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When veterans' advocate Ralph Calabrese steps into the television studio today at Finger Lakes Community College, it will be for the last time. The Korean War veteran started his public-access program, “VA and Veterans Update with Ralph Calabrese,” in 2003 when the Canandaigua VA Medical Center was threatened with closure. “There was so much that aired on that, and it was instrumental in getting thousands of signatures on petitions when we were fighting for the VA,” said Calabrese. The Canandaigua resident, whose program has aired twice weekly on public-access Finger Lakes Television for a decade, said he celebrated his 84th birthday in March. --- more at original post http://www.mpnnow.com/topstories/x1552441516/One-last-Veterans-Update-for-Calabrese ---
Wilmington City Council members continue to discuss bringing back a public access channel to our area. Both the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County provide local programming, but neither of them include a public access channel. At the request of some advocacy groups, city staff researched the possibility of a public access channel. Council members discussed the proposed channel during their agenda briefing this morning. --- more at otiginal post http://www.wwaytv3.com/2013/05/06/wilmington-city-council-discusses-public-access-tv-channel ---
New Bern’s City 3TV public educational and governmental access channel is two years old and growing. Colleen Roberts, New Bern’s public information officer, told aldermen last week the channel, which is also live on the city webpage, offers information about New Bern, presents live coverage of city meetings and offers programs on city projects. It also is trying to expand. City 3TV reaches about 15,000 household, Roberts said, putting to rest Mayor Lee Bettis’ occasional joke that all of four people watch the aldermen meetings. “Fifteen thousand!” Bettis said. A survey the city did, which received 140 responses, showed most people watch the programming once or twice a week for 30 minutes to an hour. When asked what viewers would like to see on City 3TV, 55 percent of viewers said more events. --- more at original post http://www.newbernsj.com/news/local/new-bern-looks-to-grow-its-tv-channel-1.134611 ---
Due to new information about limits on how the funds can be spent, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday delayed a decision on an ordinance establishing a pass-through fee to support the county’s cable access television station. The board passed the first reading of the ordinance to place a 1-percent fee on Mediacom customers’ bills at its meeting on April 9, as Lake County News has reported. The vote was 3-2, with Jim Comstock and Rob Brown voting no. It’s anticipated that the pass-through fee would raise as much as $55,000 a year for TV8, the Public Education and Government station headquartered at Clearlake City Hall. Since the board approved the ordinance’s first reading, County Counsel Anita Grant has been researching whether or not the board could, in the future, withdraw the ordinance should it not feel the station’s services and performance are improving, an issue raised by Supervisor Anthony Farrington. The concerns arose because, beginning this fall, the state will begin handling such franchise agreements as the county has with Mediacom based on changes in the law that took place several years ago. The concern was that the fee would become part of the permanent franchise agreement. Grant’s conclusion was that under existing law – in particular, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006, or DIVCA – the state will take over the franchise but the county will still have limited access, and could withdraw the ordinance and the fee at some future time. However, there was another concern, namely, that the funds can’t be used for ongoing operations or personnel. --- more at original post http://www.lakeconews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30905:supervisors-delay-action-on-cable-access-pass-through-peg-board-plans-special-meeting&catid=1:latest&Itemid=197 ---
The public, education and government channel advocate, the Alliance for Community Media, has announced the winners of its 2013 Hometown Media Awards. ACM’s Hometown Awards recognize the best community media programming of 2012, and include student, independent producer and access center professional categories. There were 800 entries in seven categories, in which 97 awards were presented, with some organizations collecting several awards. [...] The categories, the awards presented in those categories and the recipients are: Overall Excellence in Organizations With Budgets Surpassing $650,000 Overall Excellence in Public, Education or Government Access: Montgomery Community Media, Rockville, Md. Overall Excellence in Governmental Access: Fairfax County Government Channel 16
Fairfax, Va. Overall Excellence in Public Access: Quad Cities Public Television, Champlin, Minn. Overall Excellence in Organizations With Budgets From $300,000 to $650,000 Overall Excellence in PEG Access: Germantown Community Television, Germantown, Tenn. Overall Excellence in Educational Access: Regional Educational Technology Network, Burlington, Vt. Overall Excellence in Governmental Access: Louisville Metro TV, Louisville, Ky. Overall Excellence in Public Access: The Public Access TV Corporation, Lake Success, N.Y. Overall Excellence in Organizations With Budgets Under $300,000 Overall Excellence in PEG Access: Bedford TV, Bedford, Mass. Overall Excellence in Educational Access: Dubuque Community Schools Television, Dubuque, Iowa Overall Excellence in Governmental Access: The OMNI Centre for Public Media, Carmel, Ind. Overall Excellence in Public Access: Columbia Access Television, Columbia, Mo. --- more at original post http://www.governmentvideo.com/article/acm-announces-winners-of-hometown-media-awards-/114418 ---
