Westside Cable TV — Towns still mum on what’s up
The saga of westside Public Access TV continues. According to emails exchanged between westside towns and Time Warner (obtained by Freedom of Information request), the towns are close to replacing Edu-cable as the PEG TV provider for 17 towns. However, despite public interest in the switch, none of the towns has announced the upcoming change, sought public input, or scheduled hearings.
One email dated December 8th indicated the towns wanted the change to take effect by January 1st. Time Warner’s response was “uh, not so fast.”
We are unable to speculate a time frame until we know the location of the facility. Depending on the location, we may have to acquire permits or easements that could add time to the construction.
So, the process slowed down and they delayed a summit meeting between town supervisors and Time Warner until January 26th. What happened at that meeting? Good question! It was almost 2 months ago, but nothing has been said publicly. The towns anticipated a state-of-the art channel which would be customized to each town, and, oh boy, FREE ! TW said “fellas, wait a minute.”
To change the system so that - as your emails seems to anticipate could be easily accomplished - each municipality would receive its own distinct programming on the access channels - would require an extensive and expensive technical configuration of the system. The costs involved would be borne by our customers.
Cost borne by customers… hmmm…. do you think that’ll be in ADDITION to the millions in franchise fees those customers already pay to the towns via cable bills, ostensibly for the purpose of funding the public channels, but in reality, well, gee… where the heck did that money go, anyway? Hello? Time for a little public accountability!
Related posts:
- Time Up for Westside Public Access TV?
- Town Supervisors flee from cameras — exactly why we need independent Public Access TV in Westside towns
- A “consortia” to control westside Public Access TV?
- Gates Town Attorney weighs in on Cable TV
- “State of the Towns” is none of the public’s business if you live in Gates or Chili
So who is supposed to be taking over. Don’t we have a right to speak on this issue?
No already! It’s GOP-TV for you! And you! And you! And you! And you! And yes, even YOU! Put up and shut up!
One rumor has it that the towns have punked out on the bidding process and are going to make Time Warner run public access from downtown. Anyone hear anything about that one? The towns seem like the gang that can’t shoot straight. Do they even know what they are doing?
Don’t forget that Time Warner owns a monopoly here and no one, because the Republicans involved like things as they are, is making any moves to stop the monopoly. All over the country where there is more than one cable provider, the rates are significantly lower than we pay here (like that’s news…we seem to pay more for everything here!).
Just Google phone rates for instance…Time Warner and Frontier offer “DEALS, DEALS, DEALS”…but at way too much money! Again, it is volume vs price. I use ViaTalk…a VOIP (it is the same type of thing TW is offering…phone service through the internet) that offers free long distance, all kinds of features and pay $199 for two lines for TWO YEARS!!! So where does TW get off offering less features than I get now for “ONLY $29.99 a month”??? You do the math.
Here is another case of “Stop the Insanity”!!! If the towns would band together and demand cable competition, they, the schools and the residents would all be better off. I am not happy with the monopoly, are you?
(PS: if you want to check out ViaTalk let me know and I will send you an invite…then we both save an additional 10%)
At the last Gates Town Board Meeting, Ralph Esposito stated that Time Warner may be going to take over access. That would mean no service to speak of. And no service for all the franchise fees paid. Like AIG the towns are getting money to fail.
I called Chris Mueller at Time Warner about six or seven times before he returned my call and then said nothing. He just deferred to the towns, whom he knows full well aren’t talking to the public or me. That usually means the fix is in.
I did mange to get the “bids” via FOIL.No indication of any contracts but interesting on several levels
We still have the only actual facilities in the area
SEVideo.
330,000 including 100,000 for equipment
WXXI 205,000 including $100,000 for equipment
PEARL Video $115,00 at least $50,000 for equipment and a very unclear plan for facilities and equipment.
Educable 100,000 plus request of $15,000 for equipment which would make it — if given — $115,000
This just deals with the bid. Each of the other three bidders appear as best I can decipher them, to be charging big money for production services for the town leaders. So that would raise the costs a lot.
Educable has never charged town officials money to come to our studios to tape shows. And we have taped board meetings for a very low fee.
I haven’t got to staffing service or commitment to public access yet.
I see that equipment and such costs are high. Wasn’t that supposedly one of the supposed problems Dicaro and Esposito had with Caterino .So if everyone needs money for equipment why is educable being singled out?
The more I watch this the more it reminds me of the Bush administrations comical shifting rationales on Iraq. Once a reason was deemed inoperative, another one appeared equally problematic.
What’s the real reason here,
This sounds like a bloody mess. It’s clear this hasn’t been thought out.
Why hasn’t educable been paid. Got any comments Dicaro.
Hi:
It turns out I might have been even too low on the Pearl Video proposal. Based on some other FOIL documents it sounds to me like that proposal might be more in the $170,000. Again production will be extra.
So I wonder if as Dicaro claims that educable is only in it for the towns money, and the supervisors are concerned about money why can we offer so much more for so much less?
I guess I just need a new Armani suit.
Oh by the way the way towns also accepted a late bid from commercial channel WBGT for at least $270,000/yr.
I don’t think they were actually interviewed but the bid was circulated by Kathy Firkins of Greece to other supervisors for consideration. Is this at all legal. I guess the towns don’t really care how they act because their is no real oversight of official misconduct around here.
Note the robutard post above.
I enjoyed Caterino’s. little video on the state of the town addresses for Gates and Chili
You won’t see that on GOPTV
So what exactly is the role of Time Warner in this whole thing? It seems to me they could put some pressure on the towns if they wanted to do so. I don;t imagine their viewers would be happy if they lost another channel they like.
[...] in the western Monroe County suburbs. Edu-Cable, the longtime non-profit provider of the service, has been on the outs with the towns for some time. First the towns tried moving the service into government hands and into a Greece school building. [...]