 |
Bromfield senior Casey Clark mans the controls during a taping for local cable TV of a recent school committee meeting in Town Hall. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
|
 |
| Pat Natoli logs on to a new Mac computer to be used for video editing in the cable office in the old library. |
Tuning in to Groton’s Community Access Cable Channel (15), one may feel a pang of envy at that town’s ability to provide a truly diverse and fun mix of programming. Groton shows all of its town board meetings separately on the Groton Government Channel (13), leaving Channel 15 open completely for community oriented programming. Switch over to Harvard’s Channel 12 and you are likely to see either a School Committee meeting or a canned health program featuring an elderly doctor in a tweed suit explaining how to get more fiber in your diet (eat peas). That’s about as exciting as it gets on Channel 12, if you’re lucky to get anything at all. Half of the time, all that’s displayed is the equivalent of a blank screen.
Harvard’s Community Access Cable (HCAC) Committee, which runs the town’s community cable television service and determines its programming, has not fulfilled its promise to provide Harvard with more diverse programming than its usual coverage of official town business.
How is it that Harvard, which has the same cable service provider as does its neighbor Groton, a town of similar demographics, has by comparison such a meager community cable offering? The answer to the question of the very different cable programming in the two towns lies partly in the different deals the towns negotiated with Charter Communications.
Groton negotiated a Gross Annual Revenue Contract (GAR) with Charter Communications, and collects up to 5 percent of Charter’s gross annual income from that town’s subscriber base, which the subscribers are willing to pay. The amount Groton collects is sufficient to support all its programming. In addition, the town successfully negotiated that Charter pay for half the annual salary of the program director (the town pays the other half).
Groton cable TV has a programming director who has a master’s degree in film production and more than 17 years of experience working with film and video. He provides a variety of workshops on video production and editing, using the Groton Channel’s two video editing suites. The technical support provided through these workshops and by the studio crew has resulted in a rich and diverse mix of community programming, from live talk shows to sports, comedy, local musicians, and even jazz aerobics in the morning.
A strong relationship exists between the Groton Channel’s access studio and the school district. It is clear that the synergy between the Groton Channel and the schools has produced wonderful results, with the high school’s videography class producing dozens of complete shows.
Harvard, on the other hand, made a different kind of deal. In 2005, then-HCAC chairman Jonathan Williams and then-town manager Paul Cohen negotiated a contract with Charter that gave Harvard a lump sum of $80,000 to buy equipment, and a GAR of between 2 and 2.5 percent, which currently generates approximately $22,000 annually. The return from the GAR was originally intended to pay for a part-time coordinator. According to Williams, the money that comes from the Charter GAR “could be used for anything.” The $80,000 “grant,” however, is actually a loan, he said, and Charter has been gradually recovering it.
The decision not to charge subscribers a higher percentage of Charter’s licensing payment for operating the cable has resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential revenue, according to a report presented to the Board of Selectmen last February by former HCAC member Keith Turner. The deal with Charter also left Harvard with no professional leadership to run the equipment and plan programming.
Speaking with the Press by phone last week, Cohen said that the big need when the original deal was made was equipment, and because cable fees in general had been rising, there was a desire to keep subscriber rates low and prevent further surcharges. Cohen also said that because the station was being run by an all-volunteer force, “they didn’t think they needed the money that would have been provided by the annual revenue contract.” He said the contract was presented to the Board of Selectmen, which ratified it.
In a recent interview with the Press, former HCAC chairwoman Jackie Normand agreed that Groton had negotiated a much better deal with Charter, and that Harvard had been too conservative with its subscriber fees. She said that with such limited funds and no paid cable coordinator to take on the lion’s share of programming, the HCAC volunteers “had to do it all.” She said “the whole operation has to become more profitable so volunteers can just fill in the gaps.”