Throughout central Wisconsin, all Charter Communications customers eventually will need a digital receiver to watch television, as the company is in the process of replacing all analog channels with digital channels. Initially, the new digital receivers will be free for each television owned by customers. The current cost for a digital receiver is a $5.99 monthly fee, said John R. Miller, the company’s communications director. Customers will need a new Charter receiver because the company is increasing the amount of programming and data, which will be encrypted, Miller said. “Even if you have a digital TV, you will need a digital receiver from Charter,” he said. Charter’s conversion to all digital content will be completed in 12 to 18 months in central Wisconsin, Miller said. “Over the past year, Charter has begun removing certain analog signals from our channel lineup. This is part of the evolution of Charter TV and will be taking place across our service areas through the next couple of years,” Miller said. --- more at original post http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20130407/CWS03/304070365/Charter-Communications-moves-all-digital-content?gcheck=1 ---
Josh Stearns and Candace Clement, in their MediaShift post last October, "The Case for Unity Among Non-Profit, Community, and Public Media," quote from their August 2012 Free Press report, "Greater than the Sum": "We need to begin constructing a new identity for non-profit journalism and media in America, one that illustrates the central role these institutions play in our nation. In addition, we must examine the media policies that have for too long served to divide non-profit media by platform instead of connecting them around purpose." In so doing they point to the 2010 paper by Ellen Goodman and Anne Chen, "Modeling Policy For New Public Service Media Networks": "While public media policy has traditionally been structured around specific platforms -- specifically radio and television stations -- Goodman and Chen call for a 'functions'-based approach that emphasizes: infrastructure, creation, curation and connection." Various non-profit media and journalism institutions can and should be united by function, not divided by platform, Stearns and Clement write. In their paper's section on the creation function (what they call the "what" of public service media content), Goodman and Chen describe valid rationales for public subsidies of various types of program content. Although they mention news and documentaries, oddly, they don't include gavel-to-gavel government meetings coverage and local elections debate coverage in their examples. These two program types, essential pillars for citizen education and civic engagement, are also not discussed in the Free Press report. These content types must not be left out of forward-looking public service media public policy discussions. --- more at original post http://to.pbs.org/16yuMT1 ---
Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School students are getting a head start on potential careers in television production. At a recent school committee meeting, principal Ken Jenks said that some electives fail to get off the ground when few students register for them. But English teacher Reade Whinnem’s broadcast technology class and Melissa Murphy Davis’ TV production club have captured plenty of attention. Prerequisites for broadcast technology are basic media and advanced media, popular classes that reflect many students’ technology-related interests. --- more at original post http://www.wickedlocal.com/yarmouth/topstories/x1522345464/PHOTO-GALLERY-Sending-a-message-Students-promote-D-Y-schools-with-TV-ad
What is Madison's riskiest business these days, if by "risky" you mean "likely to disappear"? Traditional media outlets are top contenders. So are nonprofit organizations, especially those whose funding has been slashed. WYOU is both of these things: a nonprofit, community-access TV station that nearly vanished following the passage of the Video Competition Act in 2007. The legislation released cable companies from a longstanding requirement to fund and broadcast public, educational and government (PEG) channels. Within three years, the 37-year-old station lost all of its paid employees and roughly 80% of its funding, about $140,000 per year. --- more at original post http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=39518 ---
MHTV has been awarded top honors for “Overall Excellence in Public Access Television” by the Northeast Chapter of the Alliance for Community Media. This award recognizes a local cable station’s entire range of programming and responsiveness to community needs. MHTV won in the small to mid-size station category. MHTV also won first place in the “Sports Programming” category, and “Marblehead Youth News” took second place in the “Children & Youth” category. “This is a huge honor for Marblehead Community Access & Media,” said Joan Goloboy, MHTV’s executive director. “MHTV became a local non-profit in 2009, and to reach the top in a few short years is tremendous validation of our work. While our board of directors stepped up to meet the challenges of running a non-profit, our small staff of professionals, which includes Programming Coordinator Jon Caswell and Production Coordinator Bryan Nadeau, worked hard to reach this level.” --- more at original post http://www.wickedlocal.com/marblehead/news/x766886001/MHTV-named-top-station-in-Northeast ---
