Statehouse Secrets: Beacon Hill does its most important business behind closed doors
by Edward Mason
The Eagle-Tribune (MA)
05/04/08
[ comments invited ]
Lawrence resident Bill Collins likes to keep an eye on Massachusetts lawmakers as they find ways to spend his money. So Collins is disappointed the House budget debate that used to be on television can only be found on the Internet. “With the Lawrence City Council, every word uttered is broadcast live on local access Channel 22,” Collins said. “On Beacon Hill, with hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s done in the dark of night.”
Actually, it’s billions of dollars. House lawmakers put together a $28 billion state budget largely out of public view. Much of the deliberations over spending occurred in backrooms, and debates that were once televised were moved to the Internet. —> http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/local_story_125012519.html
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Community Media and UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2008
by Fred Johnson
Media-Space-Place-Network
05/04/08
[ 1 comment ]
World Press Freedom Day 2008: Freedom of Expression, Access to Information and Empowerment of People
Community media is recognized by UNESCO and the UN as a key element in reaching their Millennium Development Goals. At this link there are a few spare paragraphs on community media that express their value and importance. The ease, clarity and thoughtfulness with which the UNESCO writer makes the critical distinctions between mainstream media and community media and notes the obvious logic of new media and community media integration is like a clear, cool drink of water.
Particularly when compared to the contorted language and obfuscations, and barely concealed aggression and turfiness, associated with the US discussion on community media, participatory media and the social web. Rather than seeing community access and community radio portrayed as failures that have fallen under an “old media malaise,” here we find a clear understanding of the role of community media in empowerment and democracy.
Rather than finding community media framed as receding into the past along with the old pre-network society media organizations — as has been the tendency of many new media types in the US — we find in much of the rest of the world an understanding of community media as a pioneer in media participation and open platform media development that rests on a logical continuum with the social web. And we find an understanding that community media organizations are extremely well positioned to become the local cultural institutions needed to realize the democratic potential of the network society.
So then, if you have a moment click your way through the UNESCO site and enjoy being in an information space that sees the value of community media as a prerequisite for development, not as an old media barrier to development.
EAS: Act locally, think regionally
by Thomas G. Robinson
CedMagazine.com
05/01/08
As cable communications systems have evolved from solo headends to master headend and hub configurations and then to regional super headends, the concept of the local emergency override seems to have gotten lost in the complexity of it all.
The original local emergency overrides go back to the glory days of cable franchising when cable operators touted them as being a critical component of an emergency notification system that would set their system’s capabilities apart from others desiring to cable unwired areas, thus being part of the reason for choosing them over another franchisee. A number of these promises were kept, and emergency override systems were put into place to either override the audio, or audio and video, and allow the emergency operations directors of local franchising authorities to take over the cable system for a brief period of time and notify subscribers of local alerts. This could include hazardous materials spills on a highway within the franchise area or ruptured gas lines in a specific subdivision. As government access channels came on line, subs could then be directed to turn to those for more information.
Over time, a number of things happened to alter the way in which these systems were able to be utilized. First, digital cable channels were developed and added to the lineup. The way that they were encoded and distributed presented new challenges for modifying systems which had been developed for overriding analog channels. —> http://www.cedmagazine.com/Article-In-The-Loop-050108.aspx
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The cancellation of Channel 36
Policy debates and high school sports could soon fade to black.
by Patt Morrison
Los Angeles Times (CA)
05/01/08
It’s the channel you probably channel-surf right past on your way from Discovery to CNN. Its production values can look a little … lean. “Desperate Housewives” no doubt spends more on its backstage buffet line than it costs to operate this little local channel for a whole year.
Tonight, other cable channels will air something called “Britney’s Secret Childhood” and reruns of “Law & Order” and “Family Feud.” Cable access Channel 36 will explore the future of Broadway downtown, and what Proposition 98 means. On Friday, as you’re flipping through the lineup looking for a pro baseball game, Channel 36 will broadcast the local high school slugger-fest between Cleveland and Chatsworth. Fox lets you decide whether to vote for Syesha or Brooke on “American Idol”; Channel 36 shows the debate between Bernard Parks and Mark Ridley-Thomas, so you can decide who to vote for for L.A. County supervisor, a post that represents more people than do the senators from 14 U.S. states.
Whoops — we interrupt this programming announcement for a de-programming announcement. Los Angeles is pulling the money plug. Unless the City Council overrules the mayor’s budget choices, come July 1, Channel 36 as we know it will go dark. Not that there’s much budget to cut. The 16 hours of programming a day, seven days a week — school sports, public policy talks, long-distance for-credit college classes and a lot of repeats if you missed anything the first time — cost the city $555,000. (Channel 36 raises another $320,000 itself, mostly from hiring out its production services.)
That $555,000 comes from cable TV companies, not taxpayers. Back in 1984, the city boldly demanded funding for public access channels as a condition of handing out those rich, rich cable franchises. That show of nerve now generates $25 million a year. About $3 million goes to Channel 36’s more production-intense sister station, Channel 35. If some of the faces on 35 look familiar, it’s because they’re often the mayor’s or council members’, in public meetings and on chatty shows about the work they’re doing. They’re on so often that their political opponents have complained that Channel 35 is like one big, free campaign commercial.
The Monday morning that the mayor released his budget, Carla Carlini, the general manager of Channel 36, was nervous. The city nearly whacked Channel 36 four years ago, and the city’s red ink is a lot more crimson now. “I looked at it online,” she told me, “and literally froze.” Her budget was zero. “I printed it out, I looked at it again — at that point I picked up the phone and called [the agency that supervises the channel] and said, ‘Am I reading this correctly?’ and they said, ‘Yes.’ ” —> http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-morrison1-2008may01,1,3119514.column
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AT&T will start offering public access TV on U-verse system
by Luther Turmelle
New Haven Register (CT)
05/01/08
An AT&T Inc. executive indicated Wednesday that the debut of local public access television channels on the company’s U-verse system is imminent. “It will occur sooner, rather than later,” said John Emra, AT&T’s regional vice president of external and legislative affairs. Emra said that at least one provider will appear on the system in the initial launch, with others to appear in coming weeks and months.
Emra declined to identify which public access provider would be first to launch on the system, which has been operating in the state for 17 months without offering any such programming. “We are working closely with a number of providers to bring them on board,” he said. “Some of those providers serve a number of towns.”
Speculation among those who work in the public access community is that the first provider to launch on U-verse will be Sound View Community Media of Bridgeport. The company provides public access programming for cable television customers in Bridgeport, Fairfield, Milford, Orange, Stratford and Woodbridge. But while company President Thomas Castelot acknowledged that Sound View is negotiating with AT&T to be carried on U-verse, any suggestion that an agreement is imminent is “premature,” he said.
Contrast Sound View’s experience with that of Wallingford’s Government Access Television. Scott Hanley, who manages the government access channel, said AT&T hasn’t had any contact with Wallingford since Mayor William Dickinson Jr. made an initial overture to the company. “We know that Wallingford has a fair number of (U-verse) customers, but at this point, we’ve heard nothing,” Hanley said.
Cable Companies Fight For Franchise
by Ben Hogwood
Queens Tribune (NY)
05/01/08
Cable franchises are up for renewal this year, and one Queens councilman wants to make sure customers receive better service before the City signs any new contracts.
“With the cable franchises for Cablevision and Time Warner up for renewal for the first time in 10 years, we must wisely use this opportunity to protect consumers and hold Big Cable to higher standards,” said Tony Avella (D-Bayside), the chair of zoning and franchises for the City.
In addition, the City is seeking bids from all possible companies that can offer services to every residence, and already it appears consumers may have another option. The Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) reached an agreement with Verizon Tuesday for a citywide cable television contract. The proposed agreement must still be approved by the City’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee, which is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the topic May 20. —> http://www.queenstribune.com/news/1209661473.html
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Column: School board meetings — where and what time?
by Bob Fasbender
Tomah Journal (WI)
05/01/08
[ comments invited ]
The Tomah Area School District Board of Education is seeking your input on where and when you feel board meetings should be held. Currently all Tomah School Board regular monthly meetings are held on the third Thursday of the month beginning at 7:30 p.m. at various schools throughout the year. The board is investigating the possibility of making some changes to the regular monthly board meeting schedule.
The first change they are considering is moving the starting time to 7 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. Secondly, they are considering discontinuing the “traveling” board meeting schedule. For many years the board has rotated the location of their monthly meeting so that they get into all of the schools at least once a year. They are considering the possibility of holding all regular board meetings at the former WTC building to be renamed the Robert Kupper Learning Center (RKLC), located at 1310 Townline Road in Tomah. They would continue to hold the May meeting in the Tomah High School library because this is the meeting where the retirees are recognized and usually attracts a large number of people.
Part of the reason for looking at a change in meeting location is because the board feels that more people watch the board meetings on cable (the PEG Channel and the Hagen Sports Network) than those who appear at the meetings. Secondly, anyone who has attended the meetings knows that the acoustics in the gymnasiums is marginal and makes it very difficult to hear and record. It affects the quality of the videotape that is being broadcast on cable. By holding the meetings in the former WTC building, the district can address the sound problems with the acoustical ceiling tiles and speakers in the ceilings. This will result in better sound for those who watch the meetings on cable and for those who are in attendance. —> http://www.tomahjournal.com/articles/2008/05/01/opinion/02fasbendercolumn.txt
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Public Forum on Philly WiFi
by twolfson
Philly Future (PA)
05/01/08
Media Mobilizing Project, Temple School of Communications and Theatre and a bunch of co-sponsors are hosting a public forum on the future of Philly WiFi on June 3rd at Temple. The forum will host a diverse panel of speakers, while including an open space for participants to speak about the future of the wireless Internet initiative. —> http://www.phillyfuture.org/node/6220
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How community TV spends its night of nights
by Daniel Ziffer
theage.com (Australia)
05/01/08
The Antenna Awards are community television’s Logies and last week they were celebrated with just as much passion and style. A crowd of several hundred tramped another red carpet, clinked champagne flutes and crammed into a Federation Square theatre to discover the winners of television’s other night of nights. Nominees for best program included The MS Show, a series about multiple sclerosis, The Goin Ballistyx Snow Board Show, animated children’s program Play Kool and Let’s Go Bird Watching.
