News

AT&T Accused of Discriminating Against Local Public Access Channels, Deadline for Public Comment Expires Tonight Uverseweb1 Community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation, and the deadline for public comment is midnight tonight. The dispute centers around how AT&T delivers public television stations to customers. Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations onto a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process. Public television advocates say AT&T is imposing unfair restrictions that will severely restrict audiences.

As a special incentive to our WCCA producers who also blog about their shows, we will be featuring the program that has the most blogs or comments. This month you may have noticed Albanian Word, a local program produced by Arben Kamberi . Congratulations! WCCA TV is proud to bring Worcester worldwide and thankful to Arben for sharing his culture, heritage and important news with one of Worcester's fastest growing immigrant populations.

WCCA latest news updates: WCCA has signed a new five year agreement with the city of Worcester. The previous agreement expired in January of 2006. We are grateful to be able to continue to facilitate Public Access in the city of Worcester. We thank everyone who has worked closely with us throughout the negotiation process and who stood in support of WCCA. Also special thanks to all of WCCA TV staff and board members for their patience and endurance. Today we stand committed and hope to continue to provide the best public access services as we can. Stay tuned for more great things to come! WCCA CABLE PROGRAMMING and ONLINE Could WCCA TV 13 be one of the most prolific video producing centers anywhere? Well looking at the robust full cable cast schedule and the over 500 videos uploaded and made available for viewer ship around the world, it is very possible, at least definitely in central Massachusetts. Way to go people of Worcester !

A guest who was recently a co-producer and guest on WCCA's local Original programs Soapbox, sent this letter to our program manager. "To: Tracy Subject: Re: Soapbox 651: Training Resources of America on WCCA website Hello, I walked in to work today and our receptionist was watching on her computer. I'm putting a link to our newsletter and website. Thank you all at WCCA. It was a terrific interview. Diane " Many are aware that WCCA TV, public access, helps the community in many many ways, organizational outreach at an unbeatable affordable price, sharing informative information, raising public awareness, elevate the careers of individuals, learning and career building opportunities, even self help and spiritual guidance can be found on channel 13. Public Access is all about citizen participation. What is realistically important and also the main purpose of this community resource is that it IS A RESOURCE. It is how the people choose to use the channel, the facility and the staff resources that matter most, not what materials are used to assemble a TV show or even who is watching. WCCA exist to ensure you have access to the means to present your message out there. That is why we count on your support. There are many lobbying legislation to centralize the cable franchise process to sate distribution system. That system does not work for Public Access or for cities. It has destroyed Public Access in other states who made the switch and now regret it. Ask your state and federal and even local representatives to work to protect Public Access channels such as WCCA TV 13. Save this important resource that exist to help empower you.

Monday, March 2, 2009 WCCA TV 13 studio facility and membership activities, including the after school youth TV workshop and production program, will be canceled today due to severe weather conditions. Viewers can still watch our programming on Channel 13 and on this website however. Thank you

WCCA member, friend and supporter, and now freelance journalist, sends us the latest from Iraq: "End State Iraq", a writing Doug writes from Baqqubah, Diyala Province, Iraq Stay safe Doug.

Click here Thanks to Doug Grindle

Charter Communications claims that Charter TV3 is the "only LOCAL television outlet in Central MA". Really??? One of WCCA's volunteers brought this to our attention. In a sales letter to cable customer's signed by Gregory A. Garabedian, VP and GM - of Charter New England, promoting Charter's new "Triple play Bundle" which offers High Definition Products, High Definition Products , Mr. Garabedian states that "Charter TV 3, is the only local television outlet in Central MA." . Where has he been for the last 23 years? What about WCCA TV 13 , the Educational channel 11 and the Gov channel 12 and dozens of Public Access, Educational and Government channels throughout central Mass ? Are they NOT a LOCAL outlet? Charter is a local commercial channel but is far from being the only local television outlet. One take on what local is can be found on this link? WCCA TV and it's community members, alone, probably produce and present more locally originated shows in one week than TV3, does in 3 or 4 weeks. WCCA certainly offers much more diversity of programming as well. How can you even get more local than TV created By, For, and Of the People? WCCA TV also, for more than 20 years, continues to offer community programming, news and youth programs, informational and entertaining programs that reflects the interest of the members, who are all Worcester residents, students, or sponsored by a Worcester residents. Come on Charter there is room for everyone. Some may feel that another way to judge a cable operators community commitment, is how a cable company prioritizes public access channel needs for increasing channel capacity ( to really meet community needs as demonstrated by WCCA ) or improving signal quality, or working out longer term contracts with municipalities.

For many years WCCA TV 13 has been consistently struggling to improve the quality of channel 13's signal over the Charter Cable System. Our channel seems to be grainy more than less of the time in comparison to all the other channels. The city's franchise mandates that our signal be as good as any other channel. The last complaint we made to the city ended up with the city "looking into it". The signal did improve for a short while. Lately, for weeks the quality of our signal has varied from day to day. We are more than frustrated and our good faith is reaching it's limits. The last time signal quality was addressed the proposed solution from Charter was to remove the coax connection ( that sends our signal out through Charters sub carrier line and onto channel 13 that you see at your homes), and place it back in. Essentially, it now appears to us, that this remedy is one of many , very professional, methods apparently in the arsenal of Charter solutions 1. Jiggle the connecting cable, 2. Remove and place that same cable back in. 3, Give the machine ( in this case modulator ) a nice solid punch. We are pretty confident the major source for the grainy quality is not WCCA's fault because our signal has remained consistent, our equipment has been consistent, and our live stream looks clear, while the quality of the cable signal comes and goes. We imagine it is a cost Charter to keep sending technicians to run test and not find a real solution. We asked Charter to bring in one of their own modulators to see if that makes a difference. We were surprised to learn that they do not have one to use. However, they are looking for one. As of this writing, we are waiting for the technician to arrive. Maybe, this time, he will give the modulator a good swift kick and it will work correctly for another week.If that is really in fact the problem. We think it may not be so, in the mean time keep your snow boots on while watching us, until next time..... We apologies for the poor quality of the video you see we are working on it. If anyone out there has a relatively new modulator we would love to borrow it for a few hours.

Last week we placed a call into city hall asking what the impact would be and if the city has a plan to address Charter's bankruptcy filing. We did get a response from Julie Jacobson, assistant city manager. According to Julie Jacobson we were told : “This particular bankruptcy by Charter is different than a typical Chapter 11, because it is what they call a 'pre arranged' filing, meaning that, the major creditors and Charter got together and worked out a restructuring of the company,which is what Chapter 11 does, but they did it voluntarily, as opposed to being forced to do it. So, the filing, itself, has no immediate impact on the city & Charter franchise agreement and therefore the PEG entities and the payments to PEG entities is secure under the Chapter 11. This may actually be a good thing, in the sense that if Charter is doing this reorganization to shift their debt payments, then they may actually be healthier financially after this. As long as there are in Chapter 11 it has no impact on the [franchise] agreement itself. Of course, if they [Charter] were to cease operations, which would be a totally different thing, that would be a different story all together. However, as it stands now, the franchise payments are going to continue and they honor all their existing contracts.” We thank Julie for her response.