At a Board of Selectmen meeting last February, Turner, who has an extensive background in professional videography, resigned from the HCAC, citing that it was unable or unwilling to deliver on various proposals for programming submitted by individuals and groups from the town. He recently told the Press that none of the HCAC members has relevant experience in film or video production. “They have all the bells and whistles, but lack the training, vision, and leadership to create broadcast quality programming,” he said.
When asked, current HCAC Chairwoman Pat Natoli refused to comment on the video-related background of committee members.
At the time of his resignation, Turner provided many examples of letters from Harvard residents in support of more dynamic public access programming. Among them were letters from Council on Aging Director Ginger Quarles, who wrote that public TV could be effective in minimizing seniors’ isolation and in keeping them up to date on health issues; from Ellen Levinson, executive director of the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, who wrote about creating a video archive produced by seniors; and from For Art’s Sake, a group dedicated to promoting the arts, suggesting that the public access channel be developed as a means to enrich Harvard’s cultural life. In addition, pastors of all three churches in town offered to film—at their expense and using their own volunteers—their sermons, for those unable to attend church services in person.
Turner told selectmen that these letters refuted what a Cable Committee member had told him—that “the residents of Harvard don’t want anything more than what we are offering.”
Although none of the programming suggestions were followed up on by HCAC, Levinson cited a successful endeavor with the committee involving a grant-funded series of educational programs aimed at seniors and the schools on prescription drug use, misuse, and abuse. The series was broadcast on Channel 12.
However, another supporter, who asked to remain anonymous, did not meet with the same success when she tried to have a documentary aired, created by physicians, about health care costs. She said that Natoli at first told her they could do it, but then, after getting permission to use it, refused, saying it was too much of an effort, even though the program was on a disc. It was later shown at the library by the person who made the request, for an audience of 25 people.
Last month, when asked a series of questions by the Press related to programming and HCAC goals, Natoli initially replied that the committee was looking over the questions and she would provide feedback within a week. However, she later refused to answer any questions and would not provide a copy of the business plan the HCAC submitted to the Board of Selectmen last year.
In a telephone interview with the Press following Turner’s resignation last year, Williams (now vice chairman) disputed Turner’s claims, insisting that the Cable Committee did have a vision “to bring all the meetings we can to the town and to train as many townspeople as possible to do their own programming.” The problem, he insisted, was that they did not have a permanent space. Last March, HCAC got that permanent space in the old library.
In an attempt to fulfill this vision, last year the committee announced training classes for the public on the use of its video equipment. The offer garnered a group of at least a dozen Harvard residents, including this reporter, eager to learn how to use the professional video equipment to create original programming and to help cover town events.
At the conclusion of the “camera basics” part of the program, which was interesting and fun, participants were shown the studio control room, located in the old section of the new library. With banks of monitors, fixed cameras, a complex sound system, and an advanced switching system, it was impressive to see, and obviously had cost a great deal of money to acquire and set up. However, it was clear that the instructor had not been educated in how the switching system worked. This part of the instruction was left to two Bromfield students, who showed the group “a couple of buttons we figured out were the ones to push.”
When asked about the level of training regarding the monitoring and switching system, Normand explained that if there was a lack of training, it would have to do with the way the system ended up being installed. As equipment was coming in, she said, the committee first had a space in the school to create a studio; then that space was taken away due to a shortage of classrooms. The committee was offered space in the new library, but the library had concerns about preserving the historic integrity of Volunteers Hall, so the installation there was limited. Training was available, Normand said, but the staggered nature of the installation created continuity problems. Normand agreed that “someone should certainly be trained to run the system inside and out and be available to train others.”
At the time of the public training sessions, the Cable Committee had not made use of the video editing system that Charter gave to the town in 2005. In the second class, the focus was on learning this system. Without such a system, only unedited, linear programming can be provided, such as the various town meetings that make up most of what is shown on Channel 12. The class (a small group of five) led by Williams got off to a poor start, and died after just two sessions. Williams attempted to demonstrate how to use what turned out to be a complex, somewhat antiquated system that he had never been trained to use. At the end of the second session, Williams promised class participants that the Cable Committee would “buy a new system with training and technical support.”