The winner was sustainable-lifestyle show Making The Switch, which also took out best lifestyle program and the award for best editing. Presenter of the show’s 26 half-hour episodes, Lisa Corduff, says the community sector has room for anyone with a message. “I had never really made TV before and I was given the opportunity to research and present and produce. —> http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv–radio/how-community-tv-spends-its-night-of-nights/2008/04/30/1209234934185.html
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Time Warner to shed stake in cable operation
by Thomas Mulligan
Los Angeles Times
05/01/08
Answering Wall Street’s calls for a slimmer and more focused company, Time Warner Inc.’s chief executive said Wednesday that the cable system operator in which it holds a majority stake would become a completely separate entity. Jeffrey L. Bewkes did not spell out how and when the split-off of Time Warner Cable Inc. would be accomplished. Bewkes said that he was “very optimistic” about the prospects for the cable business but that “we just believe that the two entities would ultimately be more valuable if separated.” Time Warner owns 84percent of Time Warner Cable, a portion of which was spun off into a separate public company that began trading last year.
Time Warner has long been talked about as a possible deep-pockets buyer of Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems Corp. But there has never been a formal offer and stock analysts yesterday said it was too soon to know if the Time Warner spinoff would affect possible acquisitions, including one involving Cablevision. —> http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bztime0501,0,4960948.story
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What’s Next for Time Warner Cable?
by David Lee Smith
The Motley Fool
05/01/08
It was a busy day for Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), the second-biggest player in the cable industry. And the major event for the company wasn’t, as you might expect, its quarterly results, but rather the fact that we now know that it’s about to leave its parental nest. So, let’s look quickly at the company’s results for the quarter before discussing its future. —> http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/05/01/whats-next-for-time-warner-cable.aspx
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Live from a big ol’ van . . .
Mobile at the nonprofit tech conference, New Orleans 2.5 years after Katrina, and a jazz archive in peril . . .
by Jen Gilomen, Lead Developer of Strategic Initiatives, BAVC
04/30/08
[ comments invited ]
Saint Louis Cathedral, French QuarterWhen Hurricane Katrina hit, David Freedman was thinking about the history of jazz. Specifically, he was thinking about how to save the 5,000+ original recordings, 50,000 LPs, and 25,000 CDs housed at his community radio station, WWOZ, in New Orleans. The first emergency — besides evacuating — was saving the vaulted archive of original recordings. David and I were both at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans in March, and the story of his station, combined with the overall vibe of the conference and some exploration of New Orleans two and a half years after the flood, got me thinking about what the ‘community’ in community media and technology really means. […]
And while community media may have lost some of the renegade reputation that it had in the ’70s, when BAVC was born and the organization consisted of a few guys were running around with Porta Packs, it has grown into its own without losing, we hope, the community spirit in which it began. As BAVC and our own ‘community of community media’ continue to think about technologies of the future — who will have access to them, use them, profit from them, and learn from them — we need to remember the importance of localism, the preservation of the “authentic space” for people to create, collaborate, express themselves, and enrich themselves that is the heart of community media. http://bavc.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/live-from-a-big-ol-van/
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Hot off the presses
Rumblings in ITA (CA)
04/30/08
[ 7 comments ]
ITA just completed their budget hearing:
—> Channel 36 and cable franchise oversight: Councilman Rosendahl and other board members discussed the funding cuts to Channel 36 and asked that ITA and the Mayors Office look at restoring that funding through the 1% franchise fee that the City will get from the State of California or perhaps by some other means. Citing Channel 36 as an invaluable asset to the citizens of Los Angeles. Rosendahl chided the State for taking cable regulatory control away from the local governments. —> http://itarumblings.blogspot.com/2008/04/hot-off-presses.html
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Reportback from April 17th Action at Mexican Consulate
Portland Independent Media Center (OR)
04/30/08
Members of Portland State University student groups M.E.Ch.A., Las Mujeres, North American Solidarity, Amnesty International PSU, and community groups Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Cascadia Root Force, Oregon Oaxaca Solidarity [held] a march and rally outside the Mexican Consulate to demand a thorough investigation of the ambush and murder of two women community media activists in Oaxaca, Mexico. These groups also condemn the paramilitary repression of indigenous women and community media projects. —> http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/375161.shtml
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Amy Goodman Interview
by Elizabeth DiNovella
The Progressive
February 2008
[ 2 comments ]
Amy Goodman is one of the leading journalists of our time. She is executive producer and host of Democracy Now, a daily, independent radio and television news program broadcast on 650 stations around the world. “I’ve always been surprised that people say it’s a hopeful program because we deal with such difficult subjects,” she says. “But I think it’s hopeful because of the people we interview. They are both the analysts and those that are doing something about it, wherever they might be.” —> http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0208
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World’s longest-running cable access show produced in Somerville
Somerville Journal (MA)
04/30/08
[ 1 comment ]
Somerville – Turn to SCAT Channel 3 on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. to watch the longest-running public access TV show in the world, “Dead Air Live.” The program has been produced by the Somerville Producers Group every other Tuesday night since 1975, and presents everything from talk shows to music performance to travelogues. The members, who come and go over the years, take turns producing the shows. —> http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/x914621464
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Claire’s Community Showcase to feature host’s 1974 trip to Saudi Arabia
Duluth Journal (MN)
04/30/08
Duluth Public Access Community Television, Inc. (PACT) regularly airs a program called Claire’s Community Showcase, a talk-show format series hosted by local writer Claire Schumacher. This Thursday and Friday, PACT is airing a special showing of Claire’s Community Showcase as it features a slide show format program of the host’s 1974 trip to Saudi Arabia. Mrs. Schumacher narrates over the picture slide show as she relives her memories from that trip and explains the stories behind the photos. —> http://www.howiehanson.com/?p=2861
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Slidell, Pearl River councils oppose cable and tax bills in Legislature
by Erik Sanzenbach
St. Tammany News (LA)
04/14/08
[ comments invited ]
One proposed bill affecting tax collection and a bill vetoed by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco that has been revived and would change the way cable franchise negotiations are handled have incurred the displeasure of both the Slidell City Council and the Pearl River Board of Aldermen. The Slidell Council voted Tuesday night to accept two resolutions that oppose the passage of the legislations in the state Legislature.
The first piece of legislation is the Competitive and Video Services Act passed by the Legislature in 2006 and vetoed by Blanco. The act would prohibit local governments from negotiating cable television franchise contracts. The state would negotiate all cable television contracts and would set franchise fees.
This would mean a substantial loss of revenue for local municipalities. Slidell City Attorney Tim Mathison told the council the state would set up franchise fees that were 5 percent of the net revenues of a cable company. In Blanco’s veto message in July 2006, the governor said the proposed revenue losses to local municipalities would force town to either cut back on essential services, or they would have to increase taxes. —> http://www.slidellsentry.com/articles/2008/04/14/news/doc48037209cc286191238178.txt
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Community Information Needs and Access to be Studied by New Commission from the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute
by Erin Silliman
Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy
04/14/08
First Study on Comprehensive Information Availability and Engagement; Theodore B. Olson and Marissa Mayer, Commission Co-Chairs
Washington, D.C. – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute today announced the launch of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. The high-level Knight Commission will look into whether the information needs of 21st century American citizens and communities are being met and make recommendations for public policy and private initiatives that will help better meet community information needs.
“The Commission will look at the issues of information, news and society from the perspective of communities across the nation,” said Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and CEO. “We want to assess their information needs, then take a snapshot to see how they are being met. The Commission will offer creative recommendations to improve democratic problem-solving at the local level through more and better engagement with relevant news and information.” —> http://www.knightcomm.org/?q=node/5
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Comcast deal boosts ORCTV
by Don Cuddy
Standard-Times (MA)
04/14/08
[ comments invited ]
MARION — Community television in the tri-town area received a boost last week with the news that ORCTV and Comcast have reached an agreement that will result in all of the community access channels operating from the ORCTV studios at the Captain Hadley House in Marion. “Comcast has agreed to transfer the I-net hubs from their customer service building in Marion and install them in the studio here,” ORCTV director Kim Miot said. “The town technically owns the equipment but Comcast will manage and maintain it. It will be good for us to have the technical equipment operating right next to our playback system.”
The I-net hubs are a series of switches that “operate like a traffic cop” to manage input and control the flow of information, according to a Comcast spokesman. What this will mean for viewers of local cable will be more programs on more channels and greater variety, Ms. Miot said. “We will be able to finally light up Channel 18 EDTV, the educational channel, which has been dark for a long time, as well as constructing Rochester’s government access channel,” she said. “Up to the present we have been functioning out of the Marion town house but these things can now begin to happen because of this agreement.” —> http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080414/NEWS/804140342/-1/NEWS
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BATV plan includes two new TV studios at BHS
By Elana Zak
Brookline Tab (MA)
04/14/08
[ comments invited ]
Brookline High students might soon be giving Conan O’Brien a run for his money. The School Committee is considering a proposal from BATV to build two new television studios in the high school’s Unified Arts Building. One of the studios would be designated an educational studio for high school students, allowing them to create content that would be shown on air.
BATV, Brookline public access television, presented the plan last week and said it would foot the bill for the approximately $1.8 million renovations. “We need a new home,” said William Slotnik, president of BATV, at the April 10 School Committee meeting. “It seemed natural that we would move deeper into the schools.”
The plan involves moving BATV from its current home at the old Lincoln School to the UA building. The public-access station has been there since 2004, after leaving its former offices with Comcast on Amory Street. BATV would take over the third floor of the building and concentrate all art classes and studios on the second floor. They would use one of the two studios for BATV broadcasting. —> http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/news/education/x1148173393
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New soundstage for Tucson?
Ambitious plan aims to boost local filmmaking, plus build a media center and 300-seat theater
by Rob O’Dell
Arizona Daily Star
04/14/08
[ 34 comments ]
Once known has “Hollywood in the Desert,” Tucson has been relegated to more of a low-budget, direct-to-video status in the hierarchy of show business. But a group of community organizations and city officials wants to restore some of our former glitz by building a state-of-the-art soundstage to attract more A-list movies and television shows. The $10 million package would include a media center that local groups could use and a 300-seat theater. Tucson hasn’t had a first-class soundstage since the one at Old Tucson burned down in 1995.
