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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLE-1992-10-28 i • Cable Access Advisory Board Minutes of October 28, 1992 Present: Lauren Stefanelli, Joe Powers, Matt Ryan, Harvey Gitlin, Jim Blizzard, Eloise Greene, Rick Gray, Robert. Manville, Peter Hess, Mary Milne, Terry Harbin (public/ 1. Meeting called to order at 7: 16 p.m. Mary Milne was designated as minutes taker. 2. Minutes of September 23, 1992 were approved. 3. Amendments to the agenda: Robert Manville wished to discuss problems with the multichannel switcher and cable drop to schools. Before meeting got underway, artwork by Harvey Gitlin and a logo from Eloise Greene were passed around for consideration for new PEGASYS logo. 4. Public Comment: Terry Harbin expressed his concern about the poor quality of the signal that channel 53.was getting and his desire that it look "professional and good". He was perturbed that ACC had pulled the government channel's signal off the air for several days following a typed notice he had broadcast that urged the viewer,. if unhappy with the image quality to call the company's number. Terry had talked about the technical problem with Joe Powers who agreed it was a problem. After some calls, John at ACC turned off channel 51, the adjacent channel which had caused interference, and the signal improved. However, Terry asserted that problems do persist and this is due to these channels being on the upper range of the cable spectrum, where they are more vulnerable to problems. 5. Access Co-ordinator's Report: Lauren submitted a written report (see attached). One noteworthy item concerns the issue of crediting ACC on volunteers' programs. The NY Cable Commission has said that while a producer must be credited on each production, it is not required that ACC be acknowledged This point led to a brief discussion about those programs that are aired without a local producer, i.e. Deep Dish. In this case, the station itself is the sponsor. Lauren also said that Barbara Lukens said no to more formats for channels 53 and 54, that only 1/2" is available at this time. An extra 3/4" deck could be hooked- * up and there ensued a discussion as to how to shuffle existing equipment. Lauren anticipates a number of changes when the edit suites are decked out with the new equipment. r Robert Manville aired a complaint about the multi-channel switcher, sayin 5 it was supposed to give us automation and autonomy but still apparently requires someone at the station flipping the switch manually. Lauren said it needs a telephone line interface and that this might be negotiated with ACC. Peter Hess said it is too ` t' late. Joe Powers said the switching function could be done with an audio tone preceding the program. What is needed is a tone generator and a switch. , There followed a discussion about the public's lack of awareness of channel 54 t and how to find it on the box, and whether ACC is helpful in providing the necessary s box for those televisions that are not cable ready. Why produce programs if no one is ,., watching? asked Robert. i: �. t 6. City Cable Commission: Rick said there had been discussion of the same issues, e.g. credit to ACC on programs. Citing the ongoing negotiations with ACC, Peter said there would be something more concrete to report next month. 7. Educational Committee: Robert Manville said they have been going through the a policy manual and reworking sections that will provide the basis of operation for the educational channel. The next meeting is November 12. Robert would like someone else to take over the position of chair of this committe. Robert then sought some clarification about cable drops to educational institutions and how to best approach ACC about it. Although ACC has stated they give free drops to schools if less than 50' from road, it has made proposals of $1000 estimates to wire the inside. Robert would like a single drop to the outside of the building and the BOCES staff could do the inside (of their own building) themselves. He is waiting for an answer to this. It was suggested that formal requests should pass through the CCC. . 8. Governmental Committee: Jim Blizzard reported on their first meeting on October 14. Those present included John Efroymson, Ed Olmstead, Terry Harbin, Julie Crowell (Co-operative Extension) and others. They talked about the basic distinctions between the channels and how equipment is funded. The next meeting is November 9 and Jim agreed to send a letter out to each town board to invite their participation. There followed a discussion about what should constitute a voting membership, each township or municipality, and how a representative from each governmental body might be chosen. There was some confusion about whether school boards would be on this channel, but Peter Hess spotted in the policy manual of access standards (595.4) that school districts are represented on the educational channel While the governmental channel is reserved for municipal, county, and state government, 3 4 !! i as eS� a5 i ,. 