Cable Advisory

WCCA TV received a call today, unexpectedly, from a T&G reporter seeking follow up information pertaining to the status of the recent recommendations which the City Manager's Cable Advisory Committee voted upon on August 19th.

We referred the reporter to our on line journal. To this date we have no further information to report. We did re-request a copy of the recommendations as approved at the last meeting and we hope to receive the document soon so we can begin the work of moving forward. We look forward to some closure on this matter so WCCA can really get back to focusing on being the best public access center possible.

Our continued thanks goes out to the cable advisory committee members for all their time and effort. We also send continuous thanks to all of our volunteers, members, and friends of WCCA for your letters to the city and editorials, and support through this rather lengthly process.

MD

Last night, Aug.5,2008, WCCA joined others attending the Cable Advisory Meeting.
T&G's Nick Kotsopoulus also was and wrote about it.
link to T&G

The meeting was one of the better ones. There was much good debate, as any healthy public meeting would include.

The committee came to decisions regarding what they will recommend to the city Manager among such items covered was the distribution of PEG funding
including a capital grant and franchise fees. The current formula 60-20-20 was recommended for both capital and franchise funding allocations. This was the same as in the past contract. The question is the government channel and the educational channel combined may have a surplus of over a million dollars balance remaining from the last contract. WCCA argued that under the current formula the 40 percent split between the city and educational channel is much more than needed. WCCA has been the only entity to demonstrate quantitative need for increased funding and certainly facilitates a much large aspect of the community. Unless the city manager see his way to increasing WCCA's share of the franchise revenue and capital, given the short term of the contract, it is highly possible the current level of services WCCA provides to the citizens of Worcester will be negatively impacted. The best thing to come out of the meeting, we felt, was the committee's recommended definition for "local programming": as any video production involving a person who is a citizen, student or employed in the city of Worcester. More to come.
Thanks for your suppport everyone. Stay tuned...

"Good Faith" fun and frolics continued...

CAC members began to inform those present of their respective progress. Which, apparently, they seemed disappointed with. One member just got her list handed to her at that meeting ( she was absent from the previous meeting). Those who did the assignment seemed to all suggest that the answers they received were varied, vague, and they frankly did not see much that could be contributed from the poll. They later thought, however, that it may be a good idea to use what they had received and work out a plan to process the information. That decision came after WCCA and also members in the audience asked for copies of the poll CAC was looking at.

WCCA upon a very quick glance of the poll results, pointed out that it appeared many answers came from members of the Alliance for Community Media, and that CAC should not be surprised of the varied responses. Public Access environment is generally unique to the community it serves. Different communities have different needs, thus the varied answers. WCCA also pointed out that each city or town may subject to varied state franchise laws which will impact the answers and capacity of each center. The quest for such data is really a mute issue. As the city can only work within the parameters now based upon the agreement it has with the cable company. Unless there is plan to ask the Charter to kick in more to support our PEG channels. WCCA's shared it's position that point of ascertainment/assessment process is to determine community needs and base further negotiations or to bring such needs to the table. The window for ascertainment took place between 2004 and Jan 2007, before formal negotiations with Charter.