The idea is for Access Tucson, radio station KXCI, the Loft Cinema and possibly city-owned TV station Tucson 12 to pool their resources and save costs by sharing facilities. The effort is being led by Sam Behrend, executive director of Access Tucson, which provides public-access television. Behrend used a grant from City Councilman Steve Leal’s office for preliminary schematic work on a new “community media center.”
A soundstage, to attract some of the films that now bypass Tucson for Albuquerque and Austin, Texas, was added to broaden the appeal of the media center. Mayor Bob Walkup, for example, said he doesn’t know whether he would support a media center, but he’s solidly behind bringing in a soundstage. “I do strongly support a soundstage to be back in motion picture, the TV and the commercial business,” Walkup said. “That’s got some traction, and I would really like to see that re-established in Tucson.” Leal said he supports both a stand-alone community media center and one with a soundstage. —> http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/234215
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A local Rite of spring
BCTV Cable Channel 2: Belfast — Searsport (ME)
04/14/08
[ comments invited ]
Recently the Waldo County YMCA staged two River races. The St. George and Paasagassawakeag races have been held every spring for almost 30 years. This year, for the first time ever, the YMCA decided to have the races filmed to not only be shown on area public access channels, but also to provide each race paricipant with a DVD. There was still snow along the river banks and the weather was brisk, but it was a lively event to watch and the one hour program that was produced should be entertaining to see. There were many local participants, and you may just recognize a neighbor. It is wonderful that the Y has provided us with this program and we hope other organizations in our community will do the same. http://belfastcommunitytv.blogspot.com/2008/04/local-rite-of-spring-recently-waldo.html
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New approach to community broadcasting
by Kevin
Australian-Media.com.au
04/14/08
[ comments invited ]
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has announced a new approach and a number of ongoing initiatives to improve its interactions with the community broadcasting sector. The new approach will be more proactive, entail a review of processes and procedures and have a focus on improved information, consultation and transparency.
“This sector is incredibly diverse and its several hundred members vary widely in their size and resources and the quality of their governance arrangements. We have gone back to first principles and are looking for better ways to do business with the sector. The aim is to ensure sector members continue to serve the community while at the same time making the regulator more accessible and more accountable,” said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.
The first step of ACMA’s new approach to interaction with the community broadcasting sector is the establishment of a new ACMA team, the Community Broadcasting Group (CBG). One aim of the CBG is to interact with the community broadcasting sector and, in particular, its peak bodies in a highly consultative manner.
The CBG’s work encompasses all licence allocations and renewals, complaints and investigations, compliance and enforcement, and the monitoring and review of the codes of practice that govern community radio and community television broadcasting services. A single group dealing with this range of matters will deliver efficiencies and ensure a more consistent approach across the range of issues experienced by the community broadcasting sector. This, in turn, should minimise overlap or delay.
As at 30 June 2007, there were 358 community radio broadcasting services, compared to 274 commercial radio broadcasting services. “This is a large number of community radio broadcasting services. As they obtain access to valuable free-to-air spectrum at little cost, it is important for ACMA to administer the legislative provisions in accordance with the public interest and in the manner intended by Parliament,” said Mr Chapman. —> http://www.australian-media.com.au/index.php?c=home&p=news&article=9565&from=rss
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A side-by-side comparison of AT&T PEG channel and Comcast PEG Channel. Shows the length of time to change channels from a broadcast to a peg channel. [ Also compares AT&T’s U-Worse image quality to Comcast’s ~ rm ] http://youtube.com/watch?v=v6A-btugKdA
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AT&T won’t say where it’d offer TV if bill passes
by John Rodgers
Nashville City Paper (TN)
04/09/08
[ 12 comments ]
Despite lobbying for a bill to start offering television services and compete with cable, AT&T will not say where it would offer those services if legislation were approved. “For competitive reasons, the company does not outline those plans,” said Bob Corney, an AT&T spokesman. “But, our goal is to try to get our product to as many customers as possible as quickly as possible.”
…The ambiguity about where AT&T would offer its services is just something that comes with state-issued franchising, said Stacey Briggs, the executive director of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association, which had lobbied against the bill before signing off on the compromise. “I think that’s just the difference between the state process and the local process where local governments are losing control over where AT&T goes,” Briggs said. —> http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=59467
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A Snowy Transmission
by Tomas Dinges
411 Productions (TX)
04/09/08
Just weeks after Patsy Robles and her 15-year-old daughter stepped into the studio of San Antonio’s Channel 20 during the summer of 2004 they were on TV, a channel-surf away from the major networks. Motivated by a desire to “counteract negative media stereotypes of youth,” Robles, an accountant, learned to produce television. Soon, belly dancing, 10-year-old mariachi players and 16-year-old news anchors describing the impact of Hurricane Katrina on young people could be seen by anybody with a basic subscription to Time-Warner cable in the San Antonio area.
This was public access television. For almost two years their show, “411,” appeared four times a month. However, in late 2006, the studio shut down, and the channel went dark. “I was totally shocked,” said Robles, who said she was given no warning of the move. “I didn’t even know if the channel was coming back.”
What happened to her and other access producers in San Antonio was a harbinger of things to come in others towns and cities where cable lines lay. Last year, 21 production studios in Indiana and Michigan were closed. Funding for public access programming is expected to dry up entirely during the next five years in Ohio, Florida, Missouri and Wisconsin, according to the Alliance for Community Media, an advocacy group that organizes public access channels across the country.
The closings resulted from new statewide franchise contracts, which eliminated the longtime obligations of cable providers to local communities in 17 states. Public access television has existed in the past because of “its close connection to the local community,” said Anthony Riddle, executive director of the Alliance for Community Media. Established by Congress in 1973, the Public, Educational and Governmental channels were a trade-off for company use of public land to run cables and make a profit. They would be available for local groups and individual citizens to use in whatever manner they wished–sort of a modern-day electronic public sphere.
Now, “the telecommunications companies are not connected to the public that they serve,” said Riddle. “There is no accountability on a state level.” Instead of having to negotiate new agreements with thousands of municipalities across the country, the cable and telephone industries heavily lobbied state legislatures for permission to strike the simpler statewide agreements. Local communities had no leverage. As a consequence, said Riddle, cable companies are out to make new rules or “take an interpretation of the rules to shut down an access center.” —> http://411productions.blogspot.com/2008/04/snowy-transmission-by-tomas-dinges.html
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Black Evil Television, Low-Power FM Neighborhood Radio, and the Congressional Black Caucus
by Bruce Dixon
Black Agenda Radio
04/08/08
[ 4 comments ]
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Bruce Dixon.
Even when corporate black radio does not ape the content of “Black Evil Television” it consistently fails the legal tests of serving local needs with local content and broadcasting in the public interest. Legislation is now in the Congress to open up licensing for hundreds of new low-power FM neighborhood radio stations in cities and towns across the nation. Though all three presidential candidates, along with Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress are co-sponsoring… the Low-Power FM Neighborhood Radio bill (HB 2802 & SB ) relatively few members of the Congressional Black Caucus are among them.
Reporters Without Borders is deeply shocked by the fatal shooting on 7 April in Putla de Guerrero, in the southern state of Oaxaca, of Teresa Bautista Flores, 24, and Felicitas Martínez, 20, two women journalists working for La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence”), a community radio station serving the Trique indigenous community. “Although there is so far no evidence that these two women were killed because of their work as journalists, their murders will be traumatic for all of Latin America’s many community radio stations, which are too often ignored or despised by the rest of the media and by governments,” Reporters Without Borders said.
“We are conscious of the risks run by the press in Oaxaca state, where the political climate continues to be tense, where two journalists were killed in 2006 at the height of a period of social unrest, and where other community media have been attacked,” the press freedom organisation continued. “We hope the investigators quickly establish the circumstances and motives for this double murder and catch those responsible. And we join their community in paying tribute to the two victims.”
La Voz que Rompe el Silencio was launched by the Trique indigenous community in San Juan Copala (in the west of Oaxaca state) on 20 January, a year after the locality was granted administrative autonomy. The community appointed Bautista Flores and Martínez to manage and present the radio station, which is dedicated to promoting indigenous culture.
The two young women were returning from doing a report in the municipality of Llano Juárez in the early afternoon when they were ambushed and, after being threatened with abduction, were finally shot with 7.62 calibre bullets of the kind used in AK-47 assault rifles, Reporters Without Borders was told by CACTUS, an organisation that supports indigenous communities. Investigators found 20 bullet casings at the scene. Three other people were wounded in the shooting – Jaciel Vázquez, aged 3, and his parents. —> http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26511
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Independent radio reclaims the airwaves
“If you don’t have access and ownership and control of a media system, you really don’t exist,” said Loris Taylor, of Native Public Media.
by Michelle Chen
Straight Goods (Canada)
04/08/08
[Editor’s note: As the CBC public broadcasting system suffers the death of a thousand cuts, Canadians should pay attention to what US communities have learned about the importance of radio, especially, for building communities, delivering local news, and providing public space for airing issues of vital public interest.]
A mother’s voice stretched over the air to a son spending the holidays in a Virginia prison: “Keep your head up. I love you. Just do what you gotta do to survive.” The hushed message was one of dozens featured on Calls from Home, a project of Mountain Community Radio in Kentucky. Each December, the call-in program helps families of prisoners reconnect through holiday shout-outs, aired on stations across the country.
As broadcast conglomerates narrow radio’s political scope, activists are recasting the medium to once again empower underserved communities.
Since the first mass broadcasts crackled over the country’s airwaves in the 1920s, radio has defined itself as a democratic medium, providing communities that have few resources — from inmates to immigrant workers — a conduit for news and civic communication. But today, media activists say commercialism has reduced a vital institution to an industry of white noise. In response, alternative radio projects and media-justice movements have emerged to resuscitate a flagging public sphere. —> http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewMediaFile8.cfm?REF=15
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Columbia College Chicago/Community Media Workshop
New America Media
04/09/08
Ethnic Media Practice Serious Journalism at Risk of Peril
by Kenneth Kin
New America Media
04/09/08
[ 1 comment ]
Editor’s Note: Practicing the first amendment in America can be hazardous to your health, especially if you work in the ethnic media sector, according to editors at a New America Media-sponsored conference on ethnic media and freedom of expression in Los Angeles this week.
