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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-CABLECOMM-1991-02-19 F Ie copj c Minutes of the Cable Commission Meeting of February 19th,1991 Commission members in attendance:Tom Terrizzi(Chair),Jim Ferwerda,Peter Hess ACC representative: Chris Doyle Public:Jim Blizzard, Bill McCormick 1. Chair's report: a)Mary Euell will be nominated by the mayor to fill the vacant position on the Cable Commission. Her appointment should be approved by Common Council before the next commission meeting. b)The appointment of a vice-chair and secretary for the Cable Commission will be discussed at the next meeting. c)A member of the Common Council is supposed to serve on the Cable Commission in an ex officio capacity. Mayor Nichols was doing this for a time but has not been at meetings recently. d)The review of commission records in the city hall files is complete. The records are open to the public. It was suggested that use of these records be supervised. Also it was suggested that the records be indexed. e)Tom Terrizzi met in Albany with representatives of the N.Y State Cable Commission, municipal consultants and counsel. NYSCC staff would to come to Ithaca at our invitation. Tom suggested to the Commission that this be part of our April meeting. CAAB members would also be notified and invited to attend that meeting. In addition, NYSCC staff might be available during the day to meet with interested individuals or groups. (Tom's report aftached)—.) 2: Public Comment a)Jim Blizzard suggested that the CAAB designate a member as a contact with the City Attorney. Jim also spoke to the need for action to provide 9 access channels,expand studio facilities,and promote access. Jim further suggested that communication of information from the Commission to the CAAB be improved. b)Annie Ball asked how the vacancies on the CAAB would be filled and requested to be considered for the non-City opening. She was told to submit a letter of application before the next cable commission meeting and told that she would be considered with other applicants at that time. c)Bill McCormick spoke to staff shortages,equipment shortages,and limits on cable-casting time. He urged the commission to press ACC for solutions. Bill reported on the letter he had received from Barbara Lukens regarding his alleged use of profanity on his show'Round About Ithaca,and her pending action to move the program to an after 10:00 pm time slot. Bill responded to a series of questions from Tom regarding what sort of warnings he had received from ACC and the access staff. Bill stated that his position regarding restrictions on his use of language was that he would use all legal means to fight such restrictions,but after these were exhausted he would abide by such restrictions that stand. 3. ACC repor {ebpy attached ACC's response issue of the use of profane language on Bill McCormick's program was to state that the City should have stated its position in strong support of access. Chris Doyle, representing ACC at this meeting,said that the City of Ithaca, as a strong supporter of access in its franchise, should step forward to take some of the heat.Bill's show this Friday is being taped by access staff so that Barbara Lukens can review it. Further action is pending. 4. CAAB report o attaclitAS a)Mayor Nichols had reco ended,in a letter to the Access Coordinator(Lauren), that the CAAB draft a letter to be sent by ACC to people who make complaints about program content. The draft was submitted to the Cable Commission which suggested some changes. b)The Commission,acting on CAAB's recommendation,voted to make Peter the Chairper.of the CAAB. • 5.Old Business a)Weather Channel. Jim offered a resolution directed at ACC stating the cable commissions view that the removal of the weather channel represents "diminution of programming serving the public interest" (full text of the resolution is attached.)The resolution passed unanimously. Chris D. said that he felt the resolution set a dangerous precedent,since the action was based on complaints of a very small percentage of customers. Peter said that it was reasonable to take that small number of complaints as representative of a much larger number of viewers. It was observed that the number of complaints was large relative to the number of complaints received on other matters. 6.New Business a) Access complaints-profanity The board requested that Tom,as chair, express to Barbara Lukens its concern about the handling of complaints of profanity on 'Round About Ithaca. Of immediate concern is the vagueness of rules and handling of violations as stated in the Access P&P Manual. We further instructed Tom to work cooperatively with ACC regarding the larger issue of whether content restriction based on use of profanity is permissible. b)ACC computer dunning. Tom informed us from his personal experience that ACC has initiated a program of automated telephone calls to delinquent accounts. Such a call was received at his office. Chris D.acknowledged that ACC had recently begun using this as a way of contacting overdue accounts and that calls are sometimes made to customer's work numbers. He said that the message asked the customer to call ACC and said nothing about overdue payments. American Community Cablevision Report To Ithaca Cable Commission Feb. 19, 1991 o ACC agrees to honor the request of the commission and to determine the amount of capital