The final e-mail he sent to class participants on the subject, last June, said, “The video editing system order got delayed through communications errors. It’s ordered and should be here in the next couple of days. We are planning on having an open studio night on Mondays for anyone to drop by.”
To this reporter’s knowledge, no one heard anything further from Williams about the promised new system. And the programming on Channel 12 has remained unchanged.
Williams told the Press last week, “The editing system is in, and we have faster equipment.” Yet when asked about the current level of expertise on the switching system, he replied, “The mixer has so many gadgets—we don’t use most of the effects. There’s no one that knows everything, but if we needed to, we could hire trainers.”
In an e-mail to the Press last week, Selectman Tim Clark, former Board of Selectmen liaison to HCAC, said, “I was hoping they [the Cable Committee] would be a lot further down the road over the past year. There is not much evidence visible to the general public that any significant changes have been made, if you are judging the content on Channel 12.”
Clark said he expressed his concerns to the selectmen about the Cable Committee last February, when he recommended, among other things, that they replace the committee with a cable advisory board. He said that, after he submitted his report to the selectmen, the Cable Committee requested a different selectmen’s liaison. He noted that in the few reports selectmen have received from the committee since then, “little evidence has been produced as to progress.” He added, “The committee itself is the barrier to the community to achieving our goals and has failed to leverage subscriber funds to create content and improve programming. In fact the number of programs continues to decline.”
Selectman Peter Warren, the current BOS liaison, told the Press last month, “I think the Cable Committee has made significant progress this year.” He said he thinks programming “will improve shortly, as they now have their own space, and they are in the planning stage for creating a studio to do live programs.” When asked for specifics about planned programming, he said, “John Ball is working on getting more canned medical programming.” He went on to say, “I really can’t speak to the specifics, because what these people do is so technical it’s beyond my comprehension.”
Harvard is receiving approximately $22,000 annually from Charter. By not spending most of it, HCAC over the years has built up a surplus of approximately $100,000. According to HCAC member Ray Dunn, the committee has been reluctant to spend money, given the current economic climate, but is currently in the process of obtaining a new server that will allow around-the-clock broadcasting. He said he is optimistic that they will be doing “quality filming and editing” soon.
Natoli said in an e-mail to the Press in January that a part-time professional would soon be hired as community television coordinator.
Reflecting on the opening of this position, Clark commented, “I’m hoping that with the hiring of a part-time coordinator they will do more, however the job description sounds like the coordinator does everything they are doing, which is very little to date.”
However, without a video editing system in place and someone who knows how to operate it, and a studio space to develop programming, it is unlikely that the Cable Committee will be able to fulfill its stated mission of encouraging townspeople to develop programs for the public access station.
Williams said the committee is making progress on fitting out the studio in the old library. In keeping with the current mission statement, he reiterated that the need was for independent producers. “The coordinator will train town residents in how to produce their own shows,” he said, and expressed a belief that once independently produced material begins to emerge, it will catch on, and more people will come forward with ideas for shows they would like to produce.
Speaking with the Press last week, Turner said that Harvard has the right to go back to the bargaining table with Charter and renegotiate the contract. However, Town Administrator Tim Bragan told the Press that the town “could try, but it was unlikely before the contract is up (in 2015) to get a better deal because Charter is in bankruptcy.” Also unknown is if Charter will even exist as the carrier by that time, he said, so it’s best to wait and see what develops before getting into a possible infrastructure change.
According to Williams, however, even if Harvard was receiving the maximum 5 percent in cable subscriber fees, it still would not put the town’s cable program in the same league with Groton’s. “Groton is a bigger town,” he said, adding that one solution he has advocated is to partner with other towns, such as Devens, and create a larger studio space.
Meanwhile, Groton’s public access station and its interactive website stand as shining examples of what can be accomplished by community involvement, professional guidance, and adequate funding.