The First Amendment may have guaranteed the promise of a free press, but for ethnic media reporting on their own communities that can be as perilous as covering a war zone. In ethnic enclaves where the power of protest is mightier than the pen, it takes a combination of physical courage, mental perseverance and sometimes even the willingness to risk one’s own life to practice journalism.
A diverse group of leading editors from ethnic news media gathered in Los Angeles on April 7 to share accounts of threats they had received from their own communities. The roundtable discussion, “A Challenge for Ethnic Media: When Coverage Provokes Threats from Your Own Community,” was co-hosted by New America Media, the California First Amendment Coalition, USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism, CSU Northridge’s Center for Ethnic and Alternative Media, The Society of Professional Journalists-Greater LA Chapter, UCLA’s CCC (Campus Computing Council), California Chicano News Media Association (CCNMA) and other media advocacy groups.
S. F. event and national symposium in D. C. to counter mis-information on Venezuela
by Jonathan Nack
indymedia.org
04/09/08
[ comments invited ]
“The level of openness and participation in the community media in an inspiration. From what I witnessed, the democratization of the media in Venezuela flies in the face of practically everything I read about Venezuela in U. S. corporate media.”
SAN FRANCISCO – Mainstream media outlets have run many stories recently criticizing freedom of the press in Venezuela, but have ignored the story of the explosion of community radio and T.V. Greg Miller and Sean Kriletich explore the burgeoning community media movement spreading across Venezuela in their film, “La Revolucion Comunicativa: community radio and t.v. on the rise in Venezuela.” —> http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/09/18491508.php
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New Hope For Press Freedom With Election Upset
The Malaysian
04/09/08
[ 2 comments ]
The Malaysian government’s unprecedented losses in national elections last month will hopefully provide the long-awaited drive for media reform, say Malaysia’s Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA). —> http://the-malaysian.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-hope-for-press-freedom-with.html
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Somerville Cares About Prevention (Part 1)
SCAT’s Vlog! (MA)
04/09/08
[ comments invited ]
On March 26 Somerville Cares About Prevention, a City of Somerville agency, held its 5th Annual Community Addiction Speakout at Somerville Community Access Television. The program featured a panel of experts on teen alcohol and opiate addictions, including two teens in recovery who shared their stories. SPF100, the youth group that promotes positive choices, showed their video about the problem of adults giving youth access to alcohol. http://scatstaffvlog.blogspot.com/2008/04/somerville-cares-about-prevention-part.html
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Public access channel opens up its mics
Ventura County Star (CA)
04/09/08
Ventura’s public-access channel will hold “Open Mic Days” where people can sit down in front of a camera and say what’s on their minds for three minutes, organizers said. Participants must live, work or go to school in Ventura. Individuals will be responsible for their remarks and will have to sign a waiver releasing Community Access Partners of San Buenaventura, or CAPS-TV, from liability. The segments will be compiled into shows titled “What’s On Your Mind, Ventura?” and “What’s On Your Mind, Ventura — After Dark.” —> http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/apr/09/public-access-channel-opens-its-mics/
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Chicago IMC Public Access TV Show Coverage of 5th Anniversary Antiwar Direct Actions
by Chicago Indymedia Collective
The War Stops Here
04/08/08
[ comments invited ]
ON THE SHOW THIS MONTH: Complete coverage of the 2008 Chicago Peace Protests during the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq.
M20 Civil Disobedience and Arrest, Federal Plaza, Chicago – March 20, 2008, 7 activists, including Kathy Kelly, perform civil disobedience action at Federal Plaza, downtown Chicago, resulting in arrest. This was one of many actions in Chicago to mark the 5th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Produced by Fred Hickler.
Cable Access Talk Show Spreads Positive Message
Northland’s News Center (MN/WI)
04/09/08
[ comments invited ]
“Well, howdy there, you buckaroos! Welcome to Late Night With Don!” is how Don Yoder introduces his show. Look out “Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman”. This is “Late Night With Don” hosted by Superior native Don Yoder which airs at the same time as the network’s late shows.
Yoder doesn’t think his cable access talk show is a competitor to the big boys of evening television. “I think it is an alternative I have. I don’t get up here and make fun of actors or actresses that are going through difficult times in their lives.” says Don Yoder. Don is a Marine Corps veteran and country and gospel singer who is back in the Northland after many years away. His show is taped in Proctor and airs there and in the Twin Ports weeknights at 10:30 pm on cable access TV.
After two months of production, the show is catching on. “The public reaction is good. People like to see local programming and I think it fills a void we’ve had in public access in this area and I think it’s a fun show to work on.” according to Peter Luke who runs Proctor’s cable access TV channel…
How to do a show on Proctor Trac 7 TV: You can be the Creator/ Producer and Director of your own Video show. You call the shots, you write the format of of your show and you edit the show. Whether you Produce the show In-Studio or on-Location, you have access to the latest Video Production Equipment. Call: Peter Luke, Cable TV Coordinator at (218) 628-6283 for more Information! http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/17393714.html
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AT&T’s new U-verse service doesn’t have to play by all the rules that cable TV companies do. But it should play by one: It should offer viewers the same quality public affairs broadcasts that cable viewers now enjoy.
The Connecticut Television Network, aptly described as Connecticut’s C-SPAN, covers state government, including debates on bills before the General Assembly. CT-N fears, with good reason, that AT&T will move it to a substandard channel that will be hard for viewers to connect with and see clearly.
Paul Giguere, president and CEO of CT-N, recently did a side-by-side comparison of public affairs programs on U-verse and cable TV in a town in Michigan. (The comparison can be seen at www.compare.ct-n.com.)
On U-verse, the public access channel took more than a minute to appear on the screen. The picture was fuzzier than on cable TV. Also, viewers couldn’t record U-verse public access programs with DVRs. These changes will surely upset the many fans of the invaluable CT-N.
AT&T has fought its way into the Connecticut cable TV market this past year with promises of great quality and competitive pricing on its service. The legislature relaxed its regulations last year to give the newcomer a chance. But even the lighter regulatory system still included public access requirements for U-verse.
The legislature must make sure CT-N viewers don’t get shortchanged with the new service. They should have the same easy, crisp viewing experience as they will have with C-SPAN and CPTV, which will be carried on commercial channels.
Secrecy granted to cable TV providers
by Timothy C. Barmann
Providence Journal (RI)
04/03/08
The state’s three cable TV companies have asked state regulators to keep secret some of the details the businesses are required to file about their operations each year. Eric Palazzo, the state’s top cable regulator, has granted that request.
Cox Communications, Verizon Communications and Full Channel TV all contend that releasing some of the information in their annual reports, such as how many customers each company has, would harm their competitive positions. Cox has gone a step further by also requesting that financial information, such as its balance sheet and income statements, be kept confidential as well. These filings, in their entirety, have been made available to the public for 25 years.
Palazzo said the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers supported cable competition within Rhode Island, adding “We do not want to do anything that the companies feel would be negative in the competitive environment.” The three companies filed their annual reports Tuesday, the deadline for doing so. The Journal has asked Thomas Ahern, administrator of the division, to review Palazzo’s decision to withhold the information.
Ahern said that state law gives the agency 10 days to respond to The Journal’s request. He said that Palazzo has asked the cable companies to file memos that expand upon their reasons for wanting to keep the information confidential. The state rules that govern cable TV have required cable companies to file annual reports since the industry’s inception in Rhode Island in the early 1980s. The reports are to contain information about each company’s ownership, management, financial condition, facilities, services and subscriber information…
Linda Lotridge Levin, a professor of journalism at the University of Rhode Island, said the information that the cable companies don’t want disclosed could be helpful to consumers. “If you have the information, then you can make a better informed decision,” Levin said, who is also chairwoman of Access Rhode Island, a group that works to ensure that the workings of government are open to the citizens of the state.
Clash over ‘white spaces’
by Chris Frates
Politico
04/03/08
[ comments invited ]
The big guns of high tech and consumer advocacy are launching a major lobbying blitz next week to convince policymakers to allow unlicensed electronic gadgets to operate on the television spectrum. While a bit esoteric-sounding, the issue of allowing unlicensed electronics to use vacant spectrum space between television channels will have a dramatic and lasting impact on consumers, argue supporters and opponents alike.
The high-tech community contends that allowing laptops, PDAs and other unlicensed devices to operate in the so-called “white spaces” will revolutionize wireless broadband access. Broadcasters counter that such a move would interfere with television signals and distort TV picture quality for millions of Americans. A classic Washington clash of the titans, the fight between the broadcasters and the tech companies has turned savage, with each side accusing the other of distortion and greed.
The techies contend the broadcasters want to keep the white spaces for themselves until they can figure out how to make money selling them. The broadcasters say the tech giants are trying to score free spectrum space — unlicensed devices mean companies don’t have to buy expensive spectrum space that licensed devices require. Each side dismisses its opponent’s arguments as bunk.
To push their cause, Microsoft, Dell, Google and other tech companies, along with several public interest groups, have formed the Wireless Innovation Alliance. And it has bought a round of print ads to run in Washington publications over the next several weeks. The ads criticize the National Association of Broadcasters for what the alliance calls NAB’s pattern of opposition over the years to FM radio, cable television and the VCR, among other innovations. The alliance expects to begin a second round of advertising in late May or early June.
On Capitol Hill, the alliance is targeting lawmakers charged with overseeing the Federal Communications Commission, which is currently testing unlicensed devices to determine whether they cause interference. Specifically, the alliance intends to lobby the 70 lawmakers who wrote to the FCC to express their concern about unlicensed devices.
“Many of these members merely voiced concern over television interference, not the technological opportunity that will bring wireless broadband access to millions of Americans and close the gap between American schools, rural communities and underserved populations,” said alliance spokesman Brian Peters. “Opposing interference and supporting NAB’s position are two very different things.”
To mobilize consumers, the alliance has tapped its partners to help build a grass-roots network. More than 500,000 members of the media reform organization Free Press have filed more than 20,000 comments with the FCC supporting unlicensed devices to use white spaces, said Shawn Chang, the consumer advocacy group’s deputy policy director. The move will help counter NAB’s constituency of station owners.
