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 In an interview with John Blackburn, Lincoln College president
earlier this fall, he indicated the school was getting ever closer
to reaching an agreement with the cable provider. At that time, he
was not prepared to make an official statement.
Tuesday evening, Mayor Keith Snyder shared information and a call to
action for the city council regarding this subject. The city of
Lincoln will be connected to this program through the government
component of the channel. The city currently has its Monday night
voting session broadcast live by Comcast. When the college takes
over the E-G component, the city meeting will then be produced for
television by the college.
Snyder said that the city had been approached to sign agreements to
reflect their approval of that change, and that he had also received
a new franchise agreement from Comcast.
He said the E-G transfer agreement was straightforward and included
the provisions of how the college would broadcast the council
meeting.
The E-G agreement required little discussion by the council, but the
agreement with Comcast did bring up some long standing issues the
city has with that company.
Melody Anderson kicked off the discussion saying, “We’ve had
concerns for years that Comcast would not televise all our meetings.
She said she had noted in the agreement that Comcast would still own
channel CITV5 but it would be operated by the city or its entity.
But later on it said that the company would continue to broadcast
the meetings of the full council. She said the two statements were
confusing.
She wondered if the city had control of this through the E-G
program, and would the city have both their workshop and voting
session meetings broadcast.
Snyder said this had been part of a discussion between Comcast and
himself. He had been told by the cable company that they did not
have the resources to provide manpower to operate the camera in city
hall four times a month. He also said it had been explained to him
that the camera in city hall, when turned on, is designed to cut
into regular CITV5 programing. He said Comcast had said then that if
the city could provide someone to turn the camera on, the Tuesday
night meeting could be televised.
He noted that Comcast has an agreement for a camera operator for the
Monday night meeting, and that agreement should remain in place, so
all the city needs to be concerned about is the Tuesday night
meetings.
Snyder said he didn’t know if the college had the resources to send
someone to the Tuesday night meetings. Anderson commented that if
all it required was to flip a switch she was content with that. She
said that she didn’t necessarily care if the camera focused on the
people speaking at the moment, all she really cared about was that
the public be able to hear the discussions.
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Michelle Bauer is on staff at Lincoln College. She addressed
this, carefully punctuating that she was in no way authorized to
speak on behalf of the college. But she said the taking over of
the channel by the college is for educating LC students in
broadcast and television production. She said she couldn’t help
but wonder if the college would have students who can come in
and operate the camera for the Tuesday night meetings.
Snyder stated that he felt like Comcast, who was able to
purchase NBC, should also be able to afford a camera man for the
Lincoln City Council.
He went on to say that he didn’t want to do anything to hold up
the agreement between the college and Comcast. He said the
college taking on the E-G was going to be a very good thing, and
he knows the college has plans for the station that are going to
be very good for the community.
Moving on Snyder noted in the original contract, there was a
provision for a second Public Access channel. The original
contract, Snyder explained was between the city of Lincoln and
Continental Cable Company. The agreement then transferred to
Insight, and finally to Comcast. The language he was referring
to now was from that old Continental agreement.
Snyder read from the contract. "Upon completion of the cable
system rebuild and expansion of channel capacity, and as
additional utilization requires, the company shall make
available as permitted by channel capacity one additional
access.” Snyder commented, “Continental did that cable system
rebuild a long time ago, and the cable provider never did
provide that second channel. I asked Comcast about that because
now we are going to have an E-G channel, and I said, now can you
provide a second channel just for public access.” Snyder said
the company was taking issue with the terminology “as additional
utilization requires,” because there is not currently 24-hour
programming on CITV5, there is not yet a need for the second
channel.
Snyder said in the new agreement with Comcast, the provision for
a second channel is going to go away. He said he felt like
Comcast will probably not ever commit to a second channel in
Lincoln, but if the city signs the new agreement as is, then
they have lost that potential completely.
In the end, it was decided that the council will vote Monday to
approve the agreement with Lincoln College. Snyder will have
some additional conversation with Comcast regarding the new
franchise agreement, and it will be voted on possibly at a later
date.
The current contract with Comcast was signed in 1994 with
Continental Cable Company. It is a 25 year agreement set to
expire on August 31, 2019.
[Nila Smith]
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