Students with an urge to try their hand at working in television can learn the ropes through U-public, the operators of Albuquerque’s Public Access channels. The non-profit organization offers classes through meetup. com/upublicans which range in price from free to $10 and teach things like how to develop a show concept, how to use production and recording equipment and how to make money through programming, said U-public Director Toby Younis. The program has offered 75 classes and trained 138 volunteers since July 2012, and has 35 more classes in the works, he said. Since U-Public began operating channels 17, 26 and 27 in the city, it has offered seven in-house productions and 18 independent productions. More than 30 more are in various stages of production, he said. “We have been working on bringing in all types of content to public access, from shows such as an online web-series, to educational and local based content, as well as sports broadcasts such as Women’s Liberal Basketball,” Younis said. --- more at original post http://thecnmchronicle.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/public-access-offers-students-opportunity-to-produce-television-shows/ ---
Several months ago, Dee Dee Halleck, founder of Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish Television, and long time activist and advocate, sent out an e-mail blast detailing her difficulties with access at New York's Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Apparently Dee Dee had dared to demand (a) access -- to Board meetings and organizational policies and records in addition to access to equipment, facilities and channel time; (b) inclusion -- of citizens and access producers in discussion and decision-making about the directions and priorities of the organization; (c) responsiveness -- of the organization to the needs and concerns of the communities served; and (d) transparency -- in the creation of policies, decisions, budgets, and procedures governing the organization. She had been denied access to a Board meeting, and with local citizens, she had been prevented from attending the grand opening of a new facility in East Harlem. She tried to put programs on the MNN channels, one of them showing her and Papoleto Melendez being refused admittance to the official opening of the MNN Barrio Firehouse Media Center. As a result, Dee Dee was suspended from MNN, and with her usual flair for effective media, she posted the program in question to YouTube, as well as an early documentary from the nascent activism of Paper Tiger that brought MNN into being.
Dee Dee also posted her correspondence with a new MNN Board member to her list. I read the documents and watched the YouTube videos with a certain amount of nostalgia. I had been involved in the startup of MNN in the early 1990s and had served as the organizations interim Executive Director during an extended period of transition in 2005. In her letter, Dee Dee said that she was "...worried that the organization has become cut off from some of its founding principles - especially that of transparency and accountability." Her concerns resonated with me. It seemed to me that those who had only recently come to public access -- staff members, and particularly board members -- might have a limited understanding of the origins and founding principles of public access, located as they were in the cultural context of the1960s, and might be unfamiliar with the vision of free speech, local community development and democratic participation that was at the heart of the public access project.
--- more at original post http://www.scribd.com/doc/131961366/Persistence-of-Vision ---
Our big news this week, obviously, was the big announcement from the Federal Communications Commission’s meeting March 20 that Robert McDowell, the current commissioner with the most tenure, is stepping down from the FCC. “[I]t is time to turn more of my energies towards an even higher calling: serving my family,” Commissioner McDowell said. He indicated that he would leave the FCC in a few weeks. Well, that WAS the big story right up to the moment we started penning this round-up and then heard that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski would announce his departure from the FCC on March 22. Commissioner McDowell had hardly finished his announcement before observers said that move makes it easier for Chairman Genachowski to soon follow him to the doors. The pair’s departure means Democrats will still have a 2-1 voting advantage until new commissioners are nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the US Senate. The Senate also seems to like to confirm commissioners in Republican-Democrat pairs, so this could help move that process along. While much of the recent talk has been about Genachowski’s eventual replacement, there appears to be no leading candidate to succeed Commissioner McDowell. The most often mentioned include Ray Baum, a senior aide to House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), and Neil Fried, senior telecommunications counsel to the House Commerce Committee. --- more at original post http://benton.org/node/148494 ---
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Outgoing District 200 board member Terry Finnegan strongly urged the next board and administration to pursue the technical and financial feasibility of broadcasting its board meetings to the public. The topic has been broached in the past but videotaping D200 meetings has never come to pass. Finnegan, the board's former president, made the request at one of his last D200 meetings. He says it's time. The new board was seated on May 2, following the expiring terms of Finnegan, Valerie Fisher, Amy McCormack, and Dietra Millard. The D200 Board of Education oversees Oak Park and River Forest High School, one of a handful of single-school districts in the state. The high school has never broadcast its regular board or committee meetings, either on its website or on Oak Park's public access channel. Other school districts, such as New Trier High School, broadcasts its board meetings on its site and on local public access TV. --- more at original post http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/5-7-2013/Ex_president:-District-200-board-should-broadcast-meetings/ ---