Free Press believes white spaces can increase Internet access, a message it has pitched to the civil rights, music and rural groups it has asked to sign on to the fight, Chang said. “The goal is expanding the number of coalitions and bringing a diverse perspective into the debate,” Chang said. “Traditionally, people don’t view this as a digital divide issue. They view it as one large industry, tech companies, versus another large industry: the broadcasters. It’s really about connecting more people to the Internet.” —> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9344.html
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REPACTED: Giving Voice To The Kenyan Youths
by Rezwan
Rising Voices
04/03/08
[ comments invited ]
REPACTED is the abbreviation of Rapid Effective Participatory Action in Community Theater Education and Development. REPACTED was formed in the year 2001 by young theater artists from the Nakuru Players Theater Club with assistance from an international NGO. Their aim is to improve the community by encouraging young people and involving them in community development through participatory theater methodologies, awareness campaigns and peer education and counseling.
The scope of the Youth Media Consultative Forum is stated in their application to Rising Voices:
“The youth media consultative forum will collect news, stories, information, and other content from their respective communities among the target population and post them on the internet, through photography, broadcast, video, blogging, and magazines. The project will also use Magnet Theater to inform, educate, and communicate to the target population. With the above activities the target population will be able to communicate with like minded population in the whole world, and show the true picture of their community. The kind of news and stories that we will collect and share using the above tools will be to show the struggles that young people are going through here in Nakuru Kenya and give them a voice.”
In their first post in Rising Voices REPACTED tells about its works and achievements till-to-date.
Verizon’s Seidenberg calls for less red tape
by Carolyn Y. Johnson
Boston Globe (MA)
03/27/08
Verizon Communications Inc. chief executive Ivan G. Seidenberg called for a streamlined cable franchising process and cautioned politicians to be careful when considering new taxes or regulations. Speaking at the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club of Boston, Seidenberg jokingly referred to Mayor Thomas M. Menino several times during his speech. The mayor supports a recent Appellate Tax Board decision that Verizon should pay taxes on telephone poles and wires over public ways, but the company has said it will appeal the ruling. —> http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2008/03/verizons_seiden.html
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Hooksett to consider sewer plant expansion
by Jenn McDowell
Hooksett Banner (NH)
03/26/08
[ comments invited ]
—> At the public hearing, the Budget Committee also heard from resident David Pearl on a petitioned warrant article to bring public access television to Hooksett. The program would be paid for through franchise fees the town currently collects from Comcast customers, which is currently about three percent of the total bill. Right now, the money collected from those fees goes into the town’s general fund, and it would more than cover the estimated start-up costs for the station. The total amount needed for the first year could approach $100,000, which would pay for a typical set up for the station and fiber optic cables. —> http://cs.newhampshire.com/blogs/hooksett_editor/archive/2008/03/26/Hooksett-to-consider-sewer-plant-expansion.aspx
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City council votes for deregulation of cable contract
The Norman Transcript (OK)
03/27/08
[ comments invited ]
Norman city councilmembers split their vote 5-4 in favor of deregulating the contract with Cox Communications at its Tuesday evening regular meeting. The vote came after a 35-minute rant by Ward 2 councilmember Richard Stawicki, in which he objected in great detail to every element of the changes in the contract. Other councilmembers fidgeted, whispered to each other and rolled their eyes during Stawicki’s statements. “What this ordinance does is deregulate,” Stawicki said, railing against the City giving away elements of the contract. He named off each section of the new ordinance and noted that the items were “struck — wrongfully so.” —> http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_087002325
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CTC applies for Rice Lake cable franchise
by Gene Prigge
Chronotype (WI)
03/27/08
CTC Telcom has been issued an interim video franchise for the City of Rice Lake and other areas. The Cameron-based company plans to begin offering cable television here by May, said CTC chief executive officer Rick Vergin. CTC applied for a franchise under a new state law that shifts the authority to grant video franchises from local municipalities to the state. The new law, which makes the state the exclusive franchise-granting authority, took effect Jan. 9…
Under the new law, CTC will pay a 5% franchise fee to the city, with that fee based on gross revenues from video income. Charter also pays a 5% franchise fee to the city, with those funds used primarily to support Rice Lake’s public access channel, Channel 14. Charter also pays a capital grants payment to the city’s public access channel. Under the new law, however, that payment will be phased out over the next 3 years. Budgeted income from the Charter franchise fee to Rice Lake in 2008 is $91,000. The capital grant income is $13,884.
Mick Givens, the director of the local public access channel, said overall the state legislation is “a positive thing,” but he said it also creates challenges for public access channels and could result in the end of those channels. Losses to the local public access channel include lower franchise revenues because of new revenue accounting methods, and the loss of capital grants.
Givens noted that while the bill enabling the state franchise system was passed by state legislators by a 2-1 margin, local representatives Bob Jauch and Mary Hubler voted against the measure. Givens said that under the new law, cable providers will still be required to pay up to 5% of revenues as a franchise fee, but the new accounting of gross revenues will result in a net loss of income for public access channels. Under the current Charter franchise, Charter revenues include charges for video service, including events and pay-per-view, rental of set-top boxes, service charges such as activation and maintenance, and revenue received from home shopping and similar programming.
The law provides for public access channels to solicit sponsorships, or advertising, which would help make up for lost revenues, but Givens also notes that the Rice Lake cable system has only one full-time employee and a slot for a half- time employee. “Where do we find the time to perform our functions and go out and sell ads?” he asked.
The new system mandates that new entries into a market must carry existing public access channels, and Vergin indicated that CTC will do that. Givens, who has served on the board of the Wisconsin Cable Communications Assn. and on the board of the Wisconsin Association of Public, Educational and Government Channels, said AT&T, and probably other providers, plan to move public access channels to “the hinterlands” of Channel 99. He said the lower channel numbers are the most desirable, that Rice Lake public access has been on Channel 14 for years and that “It’s going to be tough to find a channel that has no publicity.”
Adding to that problem, he said, is that it may take considerably longer for a public access channel to feed into a system when the viewer selects that channel, perhaps as much as 30 seconds or more, which will prompt most viewers to make another choice. —> http://www.chronotype.com/newarticle.asp?T=L&ArticleID=13574
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Grant to pay for TV technology
by Holly Angelo
The Republican (MA)
03/27/08
CHICOPEE – The city has received the last of two $500,000 capital grants from Charter Communications for the School Department’s telecommunications center, which is scheduled to be fully operational by the fall. The $1 million in grant payments are part of the city’s 10-year contract with Charter that expires in 2014. The telecommunications center on James Street will be relocated to new headquarters at the new Chicopee Comprehensive High School. Bids for equipment for the center are expected to go out in early May.
“It was definitely a good thing for the School Department and the city,” Rose Y. Blais, assistant superintendent for telecommunications technology services for the School Department, said yesterday. “We’re looking at a high-definition television studio.”
The $1 million didn’t come without a price. Public access programming used to be handled by Charter, but the School Department has taken over those duties for the city. In addition, Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette said the city lost two of its four local cable access channels when it signed the 10-year pact. “There was a substantial trade-off,” Bissonnette said.
Of the $1 million, $750,000 will buy studio equipment and $250,000 will outfit a new remote television van, Blais said. Blais said the School Department is changing its telecommunications department from the James Street site to Chicopee Comprehensive. The telecommunications department also teaches television production to both Chicopee Comprehensive and Chicopee High School students, along with managing all the computers and servers in the School Department. The telecommunications department also oversees local cable access Channels 5 and 19. —> http://www.masslive.com/chicopeeholyoke/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-13/120660249098000.xml&coll=1
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WSKI continuing community broadcasts
by Ann Bryant
Sun Journal (ME)
03/27/08
[ 4 comments ]
CARRABASSETT VALLEY – With a long history of providing unique television to the community, WSKI-TV 17 plans to continue despite the challenges of this past year. “We think we do community television in the best possible way to serve our community,” said owner Nadine McLeod Wednesday.
Recent questions raised about the station’s legal right to use channel 17 by Scott Hogg led McLeod to seek the advice of Tony Vigue, a board member of the Community Television Association of Maine, she said. “Federal statutes do not expressly prohibit commercial advertising and programming on public access television. It’s not typical, but is not prohibited,” he said he told both McLeod and Hogg when they asked about general guidelines for public access stations.
The history of the station included ad placement on channel 17 before public access channels were started, she said. SKI-TV originated this way: An antenna was placed atop Sugarloaf so that condominiums could receive three Bangor stations. That led to the decision to put up its own station and McLeod became the station supervisor in 1979, she said.
When Larry Warren started Longfellow Cable, he asked Sugarloaf to let WSKI be added to his cable menu. The station offered a unique product with weather and trail conditions for skiers, she said. It was a big service not available on satellite that each cable company after Longfellow’s has kept in their lineup, she added.
“When the mountain faced bankruptcy in 1986, the station was shut down and we came back and offered to keep it running,” she said. Because they offered a local community channel, at some point it was assumed they were Carrabassett’s public channel, she said.
“In terms of whether or not they did anything illegal, I don’t think so because there was no precise agreement between the town and WSKI over channel 17. No one else has construed the historical relation between the town and WSKI as being illegal. No law has been broken. Regardless, the issue is gone,” said John McCatherin, who leads a new committee organized to research whether the town wants to run a public access channel and what that would entail.
Basically, the contract or franchise agreement between the town and the cable company spells out what can be done with the public channel assigned to the town, Vigue said. The town’s franchise agreement with Time Warner states that the cable company will provide a channel for public access, said Town Manager Dave Cota on Wednesday. The town has never run a public channel itself, he has said previously. Time Warner offered the town the option to take channel 22 for a public access channel. —> http://www.sunjournal.com/story/258216-3/Franklin/WSKI_continuing_community_broadcasts/
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Port to address underage drinking at televised ‘Town Hall Meeting’
by M. Renee Buckley
Newburyport Current (MA)
03/27/08
[ comments invited ]
Newburyport – The arrests of a group of local teens over February vacation for underage drinking wasn’t an isolated incident in Newburyport, but rather serves as a close-to-home example of what the Surgeon General calls a leading public health problem across the United States. Last year the acting Surgeon General made a call to action “to prevent and reduce underage drinking,” and the campaign to educate the nation on the dangers of underage drinking is under way.