9. Planning and Policies Committee: Rick Gray said that work on Access FM-is • moving along--"at a snail's pace", added Joe Powers. r r l X � tst 4 10: The. Capital Equipment Committee has issued a survey in the October Newsletter to assess the needs and desires of the volunteers in terms of new _ '` equipment. The return rate has been low so far. 1 1. We then moved on to Lauren's questions regarding governmental access channel rules. Authorization--It was emphasized that this channel is for institutions and not individuals, who have the opportunity to air their own views on public access. It is the institution that has the responsibility and liabilty for what is expressed on this channel and so needs a representative that will reflect those positions. How this person will be chosen is up to each body, although clearly some mechanism has to be established for doing so. Programming by officials--The problem of incumbents campaigning during an election season using this channel are avoided by having that politician be considered as an individual and not a spokesperson for government, and therefore relegated to public access. (It was noted that Channel 54 is not watched as much as 13 anyway.) Running programs on both channels--It was agreed that institutions cannot air their programs on public access as well as the governmental channel. Programming Limits--People thought that it should be OK to run programs repeatedly on Channel 54, although Lauren said ACC was not prepared to do so. 12. Meeting adjourned at 9:07. Next CAAB meeting set for Monday, November 23 at 7:00 at the T.C. Public 1 ibrary. To : Governmental and Educational Access Committees, and All G and E Access users From: ACC Date: 11/6/92 Procedures for Request and Use of PEG—A—SYS Governmental and Educational Access Channels The past several months have brought a number of organizational and procedural problems to ACC ' s attention with regard to Governmental and Educational Access . Confusion has arisen over a number of questions, including: the lack of a written scheduling procedure for remote site activation [ leading to requests solely via telephone messages] , and lack of a system whereby institutions could request time through designated representatives [who should ACC take to be "the City, " "the County, " "Cornell "?] ACC has brought many of these questions before both the governmental access committee and the Cable Access Advisory Board. The CAAB was able to devote a good deal of time to these questions in its October meeting, and provided ACC with a good deal of advice . ACC is willing to work cooperatively with policies drawn up by the G and E committees currently being formed. As a practical matter, ACC is implementing, effective immediately, the following policies for G and E access users to solve immediate scheduling concerns . Feedback from the G and E committees is welcomed. Authorization to Request Channel Time Governmental and Educational institutions may request time on channels 53 and 54, respectively. Requests may be made either by the organizational head of the institution [for ex. , the mayor for the City, a school principal for a school ] or by an individual authorized by the institution' s head or governing body to make commitments on behalf of the institution. If the institution will be using an authorized representative to request channel time on its behalf, it should indicate this to ACC in writing, using either the attached form or similar wording on institutional letterhead paper signed by the institutional head. Requests for G and E channel time will not be accepted from individual employees and other affiliates of organizations who are not explicitly authorized by their institutions to make institutional requests . Identification of Programming Each G or E institution must identify itself as the producer or provider of the programming at the end of each program, even when individual programs have a variety of producers . For example, An Ithaca College Television Production" or "This program has been brought to you by BOCES . " Character generated bulletin boards must also be identified as to their institutional source . Use of ACC ' s PEG Access Center Producers making programming for G or E institutions are subject. to the same production rules as Public access users when utilizing the PEG access center. These rules are described in ACC ' s Policies and Procedures Manual for its PEG Access System, formerly called CABLE 13 Policies and Procedures . Producers making programming for G or E access channels are required to note this on their project reservation form. Such projects must also be approved by the institution ' s authorizing entity before production reservations can be made at the access center. Liability for ACC Equipment All PEG access producers are fully liable for ACC equipment used . [A Limited Liability Option is available to producers . See policy manual for details] . Producers wishing to have their institution accept liability for them should work this out within their institution. Institutions may have as many employees or affiliates using access production facilities as they like, but ACC considers each individual producer using production equipment to be personally liable for all equipment used. Payment of one Limited Liability Option fee will not cover an unlimited number of producers affiliated with a given institution. Cablecastincr Requests 1/ Request Forms All requests for cablecasting time, whether live or taped, whether originated from a remote transmission site or from ACC, and including requests for time to run character-generated bulletin boards, must be made in writing to ACC . Either the attached form or institutional letterhead signed by the institutional head or authorized representative may be used. 2/ Channel Allocation Programs produced or provided by G and E institutions will be scheduled on G or E channels, respectively. NYS rules do permit cross-scheduling of G programing on an E channel , and vice-versa , if needed for scheduling purposes . Programs originally produced by G or E institutions for G or E access are not eligible for cablecast on the Public access channel , even if submitted by an individual . New York Cable Commission rules specify that G and E channels must be kept separate from P access . In the same way that unauthorized individuals are not permitted to request time on G and E channels , institutions are not permitted to use individuals to get around the intention of the NYSCCT to separate P and E/G access channels . 