WPCNR THE CABLE ACCESS ADVOCATE. Cable Commission Coverage Special to WPCNR by Don Hughes. October 6, 2008: The last year has been marked by unprecedented breakdowns in transmission of Common Council meetings and the quality of public access transmission of regular programming. Sixteen documented complaints were received within the last four months, and there were others not reported to the commission. The criticism of the programming reception quality included loss of picture, loss of audio, for hours at a time. One Common Council was completely blacked out. The complaints both documented and undocumented were frequently traced to different breakdowns in the transfer of Public Access Studio signals to Cablevision for distribution to the city. Don Hughes sat in on the Cable Commission meeting last Tuesday in which this trend was discussed. Here is his report:
Gina Cuneo-Harwood, the White Plains Finance Commissioner gave a presentation to the White Plains Cable Commission last Tuesday evening, where she indicated that she wanted to address some unfounded rumors that no money was available to upgrade equipment that she had been hearing.
She indicated that White Plains Cable Access did have money available to address issues such as expanding coverage and replacing equipment. She said that there was approximately $300,000 available in the fund balance for such uses. She also recalled previous discussions where money was added to last year's budget to upgrade the TV equipment used at City Hall. The actual revenues Cablevision and Verizon contributed to the city were not disclosed, but Cablevision, the Commissioner reported was "by far" the largest source of revenues.
Surplus Held onto for emergencies it is said. Revenues Growing by 10%
There was some discussion that Cable Access was unique because of the possible emergency replacement of expensive equipment and, since the city is self-insured, they needed a large cushion. There was also discussion that they should not spend on their needed equipment list since that might impact their negotiations for capital funds from the vendors. The Finance Commissioner dismissed both reasons.
The Finance Commissioner mentioned that the cable revenues seemed to be increasing by about 10%/year. This years fees were about $891,000 which would be shared with the city 70/30.
When asked about the split of the fees between Verizon and CableVision, she claimed that she was legally prohibited from giving that information because it is considered private and confidential, although she could say that CableVision is by far the biggest payer. There was some discussion whether this information had been provided to the director and some members of the commission in the past, with a number of conflicting claims made.
Cable technology gap confirmed. Quotes Sought
There was some discussion and agreement that Cable Access has fallen way behind where they should be in terms of technology. The Executive Director of White Plains Cable, Jim Kinney, indicated that he had a proposal to study what is need to upgrade the system and was directed to obtain two additional quotes. He was also directed to upgrade the approximately $500,000 wish list of needed equipment upgrades that he had previously prepared.
Commission Members Should Not Speak Individually
One of the commissioners wanted to be ensured that she was given copies of all materials made available to the director. At this point the chairman indicated that it was not right for a single member to get information that not all the commissioners wanted to see and requested a motion directing that information would not be forwarded
to any one member without approval of the rest of the commissioners. He also indicated that he wanted to put a stop to individual commissioners speaking on behalf of the commission without approval.
16 Transmission Complaints in 4 months.
The commission was presented a compilation of 16 complaints received since the last meeting on 6/10/08.
The commission voted on and passed a salary increase for the director.