In answer to that call — and in support of its own mission to decrease underage use and abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs in Newburyport — the city’s Beacon Coalition will participate in a nationwide Town Hall Meeting next Wednesday to educate the community about the problem and to encourage addressing it…
Dispelling those misconceptions and brining to light the realities about underage drinking is the aim of next week’s live televised Town Hall Meeting — to be held Wednesday, April 2 at 7 p.m. on public access Channel 9. Hayden said they set up the event to make it as easy as possible for parents and other community members to participate. Viewers can call in or e-mail questions during the program — or e-mail anytime leading up to it — all from the comfort of their own homes. While guests are welcome to participate by being a part of the live audience, those who’d like to must arrive at the Newburyport Community Media Center, 3 Graf Road, before doors close at 6:45 p.m. to begin filming. —> http://www.wickedlocal.com/newburyport/news/education/x125180489
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RCTV-15 to screen series of public interest programs
Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
03/27/08
[ comments invited ]
RCTV-15, the city of Rochester’s public access television station, is hosting a series as it shows films all month from INPUT, an international conference that picks the best in public interest programs from around the world. Carvin Eison, general manager of RCTV, has been on the INPUT selection committee since 2006.
Since only Rochester residents will see the programming, the station at 21 Gorham St. will host The Best of INPUT screenings at 7:30 p.m. on four consecutive Fridays starting this week, followed by a discussion. Admission is free. “These wonderful programs demonstrate how independent producers from Mexico, South Africa, Iran and the Netherlands are using television to examine the most pressing issues in their communities,” Eison says. —> http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/LIVING/803270302/1032
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Akaku board appoints Jay April president, CEO
Maui News (HI)
03/27/08
[ 2 comments ]
WAILUKU — Jay April has received a two-year contract to continue as president and CEO of Akaku: Maui Community Television. The station’s board of directors voted Friday to appoint April to the position he has held in an interim capacity for more than a year. Board members praised April for leading the organization through difficult times and “breathing life” into an ailing program.
“Since the board appointed Jay April as interim president in January 2007, Akaku has experienced renewed activity with its producers and viewers, restored relationships with decision makers in the community, and has developed strong internals support to take the organization to new heights,” Chairman John Bruce said in a statement. April said he was pleased to receive the appointment. “I think we have a bright future, and if I could be a small part of that, I’m really honored,” April said in a statement.
April took the helm of Akaku in the wake of a bitter dispute over the use of funds for public-access, educational and government television programming that divided the board. The dispute was later resolved through mediation, but Akaku has since filed lawsuits over moves by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to put out for competitive bids the contracts for managing the public-access channels. —> http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/501898.html
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Community Media Matters in Kirklees
by Colin Harrison
Yorkshire & Humber ICT Champion (UK)
03/27/08
[ comments invited ]
Community Media Matters is an exciting new project offering voluntary and community groups free training and support to gain skills in using media effectively to raise the profile of their organisation. Attached is a leaflet explaining the project, an application form for support and a flyer with the introductory programme of courses listed. —> http://yhictchampion.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/community-media-matters-in-kirklees/
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Editorial Short takes: Live legislative coverage
Marshall Independent (MN)
03/21/08
[ comments invited ]
SIDEWAYS THUMB: Because it is Sunshine Week, which emphasizes public access and open government, a reader e-mailed us, expressing frustration that Marshall’s public access cable channels don’t broadcast live coverage of the Minnesota Legislature. The coverage is available on the Internet, but the reader said not everyone has Internet access, so TV coverage would be valuable. We don’t disagree, but city officials say making it happen isn’t so easy. —> http://www.marshallindependent.com/page/content.detail/id/500314.html
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Time Warner, WSKI form partnership
by Ann Bryant
Sun Journal (ME)
03/21/08
[ comments invited ]
CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Time Warner Cable and Snowfield Productions, owner of WSKI-TV 17, have entered into a partnership, Nadene McLeod of WSKI-TV said Thursday. The partnership will continue to bring “WSKI programming to cable television watchers in the Carrabassett Valley area as they have over the past 25 years and plan to continue to provide for many years to come,” McLeod said.
The station provides ski trail and weather reports for Sugarloaf, area events, sports coverage, news and advertising. The partnership resulted from a question raised in December about whether the public access television station should be made public or remain in the control of a private company. Time Warner became the area cable provider in 2006 and continued to provide the town with Channel 17 at no charge…
Hogg says the town is allowing WSKI, a private entity, to manage Channel 17 free of charge. The town never operated a public access channel, although one was reserved for the town, according to Town Manager Dave Cota. Since January, a committee has been looking at benefits, expenses and whether the town wants to operate a public channel.
Selectmen recently asked Cota to send a letter to Time Warner that states “the board has agreed to relinquish Channel 17 as the town public access channel to allow Time Warner and WSKI-17 to negotiate a private agreement with the contingency that Time Warner agrees to reserve Channel 22 as the town public access channel should the town vote to operate a public access channel,” Cota said. —> http://www.sunjournal.com/story/257288-3/Franklin/Time_Warner_WSKI_form_partnership/
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Mar. 26: Grassroots Fundraising for Community Media Workshop at MNN, New York, NY
MediaRights
03/21/08
Attend MNN’s Upcoming “Grassroots Fundraising for Community Media” Workshop on Wednesday, March 26th @ 6:30pm
“Postcards from Charlottesville,” Show #6
by Dave Norris
CvilleDave
03/21/08
[ comments invited ]
Dr. Lynn Rainville joins me on this month’s show. Lynn runs some excellent websites/blogs focused on Charlottesville-Albemarle history, including LoCoHistory, the LoCoBlog, and African-American Cemeteries in Albemarle & Amherst Counties. She is doing a wonderful job of helping to make history come alive (both for adults and for kids) and helping to connect area residents with their own past.
Larry Lessig: Time to reject corporate influence on Washington
by Anne Broache
CNet News
03/20/08
[ 14 comments
WASHINGTON–Iconic Internet law professor Larry Lessig may have cast off plans for a congressional bid of his own, but he still wants to turn the political process as we know it upside down. No more money from corporate political action committees and lobbyists. No more earmarks to fund pet projects in federal spending bills. Public financing for all congressional campaigns. And throughout it all, transparency.
Those are the four pillars of Lessig’s “Change Congress” movement, which he unveiled, along with a beta Web site, which he describes as a “mash-up applied to politics,” at an event here Thursday afternoon. For the project, he has teamed up with Joe Trippi, best known as the national campaign manager for Democrat Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign and its pioneering use of online organizing.
None of his ideas, of course, are particularly new, which Lessig himself readily acknowledged. A number of organizations–including Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen and the Sunlight Foundation, which sponsored his talk on Thursday–dedicate themselves exclusively to promoting government transparency. Projects like Open Secrets offer more readily searchable databases of political campaign contributions, while groups like Citizens Against Government Waste have made it a mission to expose congressional pork-barrel spending. —> http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9899828-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
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Closing the Rural Broadband Gap, Presented by the Internet Innovation Alliance
by Geoff Daily
Apprising.com
03/20/08
[ 1 comment ]
—> Atkinson was also the first to strike a contrarian note when the panel moved into an open discussion as while most of the panel cited the need for and benefits of competition he called its efficacy into question in rural areas, in particular as it relates to giving new entrants additional incentives just for the sake of spurring competition.
I’ve long wondered how competition is the answer to increasing capacity and availability in rural areas; if we’re having trouble getting one company to invest how can we expect to get two, especially when the more competitors the smaller the slice of customers each one gets.
I managed to sneak in a question at the end trying to ask about the gap between how so many people say it’s too expensive to get big broadband to rural areas yet rural areas are likely the ones that could most benefit from that connectivity. Unfortunately I included in that question my belief that the ultimate goal should be a fiber pipe to every home.
This led the answers to focus on questioning if that truly is the goal. After a brief discussion a consensus emerged on the panel that rural broadband deployment should focus more on getting current broadband technology to everyone than next-gen technology to anyone.
I completely agree that the first order of business in considering the rural broadband challenge is making sure that everyone in America has access of at least 750Kbps or higher. But at the same time why aren’t we setting a longer term goal that’s much more aggressive?
One argument put forth was that if you start talking about getting too much bandwidth into rural areas the cost becomes too great and can scare off all deployment, be it public or private because it requires too much of an investment. I understand that as well, but I still don’t see why we can’t set a long-term goal of a fiber pipe to every home, no matter where it is.
In the meantime, this panel did a great job of laying out some of the most important things we can be doing to spur deployment to rural areas today:
– Robust mapping so private providers can know where the gaps are and move to fill them in
– Local community teams and technology centers that can spur the adoption and use of the Internet that will grow the demand that can drive deployment
– Tax credits and other incentives for the companies willing to deploy to rural areas to help make the business case more attractive
The only thing missing from this discussion was an advocate for municipal broadband. I have to admit I still have some reservations about public entities competing with public enterprise for consumer dollars, but I can’t deny the reality that in many rural areas some form of municipally owned, financed, and/or operated deployment might be the only way those communities can expect to have their infrastructure upgraded in the next twenty years. —> http://www.app-rising.com/gdblog/2008/03/closing_the_rural_broadband_ga.html
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Media’s “New” Community Role
by Dan Schultz
MediaShift Idea Lab
03/21/08
[ 11 comments ]
I just got back to the U.S. from my first visit to Rome. The whole trip was great, but my favorite part was The Roman Forum. This ancient gathering place represents, as far as I’m concerned, the epitome of community facilitation given the resources available at the time. This may not seem like a relevant anecdote at first but the point is that I think members of the news industry who are looking for a role in this crazy Internet filled world may discover that the answer to their identity crisis isn’t so new after all.
This post is about where I think news organizations, especially local news organizations, need to take their digital presence. This is the conversation I hoped to seed with my analysis of the Anonymous activism against Scientology. It also turns out that this post will work nicely with the recent conversation on this blog about the need for news organizations to change the way they operate online.
Context and Clarification
In my posts about Anonymous I tried to identify some of the subtleties of online community coordination and pull out any lessons that could help us in our journalism-industry-wide quest to effectively utilize digital technology.
