to "discuss their work in relation to broadcast television,” and “become familiar with the equipment and facilities at Automation House,” "talk to television engineers and technicians about their program ideas." Then each artist would produce a half-hour or one-hour program. To distribute the programs, E.A.T. proposed to find television broadcast and cable networks around the country, which would want to participate in a national distribution and exchange network.  Two studies would be made to document and evaluate the project. One would be a descriptive report analyzing the experience of the artists and would be a guide for those in the television industry who wanted artists in their locality to produce television material. The other would be a multidimensional scaling study, designed with the help of Bell Laboratories scientist Max Mathews, "to map audience perception of the difference between artists’ programs and those regularly offered on television," and would provide "quantized” support for having artists involved in television programming.

In late March the proposal was submitted to the National Endowment for the Arts, and for matching funding the New York State Council on the Arts, and  the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. On May 28, 1971, Billy Klüver wrote the artists concerned that Chloe Aaron of the Endowment had informed him the proposal was totally rejected. The proposal remained unfunded and unrealized.

During this time E.A.T. continued to push for opportunities for artists access to broadcast, and increasingly cable television. At the request of Paul Laskin, head of the Sloan Commission on Cable Communications, E.A.T. submitted suggestions for five research papers to the Commission and on March 12 and 13,  Billy Klüver and Robert Whitman participated in a producers’ conference at the Harvard Club held by the Sloan Commission to discuss alternative uses of cable channels and necessary conditions to implement these uses, where they emphasized the positive role inclusion of visual artists  could provide a vital source in counteracting the esthetic stagnation of the medium. A few days later, on March 26, 1971, Billy Klüver, at the invitation FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, testified before the FCC at a hearing on proposed cable television rules. He emphasized the importance of artists’ participation in developing cable television.  Klüver proposed "a planned involvement" of artists working in the medium was essential for the system to develop in the direction of a "a multi-channel, multi-purpose, open-access system" satisfying individual and mass needs.

Adopting fixed, arbitrary, institutional aesthetic standards, as those in broadcast television that had "been consciously or unconsciously determined by commercial interests and engineering practices," shut off variety of available inputs and limited access to the medium, the medium thus becoming stagnant. Klüver argued that standards and regulations established must accommodate artists who “had little access to broadcast television as a medium to work in." Klüver noted how the artist's traditional role had been "to break through institutionalized esthetic barriers" and to expand and enrich the use of whatever medium in which he worked, citing the creative energies had come from underground films, artists happenings, and multi-media events, feeding back and revitalizing the more established media. Artists working in cable television would not simply provide "new and highly creative sources of programming," but new approaches and procedures values that provide models for other groups of people using the cable broadcast medium. Klüver argued that developing the capability of cable television involved responsibilities "far beyond conditions in the United States." It offered "the possibility to develop a viable model" for television systems and programming for developing countries. For an artist to effectively contribute to the development of cable television, "he must know his medium" and work in it "on his own terms." In concluding his presentation, Klüver recommended  “that the Commission develop a continuing direct contact with as many operating artists as possible," not depend on intermediaries, like himself, to speak on the artist's behalf.

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E.A.T. continued working with Monroe Price, a staff member of the Sloan Commission, who was very: interested in developing uses for public channels on cable television; and in the summer of 1971 E.A.T. proposed a "Public Service Programming project, using the facilities provided by Automation House ,to develop an experimental   series of "no-cost, low-cost" programs working with special interest groups, minority groups, and local community groups to develop methods for these groups to do effective programming over the public channels that would soon be open to them.