City Manager O'Brien

Telegram's Nick Kotsopoulos writes about contract delays affecting WCCA TV.

The city's re-review of data that really has been done has taken exceptionally too long. The ascertainment window, the time to assess community opened in 2004 and ended when the city entered formal negotiations with Charter Communications. Whatever the city was able to negotiated for is now available within the franchise license to meet the community needs. The city council asked, through the form of a motion, for the City Manager to have a contract signed with WCCA by the end of June. Is there no teeth or follow up to such motions ?

We are not sure what parameters the consulting attorney Jim Baller, was told to work on, we are sure, however, that there are many cities that have apparently acquired better franchise conditions to support their Public Access channel and PEG Channels. Especially when looking at cities as large or larger than Worcester.

Given our experience of this so called process and holding on to good faith, even as we try to set aside the fears of many concerned that there may be a possible pre determined agenda, we hope the Manager will give due consideration to the community needs assessment which provided a quantified demonstration highlighting a community need to support for WCCA without any decrease in funding or capital.

Either this city, the City Manager and the City Council wants the people's channel, an important and empowering community resource that fosters a free flow on information and free speech, to continue to flourish or it doesn't.

Thank you Nick for fair and informational piece.

Here are some good folks working hard to build what Worcester has had for the past 22 years and 20 months in WCCA TV 13, "The People's Channel".

Consider what they are saying in N.C. as you reflect on Worcester's great community media resources.

"Public-access television was developed to provide local and diverse content to programming on cable systems."

"For the last decade, Durham Public Access has been managed by Time Warner Cable because previous laws required them to do so. The result was that the channel did not meet the needs of the community or fulfill its potential as a true accountable, community-driven operation.Functioning like a soapbox for communities, programming ranges from local news, events and entertainment, to inspirational, youth-oriented, and educational shows. The need today is even greater with the loss of locally owned and operated television, radio and newspapers due to media conglomeration."

"There is no one model for a Public-Access Television and Community Media Center; each reflects the needs of that particular community. However, one thing is consistent - they advocate for and maintain tools for creating media, provide media services and create venues for sharing community voices and showcasing creativity. Through technology, they provide a space to communicate in ways that are not available through traditional outlets."

This sounds awfully familiar does it not? So when I speak up in support of WCCA TV I am sure our city leaders know and understand where I am coming from.

Sign Durham's petition by linking to it here: Durham
Read more here: link

Thanks again to the many persons who have written editorials and letters to the city manager in support of WCCA TV.

Lately , many people have come up to me expressing something like "...Congratulations, WCCA is finally all set, you have a new contract..."

No, we do not have a new contract. We have an extension of what we had signed in 1997.

As the Executive Director of WCCA, my years of experience on the job, I know how much many of you sincerely care for the station, and have also dedicate a lot of your lives volunteering here at the station, I have a duty to clarify the situation.

City Manager O'Brien has executed an contract extension with WCCA that will expire in September, 2008, unless we first come to a long term agreement prior to its expiration.

What this means:
First of all, we at WCCA sincerely appreciate that the extension will allow WCCA to continue until September. The extension, however, does not address our dire equipment needs or the support we would need to meet the increase community demands for our services, that would be supported from the capital provisions that were written into Charter's license to support PEG.

In the mean time, the City Manager O'Brien is asking a citizens cable advisory to review WCCA's public access needs. They are reviewing the work that was primarily done during the cable franchise renewal ascertainment process ( from 2004- 2008 ). During that phase of the process, community and city groups called for increased funding and support for WCCA. The City Manager has recently asked the cable advisory to look at best practices, contract length or term, financial accountability and to recommend how to allocate funding and capital to support channels 11, 12 and 13. It seems the new concern is that the city now has a five year, instead of a ten year, commitment, from Charter to support the Worcester's PEG channels. It looks like Charter did well to leverage political support and consumer complaints to get the short term it wanted. I tried to warn the city about the risk associated with a short license term, however, it did little good. In fact, after reviewing the renewed cable franchise license, we are not sure how much, if anything, of the expressed community needs that came out of the recent ascertainment, actually made it to the negotiation table. I say this because it is pretty much the same franchise deal as in 1997 minus five years commitment of cable service for Worcester and PEG channel support, and about half of the senior discount, no PEG Broadband inclusion , no inclusion on the preview guide or channel ID, no additional county wide channel for WCCA, no additional channel set asides specifically of Public Access, for example. None of these benefits are found in the rewed license.

I am certain, it is a matter of generally accepted best practices, and most consultants would agree, that of the 5% Franchise Revenue a city recieves for PEG, the formula to support PEG breaks down as follows: 60% P (WCCA), 20%E (WPS channel), 20%G (Government channel). While channels 11 and12 serve city government and an arm of city government (WPS), WCCA serves the entire city including public initiatives, individuals, private schools, and enterprises and hundreds of non-profits (24/7). To diminish WCCA funding in the smallest amount would be contrary to best practices. All the PEG channels are valuable and deserve support for the important contribution they provide for our city. The opportunity to assure reasonable support may have been lost during ascertainment and proceeding negotiations. Would it be right and just if the needs of channels 11 and 12 were to be met at the expense of WCCA TV 13, after the city had invested 22 years in what has become a thriving model public access center, WCCA TV?

On May 27, the City Council had passed a motion asking the city manager to wrap up a long term contract with WCCA by the end of June.

On May 27 the cable advisory committee also met. Both Channel's 11 and 12 expressed that they would like to take a substantial portion of the funding that was traditionally allocated to WCCA, to apparently, basically, to replicate much of WCCA has been already doing since 1986. Many on WCCA's Board of Directors, and members, friends and I agree, believe that if the City Manager's Cable Advisory Committee recommends such a thing and the City Manager carries it out, that may rightly be perceived as out right thievery.

The real need the City Manager's cable committee should be addressing is what can the city do to make up for what it lost in the negotiations with Charter's cable contract other than to pit PEG against itself or tell us to go beg for it?

We will soon be coming forward with a proposal which may offer a realistic solution, which we hope the City Manager will take into consideration.

We learned that the cable advisory will be meeting on June 16 in room 310 at 5:30PM.

Please keep up your letters, phone calls, and all you are doing to support WCCA TV 13,"The People's Channel". You are WCCA TV.