Based on a few of the comments to those posts it seems there was a little room for confusion. Some thought I was trying to provide a recipe for media outlets to take advantage of existing online communities or artificially manipulate the masses. In other words, not everyone understood what I believe the technologies should be utilized for. In a comment I wrote:
“[In these posts] I tried to look at what might have been a reason for [Anonymous] success and largely cite the fact that physical communities don’t utilize the kinds of digital communication tools that you guys have. This is where (for instance) local newspapers, which are desperately trying to find their place on the internet, could fill a role. Not for profit, but instead to get back to the public service that they were supposed to be providing in the first place – an outlet for community voice and an amplification of community issues.”
From what I understand, some of the original driving forces that inspired local news media were the demand for outlets of community voice and the need for amplification of important community issues. Ethics, practices, role, and tradition – i.e. hard news, public service journalism (which I will refer to as “hard journalism” from now on) – grew over time.
By focusing on those initial demands and drawing on “hard journalism” practices for reinforcement rather than direction, our adaptation to a new medium will hopefully becomes a little more manageable. That focus is what I wanted to develop with those posts (plus the whole Anonymous effort continues to fascinate me).
A New Community Medium
If my interpretation above is even partially accurate, it seems that local news operations are supposed to be information hubs for the communities they serve. When using a one-to-many medium such as Television or Print, reporters and editors try to represent their community by proxy. For old media that was fine because, realistically, it was the only way for the job to be done.
With digital media, as everyone seems to have figured out years ago, it isn’t enough to just have an online newspaper. What people are realizing now is that it also isn’t enough to simply enable comments, publish the occasional user-submitted-photo or blog, or incorporate a few pieces of interactive content. All of these things are small steps in the right direction, but small steps are slow and costly in the world of software.
This time around news organizations need to do more than just learn to use the media, they need to host a community with it – an idea that Richard Anderson put out there in his first post to this blog. People want a place, digital or otherwise, where they can gather and learn about the community in which they are a part, a place where they can get in touch with the issues, and a place where they can pick up on the “vibe.” They want a modern Roman Forum.
If news orgs don’t provide this then someone else will. What is troublesome is that the “someone else” won’t necessarily incorporate hard journalism in their vision. What makes THAT troublesome is that such services directly compete with the news.
Facilitating Community Agenda
In the words of Paul Monaco, much of media’s social influence comes from its ability to set agendas, not by “[telling] its readers and viewers what to think so much as it points them toward what to think about.” Social Media, Digital Media, many-to-many conversations, and all those other phrases that are thrown around describe the tools being used to push that task of issue definition back to the community. —> http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2008/03/medias-new-community-role.html
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The Government of Canada Supports Community Radio Stations
Marketwire
03/20/08
Community radio stations will continue contributing to the visibility and vitality of Canada’s minority official-language communities, thanks to an investment by the Government of Canada. On behalf of the Honourable Josee Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, Pierre Lemieux, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages and Member of Parliament (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), today announced funding for a number of projects led by community radio stations in Canada. The total funding of $539,471 will, among other things, be used to establish and manage community radio stations. —> http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=834974
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Wanted: Someone to run local cable access
Comcast offers funds, hands over the reins
by Katheleen Conti
Boston Globe (MA)
03/20/08
As Revere prepares to take over its local cable operation, members of the new cable access committee – and the mayor – do not expect to meet the June 1 deadline. Comcast asked the city to take over local cable access as part of its renewed 10-year contract, Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino said. “Comcast wants out of the studio business,” Ambrosino said. “There are a lot of restrictions. I would expect a transition period of six months after June 1.”
While a Comcast spokesman would not confirm whether the company asked Revere to assume responsibility for its local access programming, the agreement reflects recent contract renewals between the company and other communities such as Newburyport, Peabody, and Saugus. Each of those communities formed a nonprofit organization, with funds from Comcast to operate cable access.
The transfer of operations is better for the communities because “it returns access television to its rightful owners, the community and its residents,” said Comcast spokesman Marc Goodman. “More communities are making the choice to transition to the access corporation model so they have more control.” Comcast provides funding to communities taking over their own access operations, “based on each community’s cable-related needs,” Goodman said. Revere Comcast customers will continue to be charged a franchise fee that will support the local access operation, Goodman said.
Ambrosino said the company is prepared to give the city $375,000 for initial capital and equipment, and $300,000 for the annual operating cost for the duration of the 10-year contract. In a January letter to the City Council, Ambrosino expressed frustration ov er negotiations with Comcast, saying that, “although the city preferred to avoid this transfer of studio control, Comcast was adamant.” Ambrosino said he has tried to court competitor Verizon to come to the city to provide residents with more choice, but to no avail.
In Peabody, the local access transition took several months to be completed and there were some glitches along the way, said Mayor Michael J. Bonfanti. The city had to find a new studio, hire full- and part-time staff, and set up a board of directors, among other things. The nonprofit Peabody Access Telecommunications Inc. has been up and running for a year now, in what Bonfanti calls “a very successful, modern, state-of-the-art facility.” —> http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/20/wanted_someone_to_run_local_cable_access/
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Newbury: No comment: Opinions lacking on cable service
By Victor Tine
Newburypost News (MA)
03/20/08
With a 28-day comment period due to expire next week, the selectmen’s office has received only one letter about the Comcast cable TV company’s public programming. Selectmen’s Administrative Assistant Kathleen Sirois said the only comment she has received so far is from Triton Regional School Committee member Suzanne Densmore, who expressed dissatisfaction with a lack of coverage of the committee’s meetings.
The Board of Selectmen and the town’s Cable TV Advisory Committee held a public hearing on Feb. 26 on the topic of Comcast’s public access programming. The hearing was held during a snowstorm and only one person offered a comment. Selectmen decided to accept additional written or e-mailed comments for 28 days after the hearing, a window that will close next Tuesday, March 25. —> http://www.newburyportnews.com/punews/local_story_080064108.html
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WCCA-TV lobbying city for improvement money
Station operating in the red for several years
Worcester Telegram & Gazette ( MA)
03/20/08
[ 18 comments ]
WORCESTER— Supporters of the local public access cable channel last night lobbied city officials for additional funding so WCCA-TV can purchase equipment and make improvements to its facilities. Mauro DePasquale, executive director of WCCA TV-13, said he is grateful for the consideration given in the city’s new five-year cable contract with Charter Communications for his station and the city’s education and government channels. But, he said, the funding earmarked in the contract for the three so-called PEG stations (public access, education and government) will only provide level funding for WCCA, at a time when it has been operating in the red the past few years. —> http://www.telegram.com/article/20080320/NEWS/803200681/1101
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IGE Talks: Babies Having Babies
Media Mouse (MI)
03/20/08
[ comments invited ]
Here is the latest “IGE Talks,” a monthly cable access show hosted by the Institute for Global Education (IGE) and aired on Grand Rapids’ public access television. As part of our ongoing efforts to support independent and do-it-yourself media here in West Michigan, we will be posting these shows each month. In this episode, “IGE Talks” discusses “babies having babies:” The topic for the next show is “national spank out month.” It will be taped on April 3 at 7:00pm at the IGE office. IGE is located at 1118 Wealthy Street SE. The public is welcome to participate in the discussion. http://www.mediamouse.org/briefs/032008ige_t.php
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My TV Interview With Perils for Pedestrians
by Eric Fredericks
Neighborhoods.org
03/19/08
[ comments invited ]
The video embedded above is Episode 139 of the television program Perils for Pedestrians, produced by John Wetmore. John interviewed me in this episode on the topic of walkable neighborhoods. My interview appears approximately 7:35 into the episode. The program appeared last night on DISH Network Channel 9411 — The Universityhouse Channel. Perhaps it will air again sometime in the future. You also may catch it on some local public access channels or online at Google Video.
I really want to thank John for the opportunity to give the interview. He threw some interesting and unscripted questions my way. John shot this video last September on a Sunday morning just across from my neighborhood park—beautiful Capitol Park in Downtown Sacramento. Most weekdays there would be many more pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles passing by. —> http://neighborhoods.org/article/my-tv-interview-with-perils-for-pedestrians
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Message from Lawrence Pugliese
STTV Scranton Today! (PA)
03/20/08
[ comments invited ]
Friends and Colleagues:
Thank you for the years of interest and support… It’s been my honor and pleasure to serve my community through Stories, Wisdom & Recipes… I hope to continue the program within the new paradigm presently being created by ECTV.
It’s been a great run Scranton Today. Your legacy will always be on display within all future variations of public access television in NEPA. Your pioneering work will be remembered by those in the future who trace back through time this region’s strong sense of civic understanding and involvement. My compliments and my gratitude to you for establishing this wonderfully democratic ideal into something real. Here’s to its future, and to all who’ve been involved as supporters and producers. —> http://sttvscrantontoday.blogspot.com/2008/03/message-from-lawrence-pugliese.html
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Cliff Frazier
by Daa”iya L. Sanusi
New York Amsterdam News
03/20/08
The legacy and vision of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. has been carried on the shoulders of many men, but one of these stands beyond the rest in his fulfillment of that vision: Cliff Frazier. The vision of the beloved community free of racism and violence and poverty has been a guiding vision for Frazier since he and Woodie King, Jr. burst onto the theater scene in Detroit, Mich., decades ago.
Early in his life, after attending Wayne State University and graduating from the Will-O-Way School of Theatre in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., he appeared in numerous theatrical and television productions. His performance in Krapp’s “Last Tape” was reviewed by the renowned Broadway director and critic Harold Clurman. “Frazier’s performance was masterful. He is one of the finest actors in the United States. His performance is considered legendary. Frazier is an Emmy Award winner and has produced over 40 film and television productions. He has served as an advisor to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, TV and Theatre and developed initiatives aimed at increasing apprenticeships and training opportunities for people of color and women in the motion picture, television and advertising industries. He is also chair of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre.
As past president, executive director and administrator of three highly successful training institutions—the Institute of New Cinema Artists, Third World Cinema Productions and Community Film Workshop Council spanning 1968–86—Frazier created media training and employment in the motion picture, television, recording and other media industries. He also founded community media centers throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, which provided local television programming and built bridges of understanding between alienated and hostile groups. —> http://www.amsterdamnews.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=87036&sID
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Durham to pay for public access TV
A city-county pact with Time Warner Cable sets a price of $120,000 for 10 months’ programs
by Samiha Khanna
The News & Observer (NC)
03/04/08
City and county leaders agreed Monday to pay Time Warner Cable $120,000 over the next 10 months to air public access programs — shows that used to be aired for free. The city-county agreement came after more than a year of negotiation between the governments and Time Warner, and it will ensure that city and county government programming continues on cable Channel 8, which they share, and the schools continue to broadcast on cable Channel 4.