3/ Allocation System Until and unless other instructions are received by the Governmental and Educational Access Committees, ACC will schedule G and E programming requests on a first-come , first-served basis . • 4/ Program and Institutional Producer Limits Until and unless other instructions are received by the Governmental and Educational Access Committees , ACC will impose no limits on the amount of time requested by any institutional user cablecasting from a remote site . ACC has limits for taped playback from its facility, as outlined below. 5/ Requests for Cablecasting of Tapes by ACC Requests may be made for up to two plays of any given program within a calendar year by any G or E institution without its own cablecasting facilities . Program videotapes must be received at least 48 hours in advance of the requested cablecast date . Pre-recorded tapes will be accepted in SVHS, VHS-SP or VHS-EP mode . Pre-recorded tapes must be labelled on the cassette and box with institutional provider, program title, program length and cablecast date/time (s) . Tapes which include more than one program must include log sheets showing all programs on the reel . 6/ Institutions With Their Own Transmission Facilities Several governmental and educational institutions have their own program transmission facilities . Institutions which are activated I-NET sites are capable of doing live cablecasts of programming from their sites . A few are also capable of retransmitting live satellite programming. ACC will perform the appropriate switching of remote sites onto the scheduled G or E channel provided the cablecasting reservation has been made as outlined above . Several of these transmission, sites are also capable of transmitting pre-recorded taped programming. Currently, these sites include Ithaca College, BOCES and the Tompkins County government/Public Library. ACC considers these institutions responsible for performing their own cablecasting playback. v Mailing Address: CABLE13 Studio Address: 612 W. Green Street 519 W. State Street Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 AMERICAN COMMUNITY CABLEVISION 607-272-7272 Bill McCormick 211 Schyler P1 . Ithaca, NY 14850 November 6, 1992 Dear Bill , This Letter is to inform you that ACC has determined that portions of your program, Round About Ithaca [#197) , cablecast on October 30 and 31, 1992, contained commercial material . As you know, commercial material is prohibited on access channels . The portion of the program which ACC has determinined to be commercial was the "Club 101 News" section. During this 6 minutes 50 second segment, ACC found the following elements to be impermissible commerical material : 1) use of a commercial logo ( "Club 101") as segment title 2) repeated identification of the reporter as a representative of a commercial radio station, 100 .7SGT. This character-generated identification was shown 14 times . 3) display of the 100 .7SGT business card, with station logo/ slogan ( "Club 101" ) and owner name; this was displayed 11 times; 4) inclusion of reference to "100 . 7SGT FM" in the character- generated notice to inform viewers -that they could receive FM cable service by contacting the cable company. This notice was displayed 6 times . [Note that such a notice which without mentioning a specific commercial station would not be considered a commercial anouncement] Between all of the above titles , there was a graphic with "100 . 7FM and/or "Club 101" on screen for most of the segment . It is ACC ' s determination that through these graphic displays. this segment of your program is commercial programming, in that it "in whole or in part depicts , demonstrates or discusses products, services or businesses with the intent or substantial effect of benefitting or enhancing a profit-making enterprise" [CABLE 13 Policies and Procedures, Sec . IX.4.4) . Use of access facilities for commercial programming purposes is a major violation of CABLE 13 policies [Sec . VII .4. 2 . 6) , which can result in an immediate 90-day suspension of access privileges . I understand that the distinction between commercial and non- commercial programming can get somewhat confusing. I do not believe that you intentionally included commercial material in your program. Therefore , no penalty will be imposed for this violation. "Television for Tompkins County" .In addition, ACC has referred this case to the Cable Access Advisory Board, asking them to advise us on specific guidelines to cover this program segment . We will be happy to cooperate with any hearing or other forum they may set up to discuss the issue . In the meanwhile, please be aware that the above-cited content is considered commercial and as producer, you are responsible for avoiding such content-restricted material in your program. Sincerely, .4* ty/j/ Lauren :'.Stoma.. 9- Community . c6ejr C: .rdiAt. cc : Barbara Lukens. ACC General Manager CAAH