to the spent on access equipment based on a lag time of one quarter instead of one year. From February 1989 through December 1990, two percent of city revenues is $ 82 ,962 . $ 77 , 267 has been spent on access capital since March of 1989 , leaving a balance of $ 5, 695 to be spent. Each quarter, the newly calculated 2% of city revenues will be added to the balance remaining. o Nostalgia Television was added to ACC's line-up on channel 44 on Feb. 8, 1990. Nostalgia is programming for the 45 plus age group demographic and was the number one choice of our subscribers in a survey used to determine subscriber preferences in additional programming. o Also on Feb. 8 , The Marketplace was added to basic cable service on channel 7 . ACC plans to add an automated weather crawl on this channel. (Until it can be effected, we are manually updating a forcast several times daily. ) Emergency weather is already automated and will preempt The Market- place. The Marketplace was added to help subsidize ACC's programming costs which have increased 40% each year for the last two years. o ACC's response to subscriber complaints about profanity on community access television is attached. It is ACC's posi- tion that the City of Ithaca and the Ithaca Cable Commission should have publicly stated its position in strong support of PEG access. Instead, a statement indicated that ACC's carriage of public access is strictly a result of NY State Regulation. PEG access was a major requirement of the City of Ithaca in franchise negotiations, with many requirements in addition to NY State requirements. Regardless of NY State regulations, there are many communities which have no desire to have PEG access and where that requirement has been waived. Ithaca has PEG access because there is strong local support for it, primarily from the City. o ACC is one of four local companies who pledged $500 in support of the March of Dimes Walkathon. o ACC is the major sponsor of the 1990 Cayuga Chamber Orchestra's Youth Concert. o ACC has added a second $500 scholarship at TC3 . o Plans to add a third access channel and to purchase a switcher for use on three access channels have been tabled at the request of the CAAB. ACC has requested input from the CAAB on the purchase of a switcher. o ACC will be announcing service guarantees to subscribers in the near future. These will be: 1) Installation within 5 business days or it's free. (This does not include situations where the customer requests a specific date, nor is it valid during student rush periods. ) 2) Customer billing problems will be resolved with one phone call or visit to the cable store, or the customer will receive a month of service free. 3) Service calls will be resolved in 36 hours or the customer will receive a month of service free. y WHEREAS ACC has decided to remove The Weather Channel from its basic service. and replace it with The Marketplace, a telemarketing channel. and WHEREAS ACC has received numerous complaints from subscribers about the removal of The Weather Channel. and WHEREAS the ICC represents the subscribers in the City of Ithaca, The ICC wishes to remind ACC that while it recognizes ACC's desire to operate its business in a profitable manner, it also hopes that ACC sees it's position as Ithaca's sole cable franchisee as a public trust and it hopes that ACC will provide programming on its basic tier that serves the broad public interest. While the ICC is encouraged by ACC's responsiveness to its subscribers' complaints, and its stated plan to expand local weather coverage on The Marketplace, nonetheless the ICC sees the removal of The Weather Channel from the basic tier as a dimunition of programming serving the public interest, and wishes to formally avail ACC of this view. • _ t _ 2/ 19/ 11 Report to Ithaca a r_able Commission on Access Advisory Board Meeting of 2/5/91 CAAB has attempted to resolve the problem of Floyd Johnson's continuing absence from meetings (he has missed 10 of the last 15 meetings without notifying the board). In January the board requested that Lauren inquire of him if he wished to continue to be on the board, with a response required by this meeting. Lauren reported that Floyd said he did want to continue, but did not show up at this meeting. The board voted to remove Floyd due to his lack of attendance. In addition, the board passed a resolution stating that 3 consecutive absences, without notification, were cause for dismissal from the board. Lauren asked the CAAB to develop a standard response letter to be sent when complaints about access programming are received. A committee has worked on this and a draft is attached. Bill McCormick asked the committee working on the complaint letter to also assert the rights to privacy of access producers. Currently the staff will provide the producers name (and phone number?) to anyone who calls with a complaint. Bill asked the board to ask for cablecast time on channel 53 to alleviate the crunch on channel 13. Bill also pointed out the new about parking restrictions at the access studio. Volunteers can no longer park in the lot at 612 Green St. before 5 pm. Peter Hess was nominated as the boards choice to be its chair. The nomination will be sent to the cable commission which will select the chairperson. A meeting with ACC engineer Joe Powers was tentatively set to discuss hub equipment needed to start up additional channels and to allow remote broadcast and playback on them.