A community needs assessment would be applicable to the cable franchise license agreement or in formulating an agreement between the public access facility and the city. It would make sense if PEG assessment was done before entering into the formal negotiations with the cable company. That would be part of what is included in the negotiations. We reminded CAC that we are aware of hundreds of petitions, and previous reports that suggested increase funding and channel capacity for WCCA ,the public access component. We asked if the community voices on the subject counted for anything. We also wanted to know what happens with all the work CAC does? Does it go directly, unedited, to the city manager, is it filtered through additional advisers? Understandably, CAC did not want to speculate and answer. CAC members seemed to hope it counted for something. Apparently no one knows for sure. We do not believed this should be such a complicated matter. This is process that is guided by Fed and state law with an industry history that really spans about 30 years ( 22 years in Worcester) . It looks like there is an attempt to reinvent the wheel. Reinventing the wheel will not improve public access in Worcester. Comparing the second largest city in New England with some 50 plus thousand cable subscribers to towns with less than 10 thousand subscribers does not send the message of intent to assure increase capacity for PEG, redefining local programming and reducing it to a narrower definition, serves no positive purpose for PEG at this juncture. Atlanta GA, for example, has a fifteen year franchise with ten access channels thriving due to city encouragement. We see CAC members on a search on behalf of the city manager, to determine even the definition of "local programming", to see what other smaller communities are doing. We see a lot wheel spinning going on. It's nice to know such information, however, the process should really be based on community needs. Many have the impression the process now is more about something else. It is not apparent that something else is to meet community needs relative to Worcester's 22 year old and vital public access. If it is we wanted to know. We asked, how can we trust the needs of the community are making it way to the City Manager and best represented ? "Good Faith" was the answer.
We asked about the white elephant in the room, what is the status of the estimated $1.8 million dollar balance of un used cable funds the city has divided in an account for the government channel account and a separate Educational Channel accounts. We posed the question in the past and again at the last CAC meeting, which was not a quorum. More forms were passed out by the city's rep. We were then told it looks like all that money is now earmarked. WCCA then formally requested copies of the all the documents they were given by the city's government channel director/director of the city's cable division. The chair immediately distributed what copies they had available. We are waiting for additional Government and Educational Channel operational and Capital needs reports as I write this. We need more time to review these documents, but at a glance we learn:
1. That the cable funds are placed in an account labeled the government access account but serves as a holding account for "ALL CABLE funds" including PEG, administrative fees, and renewal offset funding. For the past twelve years of the previous license, the government access channel does not have an account of it's own.
2. WCCA is encumbered immediately from the account, yet we are paid in quarterly installments, any possible interest that may be generated from money intended for WCCA is not reflected. Other apparent government channel or related city cable expense distributions or categories are encumbered as requested.
3.The report seems incomplete it does not indicate any remaining amount committed to WCCA or for other possible commitments elsewhere.
4. The last page provides the government channel/city cable division budget for year 2008.
We noted that after ten years this is the first time we are seeing this after numerous request in past. We are not sure when these documents were produced.

It appears to us, as of 2008, on the revenue side in the city account the city brings forward a balance of roughly, $1.2 million added to Receipts ( we assume is the cable franchise fee) of $1.7 million reaching about $2.9 million. After we deduct a little over $1 million expenses which includes the government channel and WCCA's approximate $647K, there seems to be a balances of 1.9 million.
On the school access channel side, we see a balance forwarded of about $839K, after deducting their roughly $255k expenses, we see a remaining balance of more than $583K. So between the school account and the city's cable account there seems to be over $2.5 million. We pointed out that the city channel director stated that the city and school channel gets 20% each of the franchise, but the numbers did not seem to jive, we asked for clarification and received vague answers. The Education rep did not know about the balance and said he would look into it. One person in audience yelled out "it's a shell game". Members of WCCA asked for accountability. WCCA proposed to facilitate the three PEG channels. When we asked formally, again, for budget operation and capital reports from the city and school channel, one CAC member , referring to proposal WCCA had made offering to facilitate the three PEG channels, questioned the integrity of a Non-Profit facilitated PEG channel. We explained the many efficiencies of that proposal. We guess "Good Faith" only plays in one direction.

To be fare we need time to look deeper into the report. So far it raises a lot of questions. One page seems to contradict another. Supporters of WCCA were not happy campers at last nights meeting. CAC has given us the impression funds may be less, and that the city will taking funds to offset the next renewal, leaving less for WCCA. The amazing current capacity of WCCA is at risk. When it might not need to be. While all we get are vague answers when it comes to underutilized funds remaining in city accounts. This thing keeps dragging on. We wonder why there is so much confusion in the process. We are concerned why CAC seems to us to be spinning it's wheels, why is it that WCCA is and has been so scrutinized while it appears CAC now, after we raise the question, asks the city and the school to report on those balances.
This is all significant on many levels. To name two, with such large balance of funds remaining in the city accounts, implies there was never any need to contemplate a reduction in Capital or Operation funding for PEG. Especially for WCCA ,the public access center, which has been operating since 1986. It raises questions why the information relative to cable funds have not been made readily opened in the past. If we never asked would we have ever been told? "Good Faith" . For the record, the meeting was video taped by WCCA TV and will be posted on line soon.

WCCA is looking into why so many have called attention to the grainy quality of our video presentations on Charter's cable system.

Our play out (out put) appears sharp, clear and robust. However, viewers are seeing a grainy, really lousy, signal.

There have been subcarrier problems for years. We have made a number of phone calls to Charter and the city.

Charter's service technicians are very responsive however, the problem continues and it is unacceptable.

This is not fair to subscribers who pay to recieve a quality signal and it is not fair to WCCA TV our volunteer producers and the entrie city we serve.

WCCA TV is requesting the Inet be upgraded and that the problem be addressed for once and for all.

If you continue to be recieving poor reception of WCCA TV channel 13 please phone us at 508 755-1880 ext 11.

Thank you.