But the agreement doesn’t address all local officials’ grievances. Durham County officials have also filed a lawsuit seeking an additional channel, which they say they are entitled to for free under the law. Both the issue of paying for public access, and the number of channels local governments can use for free, stem from recent changes to cable franchise laws. In 2006, the legislature shifted cable franchising authority from local governments to the state government. The transfer in responsibility has changed some of the services Time Warner is obligated to provide to governments, said Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees.
Under a former local agreement with the city of Durham, Time Warner employees used to produce and air public access TV for free, Voorhees said. Now that Time Warner’s franchise is granted by the state, the company doesn’t have to meet the requirements of individual contracts with cities and counties, Voorhees said. Under the statewide franchise, Durham citizens will no longer be able to visit the cable company’s local studios on East Club Boulevard to learn how to operate cameras and edit tape. Local shows must now be produced independently and submitted to Time Warner to be reviewed, scheduled and aired.
The shift from local to state control has threatened to disrupt a Sunday morning tradition in Durham. For 17 years, a legion of church folk have tuned in to Channel 8 to watch sermons and other inspirational programming, said the Rev. James E. Vaughan, pastor at Abundant Life Assembly Church. For the ill or disabled, televised services, which also appear some mornings and evenings during the week, are a must. “It’s not just getting your congregation on,” Vaughan said. “Shut-ins get to follow along services with their local congregation so they can continue to feel a part of it. It’s kind of a big deal to them.” —> http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/980210.html
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Lansing must fix threat to public access
The Times Herald (MI)
03/04/08
[ 3 comments ]
Flawed cable law paved way for transfer of community programs
No matter how Comcast tries to spin it, the cable provider’s efforts to move some of its channels to a higher digital tier runs counter to the interests of many viewers. More important, state lawmakers bear responsibility for making it easier for Comcast to change its programming. Adopted in December 2006, Michigan’s “Uniform Video Services Local Franchise Act” was supposed to promote greater competition within the state’s cable TV industry. Instead, the new law relaxed cable providers’ commitment to public service programming Lansing must correct that error. —> http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080304/OPINION01/803040327/1014/OPINION
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Cable providers in Wisconsin seek statewide franchises
The Business Journal of Milwaukee
03/04/08
Five Wisconsin cable and video service providers – Charter Communications Inc., Time Warner Cable, AT&T Inc., CenturyTel and Comcast Cable – have applied for statewide video franchises under legislation passed last year. AT&T received approval for its franchise from the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions last week, the nonprofit consumer advocate group TV4US Wisconsin said Tuesday. —> http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2008/03/03/daily24.html
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Community Media Strategy Session 3/15
by Gordon Smith
Blog Asheville (NC)
03/04/08
[ 2 comments ]
Asheville area Community Media mavens are gathering again. Our February strategy session produced some excellent ideas, one of which I’ll ask for suggestions about in a couple of paragraphs. First thing first though. Our next Community Media Strategy Session will take place March 15, 4:30pm – 6:15pm at URTV studios. James Wilson of Talk Asheville will present ideas for our Community Media Wiki at that time. I’ll also put out a rough agenda in a few days and ask for everyone’s input.
If you aren’t on the Community Media email list (which is different from the BlogAsheville mailing list!), just shoot me a message at scrutinyhooligans AT yahoo SPOT cOm. Then I can keep you updated as things happen. If you haven’t taken the Priorities Survey, take a minute and do that now.
Cross promoting our various media was at the top of folks’ priorities at the last session, and it’s been good to see that a lot of people have been busily linking readers, listeners, and viewers to other media orbits. If you haven’t yet taken the time to shout out to your favorite bloggers, radio hosts, artists, and television personalities, do it today. By pointing Community Media consumers to more of the same, we’ll all become stronger. Here’s the part where I ask for comments and suggestions:
The last strategy session produced the idea of doing a Media Swarm on a topic, issue, or area. A Media Swarm is intended to draw attention to a specific topic via our various media. It also serves the purpose of making folks more aware of Community Media. There will be ideological agenda involved in choosing the topic. It’ll be up to each person to decide how to address the topic. The inaugural Media Swarm is going to take place this month, and it’s time to decide what we’ll swarm around. Here are the ideas suggested so far in the Priorities Survey: —> http://blogasheville.blogspot.com/2008/03/community-media-strategy-session-315.html
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Cable contract is for five years
City and Charter agree to terms
by Nick Kotsopoulos
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
03/04/08
Breaking from past practice, the city has negotiated a shorter-term license renewal with Charter Communications for the local cable television franchise. City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said last night the term of the new deal is five years instead of 10. He contends a shorter-term contract is in the city’s best interest because technology, competition and regulations for the cable industry continue to evolve so rapidly.
He pointed out that competitors such as Verizon have expanded their presence in the cable industry during the past couple of years. He believes Verizon, and other companies, will eventually focus their attention on Worcester. “The very fact that the city will facilitate the construction of a 20-mile fiber loop, complete with wireless towers, over the next two years will provide for new and exciting options for competition,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It is for these reasons that I believe a shorter term sets the stage for competition, above all else, to improve the range of services and price options for our citizens.”
Charter’s previous 10-year contract with the city expired in January 2007. It was extended six months to July 7, and when city officials failed to complete a new contract before that date, it was extended another six months. Traditionally, the city has had 10-year contracts with cable franchise holders. But city councilors have urged the city manager to limit the length of this license renewal to no more than five years because of the rapid, ongoing changes in cable technology and competition. The terms of the new cable contract are as follows: —> http://www.telegram.com/article/20080304/NEWS/803040677/1008/NEWS02
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Port’s new TV studio set for May debut
Newburyport News (MA)
03/04/08
The Newburyport Community Media Center, which will broadcast both Comcast Channel 9 and Channel 10 from its location at 3 Graf Road in Newburyport, is nearing completion and will open to the public in early May. The Community Media Center, which will also provide programming for the Newburyport schools and the city, is a nonprofit organization formed in 2006. The public will be invited to visit and explore the new facility during open houses planned for May. —> http://www.wickedlocal.com/newburyport/news/x1092579736
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ICTV wins five (count ’em, FIVE) PEGASYS awards for excellence!
by Dianne
All Things Park (NY)
03/04/08
This just in from Peter Johanns, ICTV’s adviser:
ICTV received a total of 5 awards at this years PEGASYS awards for Cablecasting Excellence for the Public Access and Educational Access channels on Time Warner Cable in Tompkins county. Held on February 29, 2008, ICTV was nominated in 7 of the 10 categories. ICTV received first place awards for B.S. Detectives in the Comedy/Variety category; NewsWatch 16 for the Public Affairs category; and The Race 2 for the Documentary category.
Additionally, The Race 2 and Bombers Football received the highest scores for educational access programming and will be submitted to the Hometown Video Festival, a national competition organized by the Alliance for Community Media held in Washington D.C this July. (The Race 2 was the highest scoring program among all entrants in this year’s PEGASYS Awards.)
Community radio in India set to go global
by Piya Kochhar
OneWorld South Asia
03/04/08
[ comments allowed ]
Steve Buckley is excited by the scope of CR in India and has plenty of wisdom to share from his 25-year love affair with radio that he began in Cambridge, as a pirate broadcaster. Piya Kochhar, co-founder of News Radio India, speaks to him.
Piya Kochhar: Why radio? What draws you to this?
Steve Buckley: Radio is an extraordinarily accessible medium. It’s a medium that’s immediate, easy to use, and low-cost. What I discovered during my pirate broadcasting days, was that it was not so difficult to actually become a radio broadcaster. I mean we didn’t really pay any money to start our radio station. We just cobbled together a few easily accessible bits of electronics, built a transmitter, and went on the air. So I realised that broadcasting didn’t have to be medium of the elite. It didn’t have to be something inaccessible. We could actually take control of this media; we could appropriate it for community use. And that’s what really inspired me and continues to do so every time I visit a local community radio project. I see people doing extraordinarily inspiring things. —> http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/158476/1/5339
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TV from the Future
Former Hartford Public Access Television maven J. Stan McCauley has launched what he claims is the world’s first broadband television network
by Daniel D’Ambrosio
Hartford Advocate (CT)
03/04/08
[ comments allowed ]
J. Stan McCauley, the former executive director of Hartford Public Access Television and a candidate for mayor in last fall’s election until he was swept away by the Eddie Perez tidal wave, has launched his own television network on the Internet, which he says is a first. Technically it’s called hypermedia portal alternative television, but you can just call it hpatv5.com, McCauley’s online address. (Have a look.)
McCauley says he had a flash of inspiration for the network soon after he joined the ranks of the unemployed in early December, after more than 20 years at Hartford Public Access Television. The inspiration came while sitting at a traffic light with a friend who was driving the car. “I thought to myself, ‘What am I good at? I’m good at building small television stations from the ground up,'” McCauley said. “It just hit me all at once, why not do local origination programming and give it a worldwide footprint on the Web.” —> http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=6298
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IFJ Calls for United Nations “Urgent Action” Over Deadly Media Crisis in Iraq
Media for Freedom
03/04/08
The International Federation of journalists today called on the Secretary General of the United Nations to lead new efforts by the international community in defence of journalists and media in Iraq following the death last week of Shihab Al-Timimi, the President of the Iraqi Union of Journalists.
In a letter to UN chief Bang Ki-moon, the IFJ President and General Secretary say that the United Nations must raise its voice to protect journalists and media in Iraq and to encourage more effective action by the government of Iraq and those UN states who have pledged to bring about peace and reconciliation in the country. “A timely statement of support from the United Nations for Iraqi journalism will show that the international community stands alongside the community of journalists in these dark days,” says the IFJ.
The IFJ, which has also written to Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki, says the UN must support the Iraqi Union of Journalists (IUJ) and their campaign for safety, it must do more to put pressure on governments to defend independent media and it must reinforce efforts through the groundbreaking Security Council Resolution 1738 on journalists’ safety to find and prosecute those who are targeting and killing media workers. —> http://www.mediaforfreedom.com/ReadArticle.asp?ArticleID=9916
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