WASHINGTON—New legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate last week would prevent cable TV operators from claiming the expense of public, educational and government (PEG) channels as in-kind contributions to municipalities that can be subtracted from the franchise fees they pay to local communities.

The bill, “The Protecting Community Television Act,” was introduced by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

In August 2019, the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow cable companies to designate a value for PEG channels provided to municipalities and deduct that value from the franchise fees they pay.

According to the authors of the bill, doing so puts local governments in the position of choosing between support for PEG channels covered in franchise agreements and other community institutions like schools and libraries.

The legislation makes clear the cable franchise fees only include monetary assessments—not in-kind contributions.

“We need to bolster, not weaken, support for community television stations, which is why I’m cosponsoring this important legislation,”” said Shaheen. “I’ll keep working to ensure these stations have the resources they need to continue their programming that educates and informs viewers across New Hampshire.”

Hassan noted that PEG channels are even more valuable in an era of lowered funding for news. “As far too many local news sources face cutbacks and even closure, New Hampshire’s community television stations play an increasingly essential role in providing Granite Staters with important information about their towns and cities,” she said.

Owen Provencher, president of the New Hampshire Coalition for Community Media, commended the senators for understanding the importance of PEG channels. "These hubs of community connection and engagement provide a valuable platform for access to the information cities and towns need to thrive and the opportunity to express the unique cultural needs and the voices of the people they serve,” he said.

WASHINGTON—In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a cable access TV station has the right to restrict programming and does not represent local government as a “state actor.”

In “Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck,” two producers from the New York City cable access TV station claimed that the station violated their First Amendment rights when they restricted access to the station after it aired their program, a show the station afterwards termed “unfavorable.”

The producers argued that the move violated their right to free speech, claiming that, even though the station was a private entity, it was representing the local government. Speaking for the majority, Justice Kavanaugh ruled that public access stations are not, in fact “state actors” under existing precedent and merely by the fact that it allows the public to express their opinions on the air.

Jurist.org has the story. 

STERLING & LANCASTER, MA.--Mixing sound for a town meeting broadcast may seem simple and even dry compared to, say, a rock concert, but it carries very real challenges: some attendees speak very softly while others hardly need a microphone. People stand up and speak from different locations in the room. Distributing enough mics to capture every situation can mean lots of cables or lots of wireless channels — either of which would require on-site management in a roomful of audio non-professionals.

Sterling-Lancaster Community Television, which provides public, educational, and government-access programming to the eponymous Massachusetts towns, found the perfect solution in a system based around the Yamaha TF-RACK digital mixer with the NY64-D Dante I/O option. It receives all needed audio channels via a single Cat 6 Ethernet connection, matches their levels automatically, and is remotely controlled from the nearby offices of SLC TV in a separate building.

“I first became aware of the TF-RACK when our Yamaha rep left one with us for a couple of weeks,” says Mike Berardinangelo of Access A/V, the systems integrator who worked with SLC TV on the installation. “I also knew the town of Lancaster had recently converted an old school into a town hall and was ready to start using it. Sterling-Lancaster TV wanted to broadcast all the meetings but run everything in real time from their control room about a block and a half away.

“We went with a Shure ceiling array that has eight aimable mics in one. That has a Cat 6 output, which plugs into a PoE [power over Ethernet] gigabit switch,” he explains. “The TF-RACK plugs into the switch as well. Its output is also configured via the Dante standard for audio-over-network, then run over fiber optics between the two buildings.”

“In the control room, we have the TF Editor software running on a Mac desktop computer,” says Chris Detsikas, executive director of SLC TV. “The eight channels show up there, and we can mix everything remotely. All anyone in the town hall meeting room has to do is turn on the power for the rack that the TF lives in. There are no other cables in the room besides that one Cat 6, and it’s out of sight.”

To handle the matter of different voices, Detsikas relies on the Dan Dugan Speech System automated mixing capability of the TF-RACK.

“That’s really just an awesome feature to have when some people in a meeting are very soft-spoken and others are just booming. You can set up different scenes for different applications, of course, but I have simple scene that basically says, ‘Make everyone the same volume.’ It just keeps the gain structure for every channel perfect, where usually you’d need someone riding faders on a console for this. The TF-RACK has incredible EQ of its own, but I find I can run everything pretty flat and only reach for the EQ if someone’s voice is very unusual.”

One would think that leaving the on-site system unattended might be a recipe for disaster, but Detsikas finds that the automation and ease of use of the TF-RACK not only saves him the worry, but even helps balance his budget. “In the past, we always had to hire extra people to go into the meetings and manage the sound and video,” he says. “Now we can do it all remotely, and I only need a couple of people to do a meeting, not three or four. The TF-RACK is very ‘set it and forget it,’ and once we set it, it doesn’t matter who stands up, what they sound like, and where they’re speaking from in the room — we gotcha!”

Despite the TF-RACK being very feature-rich, Detsikas considers its best feature to be that he can essentially forget it’s there: “I have broadcast levels I have to think about on the outgoing end. I don’t want to babysit my production mix, and with the TF-RACK I don’t have to. It just gets out of my way.”

In the near future, Detsikas plans to construct a similar setup for the town of Sterling, as well as bring another Lancaster meeting room through the same mixer. “We have two other rooms that feed into this control room. I’m hoping to patch one into that TF-RACK — say, channels 9 through 16 — so I can keep mixing this room on 1 through 8. With all the busing the TF can do, I could be mixing both at the same time and send separate stereo feeds to separate video switchers for broadcast.”

Whatever else Detsikas’ plans may be for the TF-RACK, he knows he has plenty of time to make them: “If Yamaha comes out with a board, people are going to use it for 10 or 15 years or more. You know it’s a rock.”

Top picture: (L to R): Sterling-Lancaster's Community Television Crew: Matt Downing, Production & Outreach Manager; Emmanuel Ortiz, Studio Coordinator; Chris Detsikas, Executive Director & Melissa Jellie, Access Coordinator