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 One of the more significant motions on the agenda pertained to an
agreement between the city of Lincoln, Lincoln College, and Comcast
Communications.
A motion was made by Jonie Tibbs and seconded by Melody Anderson to
approve an agreement that would turn Comcast cable channel 5,
commonly known as CITV5 over to the college. The intent is that the
college will develop the channel into an Education-Government
channel locally and will incorporate the management of the channel
into their curriculum as courses on television broadcast and
production.
At last Tuesday night’s workshop, the public access and channel(s)
portion of the agreement was discussed at length. The original
contract with Comcast is a grandfathered product that originated in
1994 with Continental Cable Company, passed on to Insight
Communications, and finally to Comcast.
In the original agreement, there was a provision for a second
channel of local origin for Lincoln.
However, the extra channel was never set up.
Up to this point, CITV5 has been classified as a P-E-G channel.
According to the FCC, P-E-G is "Public, Education, or Government"
with the public portion being for use by the general public. CITV5
provided local announcements, church service broadcasts, and other
programming.
With the signing of the agreement with Lincoln College, Comcast also
presented the city with a revised franchise agreement between
Comcast and the city of Lincoln. In that agreement, the offer of a
second channel was dropped.
When the college takes over the channel, the public access portion
would also be dropped from the programming.
At the meeting last week, alderman decided that they would move
forward with the agreement involving Lincoln College, but would not
move forward with a new franchise agreement with Comcast. They gave
their consent for Mayor Keith Snyder to contact Comcast, and pursue
the second channel for local public access.
Monday night, after the motion had been made on the LC agreement and
the floor was opened for discussion, Michelle Bauer asked for an
update on the Comcast agreement.
Snyder said he had contacted Comcast requesting that the provision
for the public access channel be put back into the agreement.
Comcast had responded that they would have their lawyers look into
it, and he had heard nothing further.
Tom O’Donohue, who was absent from last week’s meeting, voiced his
concerns about Comcast. He said that he would not be able to support
this motion until there was a solid answer from Comcast regarding
the public access channel.
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“This is not about Lincoln College. Lincoln College is going
to do an awesome job with whatever they do, they have that
proven record,” O'Donohue said. “I have a problem with the
public access portion. I have benefited from it, and I know
other people have benefited from it. And the purpose of it
originally was so that there would be local interests kept in
mind when these cable companies originally came in. They have
slowly done whatever they could to get rid of them because it is
a lot of hassle for them. It’s not about Lincoln College, but if
we give up the public part of P-E-G, I can’t agree to that.”
The discussion continued briefly with Melody Anderson asking who
used the public access. O’Donohue noted some of the local churches
do, and he also noted that Logan County Board member Pat O’Neill was
present in the council chamber, and said O'Neill uses the public
access for a program he televises.
Bauer then asked if the council should table this motion until there
is a definitive answer from Comcast. Around the room, several
aldermen voiced agreement with the tabling. Tibbs and Anderson
withdrew their motion and second and a new motion to table was made
by Bauer and seconded by Jeff Hoinacki.
The second motion to table passed unanimously with seven votes.
Aldermen present for the Monday night meeting were Anderson, Bauer,
Hoinacki, Kathy Horn, Marty Neitzel, O’Donohue and Jonie Tibbs.
[Nila Smith]
Public, Educational, and
Governmental Access Channels ("PEG Channels")
Pursuant to Section 611 of the Communications Act, local franchising
authorities may require cable operators to set aside channels for
public, educational, or governmental ("PEG") use.
Public access channels are available for use by the general public.
They are usually administered either by the cable operator or by a
third party designated by the franchising authority.
Educational access channels are used by educational institutions for
educational programming. Time on these channels is typically
allocated among local schools, colleges and universities by either
the franchising authority or the cable operator.
Governmental access channels are used for programming by local
governments. In most jurisdictions, the local governments directly
controls these channels.
PEG channels are not mandated by federal law, rather they are a
right given to the franchising authority, which it may choose to
exercise. The decision whether to require the cable operator to
carry PEG channels is up to the local franchising authority. If the
franchise authority does require PEG channels, that requirement will
be set out in the franchise agreement between the franchising
authority and the cable operator.
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