The Tulip Time parades will be taped from a new location for the first time this year — and in part, from the air. Typically the parades are taped and televised from a location in the center of downtown Holland. This year, they will be taped across the Holland Department of Public Safety’s police services building where the Tulip Time offices can be framed in the shot. That location will also allow those taping it to use the small hill there to capture more of the parade at one time, said Matt VanDyken, technology coordinator for city of Holland. “It will give it a little better perspective,” he said. But to make the view even better, the city has purchased a remote aerial camera on a quadcopter and is using a remote backpack that allows the technology department to go to live television from anywhere there is an available cellular signal. The quad copter cost $299, VanDyken said. It has two cameras, one that faces forward and one that faces down. It can rise to 150 feet. It's fully controlled and recorded by an Ipad. It has a WiFi hot spot and, once connected, is operated by Ipad joystick-like controls. ---more at original post http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x1213312095/Aerial-camera-to-give-new-Tulip-Time-parade-perspective ---
The first NCTV seeds were sprinkled in 1999, when islander Gene Mahon decided to film his interviews with Board of Selectmen candidates prior to an upcoming election. Mahon says, “I asked them all the same series of questions. One candidate had a very powerful and moving answer to one of my questions. In the editing room, I realized that if I positioned that as the last answer, people would be so moved that they would vote for him.” Ultimately, Mahon opted not to wield that influence, and instead arranged the answers alphabetically by the candidates’ last names. “But that,” Mahon says, “was when I fully realized the power of television.” At that time, only two Nantucket TV channels—including Mahon’s Nantucket TV—existed. To Mahon, that was an unfair concentration of power, and he yearned to see all islanders possess the same opportunity to create TV capable of impacting viewers. He became determined to bring public access TV to the island. Starting Nantucket’s first public access channel wasn’t all sunshine and daffodils. Mahon says the first challenge to launching NCTV was expressing the importance of a public access station to the Nantucket Board of Selectmen. Not everyone understood the difference between a for-profit TV station and nonprofit community television. Another impediment was public outcry from islanders who were concerned about “objectionable content” getting aired on the channel. After all, per Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, public television is uncensored and open to all. To top it off, Mahon notes significant contract negotiation issues with Comcast, from whose profits a small percentage is legally designated to fund the community channel. (Requiring a local cable provider to provide funding for a community channel is a nationwide practice that was put into place by the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. See FCC.gov for complete details.) Mahon says that negotiating with Comcast “took several years longer than it should have.” Although facing adversity from many angles, Mahon and his team of free speech supporters would not be swayed. Finally, a December 2010 vote by the Selectmen officially approbated Nantucket Community Television. It may have been a messy birth, but the baby is beautiful. --- more at original post http://yesterdaysisland.com/get-your-18-minutes-of-fame/ ---
O'Neill is hosting a new show, "The Heart of Giving," which will focus on telling stories about the more than 1,000 nonprofits in Long Beach. O'Neill is no stranger to the TV camera. While she was mayor for three terms from 1994 to 2006, she started and hosted "Heart of the City," an interview program with public officials and community leaders. "Ever since I left City Hall, telling the stories of nonprofits is something I've always wanted to do," she said. "I hope this will bring people together. [...] O'Neill's return to the television studio coincides with the return of public access television to Long Beach. --- more at original post http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23070172/rich-archbold-public-television-returns-long-beach-former ---
In this age of social media, don’t forget about using public access community cable television as a way to engage and win over supporters and donors. These cable channels, that promote community- based charitable organizations, are funded by cable providers as a result of the Cable Communications Act of 1984. Check with your local cable company or check this link to locate the channel that services your area. Public access channels may produce local news programs, list programming announcements on bulletin boards and/or provide media training for nonprofits who want to produce their own programs. Gina Bartee, Programming and Training Coordinator for Prince George’s Community TV shared tips on using this communication tool at the “Media, Messaging and Your Nonprofit “ session organized by the Human Services Coalition of Prince George's County on March 13, 2013. To increase media coverage, she urged participants to: --- more at original post http://dcblog.foundationcenter.org/2013/04/using-public-access-cable-tv-channels-to-engage-and-win-over-supporters-and-donors.html ---
