CTV, Comcast & the future of 623 Productions

To my colleagues and friends in the Roseville Area Schools community, I’d like to alert you all to a very serious situation that may potentially destroy CTV and our Public Access Cable system, as well as deprive our community of coverage of all the sporting, musical and special events that occur every year in our school district.

For those who don’t really know me very well, I am Wayne Powers, the Supervisor of Infrastructure and Cable Services for the Roseville Area Schools. For more than 30 years, with the assistance of hundreds of young people and alumni over those years, I have been producing coverage of RAHS Sporting Events, Musical and special events programs for our community, as well as live School Board Meetings, for our Roseville Area Schools Educational Access Cable Channel.

Currently, the North Suburban Access Commission (NSAC), which oversees CTV (our Public Access Cable Television Center) and administers the existing cable franchise with ComCAST, is in the midst of franchise negotiations for the renewal of the franchise.

In this cable system, there are 10 cities: Arden Hills, Falcon Heights, Little Canada, Shoreview, Mounds View, Roseville, Lauderdale, New Brighton, North Oaks, and St. Anthony. Representatives from each of these member cities comprise the NSAC Board. Along with Executive Director Coralie Wilson, they are in the midst of difficult negotiations, the outcome of which will determine the very survival of CTV and our ability to utilize the productions trucks of CTV to cover all the events our community has become accustomed to seeing every year on cable TV.

During their 1st 30 years of existence, our Public Access Cable Television Center has received an operating grant from the cable company, plus an equipment grant. These grants funded their operations, paid for staffing and equipment…..and as a School District, we were able to reserve the production trucks and use them for our productions, without cost to myself or the school district for all of that time.

The operating grant for fiscal 2013 that NSAC/CTV received was based on $4.15/per subscriber, or about $1.5 million Dollars, which funds their production center and staff, plus an annual equipment grant of $50,000, that provides for replacement of studio and editing equipment, and the repair and maintenance of the two productions trucks.

In their current franchise renewal negotiations, COMCAST is unwilling provide either an operating grant or an equipment grant, and instead has demanded back 8 PEG Access Channels that CTV uses (Public / Educational / Government)…..one of the PEG Channels is our own Roseville Area Schools Cable Channel 18. ComCAST’s formal offer is instead only .42/per subscriber, or $158,000 for capital only……..as well as reducing the number of Public Access Channels from 12 to 3.

If this were to occur, my access to the production vehicles of CTV would virtually disappear…and as a result NONE of the sporting events, music concerts, speech showcases, MR RAHS, Variety Show, Black History Week, Asian Culture Show, and the RAHS, FAHS and ALC Graduations would likely be covered, and it’s likely our access channel itself would disappear.

While I’ve been here for nearly 31 years, I don’t have a large budget, or a staff. My crew for all these productions are high school and middle school students, plus some adult “RAHS Alumni” who were my crew members while they were in school. Each year, I have maybe $5000 a year for capital equipment. Based on the cost to commercially rent the production trucks of CTV, I would have had to pay nearly $30,000 to rent the trucks and pay for the CTV Technician’s time. That is a cost the district simply cannot absorb.

I’m asking for your support, and that you use your voices to collectively tell COMCAST and the representatives of the NSAC that you support public access television in our community, and that COMCAST should negotiate in good faith. Otherwise, it’ll be the end of 623 Productions and Public Access Television in the North Suburbs.

There will be a public hearing on April 17th, at 6:30 pm at the City of Shoreview’s City Council Chambers,  where you can make your voices known to representatives of COMCAST and the members of the NSAC (North Suburban Access Commission) about how important Public Access Television and coverage of school events are to our community. I encourage you to let your voices be heard, and to not let COMCAST destroy Public Access Cable Television in our community, or any other community for that matter….and many other communities in the Twin Cities will soon be experiencing the heavy hand of COMCAST in their franchise negotiations soon as well.


I’m providing a link to an excerpt from the Roseville Area Schools March 11, 2014 School Board meeting, featuring CTV Executive Director Coralie Wilson explaining in more detail the dire consequences of COMCAST’s proposal.

Coralie Wilson video excerpt:

http://qt2.isd623.org/NSCC-CTV.mov


Thank you for all your support over the years for my groups’ coverage of your events, and I hope we can continue to provide that coverage for many more years to come.



Sincerely,


Wayne M. Powers
Supervisor of Infrastructure and Cable Services
Roseville Area Schools