Members of the Keep Us Connected Coalition are urging the Illinois Legislature to protect public, education and government (PEG) access channels in the 2013 renewal of the Illinois Cable and Video Competition Act of 2007 ("the Cable Act"). Since passage of that law, AT&T has refused to follow key provisions that would result in equitable treatment of PEG access channels. -- more at original post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-popovic/public-channels-at-risk-i_b_3009241.html ---
Amy Goodman wishes Somerville Community Access Television a Happy 30 years of providing the Somerville public with access to grassroots community media and media education training
Redding will hire the Shasta County Arts Council to operate the community’s public-access television channels. Thursday’s decision by the City Council still leaves unclear whether the nonprofit will be able to use the video equipment the current operator, Redding Community Access Corp., is using at its studio on Locust Street. The vote was 3-2. Losing out were RCAC and Shasta Community Media, a group that was formed to compete for the contract. --- more at original post http://www.redding.com/news/2013/mar/28/arts-council-gets-public-access-tv-contract/
[...] WYOU's predicament is unremarkable: Public, educational and government (PEG) access television stations across the country are shutting down in the hundreds. And make no mistake—this is a big deal. What's at stake is not just a valuable (small-d) democratic forum, but the last bastion of our airwaves being used for the public good. But why is PEG access in decline in the first place? It all relates back to one thing: cable franchising fees. Historically, local jurisdictions have awarded franchises to cable companies, allowing them to have the rights to be the exclusive suppliers for a community. As part of the bargain, those communities also obligated the companies to support PEG access programming by providing funds, facilities, and channels to use — all totally legal under the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984. For some communities, the paradigm has changed. For one thing, more local governments have to reconcile with budget shortfalls, and the franchising fees formerly spent on PEG access have been diverted to other expenditures, like paying public employees. Another reason is that the FCC curtailed funding for PEG; they ruled in the mid-2000s that many franchising fees were too high, and needed to be reduced. But really, those changes are red herrings: The real culprit is something called cable franchising legislation. Almost half of the states have now passed franchising laws to lower barriers to entry for new cable operators — in other words, Verizon and AT&T. They create a single state franchising authority, so cable operators need only go to the state to win franchising rights, instead of going from community to community. The kicker is that these bills also phase out requirements for cable operators to support PEG access. A bunch of weirdly similar free-market-oriented bills getting passed in state legislatures at the same time? It's almost like they were copying some conservative think tank's model legislation! All right, I'll just say it: It's ALEC. --- more at original post http://www.progressive.org/alec-new-victim-public-access-tv?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+progressivefeed+(The+Progressive+Main+Feed) ---
The Redding City Council this week will interview the three candidates vying for the job to run the public-access television channels. Representatives for Redding Community Access Corp., Shasta Community Media and Shasta County Arts Council will each get about a half-hour Thursday afternoon to make their pitches. Who will assume the position after the council’s special meeting is anybody’s guess in the ongoing saga of community-access TV operations. Still to be resolved, nearly a month after the council put off its selection of the next operator, is the ownership of the video equipment. City administrators and RCAC are still in discussion over a contract provision giving the nonprofit ownership of cameras, sound speakers and other items it has bought using education and governmental fees collected by Charter cable. --- more at original post http://www.redding.com/news/2013/mar/23/redding-set-to-interview-potential-public-access/ ---
[...] In the past few days, I've been participating in a conversation with a number of folks who believe there is an another, ideal candidate. Her name is Susan Crawford. Now, given the administration's record to date – and especially the torrent of abuse and opposition her nomination would create from the oligopolistic telecommunications industry and its true believers – her appointment may seem unlikely. But for all kinds of reasons, I believe she's the right choice. (Disclosure: I've known Crawford for years and consider her a friend; moreover, we have many mutual friends and allies who have contributed many of the points that follow.) Start with her background. I can't think of another potential candidate with deeper understanding of the relevant topics – based on research and hands-on experience – and with a better sense of what it would take to move America into the connected, collaborative future it risks forfeiting under current policies. Here's a sampler: she's a law professor who focuses on telecommunications. She served on the FCC's review team in the 2008-09 Bush-Obama transition and as an Obama aide for science, technology and innovation policy. Her recent book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, is a must-read on how for anyone following the topic, as are her recent columns and op-ed pieces. (I don't agree with all of Crawford's prescriptions for change, but they are always thought-provoking.) --- more at original post http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/02/next-head-federal-communications-commission ---
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