7/15/04 "Whose Programming Is This?", Metroland.

By Rick Marshall
rmarshall@metroland.net

Whose Programming Is This?
Cable contracts are up for renewal around the region, and one
community—Albany—still lags behind in providing public access

By most accounts, the process of negotiating a city’s TV cable contract usually has a David-and-Goliath feel, pitting local governments with little experience in such issues against powerful cable companies with an army of lawyers at their disposal. Along with
all of the standard financial haggling points, less- traditional benefits such as public-access broadcasting are now gaining importance among city residents. With so much on the bargaining table, many local governments are wondering how they can keep track of it all.

“You really want to know what you’re doing before you sit down at a table with a really large company,” explained Steve Pierce, independent-media advocate and instructor for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s department of science and technology. “If you go in there
not knowing as much as possible about the choices available to you, you’re at a competitive disadvantage.”

Pierce’s expertise regarding often-overlooked benefits that can be negotiated [“Access Deterred,” Newsfront, June 5, 2003] was recently tapped by the city of Saratoga Springs. Saratoga’s contract with Time Warner expired in January 2001, and city officials have been relying on a series of six-month contract extensions to preserve cable service during negotiations.

According to Pierce, such delays in the renewal process are standard fare, with the most lucrative contracts often going to the cities that carry out protracted negotiations. Cities that breeze through the haggling, Pierce added, tend to end up with contracts that provide
very little benefit to the city and neglect to take advantage of other services the cable company could provide.

“As long as the municipalities are working on [negotiating the cable contract], it’s a good thing,” said Pierce. “There’s really a lot at stake.”

While most municipalities already take full advantage of a state law allowing up to 5 percent of a cable company’s earnings to be directed to city coffers in return for having access to a municipality’s rights of way, Pierce and other media advocates have been pushing cities to
increase providers’ support for local public-access broadcasting. Although cable companies are required to set aside channels for local programming, there is no requirement that any money be put toward public-access facilities or education in how to use them.

“People don’t use the channels because they don’t have the equipment or the training,” said Pierce. “So when negotiations come around every

10 years, cable companies just say, ‘Look, nobody’s using this.’ If you make [public access] easy to use and people know that it’s there, then people use it.”

In Schenectady, where public-access programming has been available since 1974 on local cable channel 16, city officials are exploring a unique approach to renewing the city’s cable contract, which expires in April 2005. While the contracts are typically arranged on a
city-by-city basis, Schenectady lawmakers are looking to forge a countywide agreement. According to Catherine Lewis, chairwoman of the Schenectady City Council’s Public Service and Utilities Committee, the ideal arrangement would allow Schenectady to share a basic contract with the neighboring municipalities of Niskayuna, Glenville, Scotia
and Rotterdam. The network could then link the local government and services of each region, with contract addendums addressing any community-specific needs.

“We already have the public access—now we would like to improve it,” said Lewis. “We’ve been trying to gather the municipalities for more than a year and a half, because I think we’d be better off acting as a team on this.”

Lewis acknowledged that such an approach is likely to encounter obstacles, as efforts to open up government to local scrutiny are not always well-received by community lawmakers.

With nearly 10 years separating a cable contract’s renewal and expiration, local officials are often ill-prepared to deal with experienced national cable providers. “I don’t negotiate cable contracts every day,” said Lewis, “but Time Warner does.”

To level the playing field, many cities have enlisted outside agencies or consultants specializing in cable- contract negotiation assistance. “Using a consultant is probably the way to go, because technology changes so frequently,” reasoned Lewis. “You need to have
people that are well-versed in the terminology.”

Pierce, who was brought in to provide advice for Schenectady, Albany and other cities before undertaking the study for Saratoga Springs, is not the only consultant being tapped by local municipalities. In Troy, where the city’s cable contract expired several years ago, the California-based Buske Group was brought on in January 2002, and
expects to present a finished proposal this fall. A nonprofit agency has already been created to manage the city’s public-access operation. “It’s a very complicated process if done properly,” said Sue Buske, president of the Buske Group.

Yet for some cities, the looming expiration date has been met with a less certain course of action. After drawing fire for his decision to exclude local public-access advocates from the group assigned to negotiate with Time Warner [“Wanted: People Who Don’t Care,”
Newsfront, July 31, 2003], Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings’ cable committee has met only twice since forming in August 2003. Albany’s contract expires in October.

While they have yet to determine what form the negotiations will take—whether depending on corporation counsel, consultants or a mixture of both—committee members have acknowledged that enhancing public-access potential will be one of the issues on the table.

“The current cable contract is not as good as it should be,” said committee member Councilman David Torncello (Ward 8).

Corporation counsel Gary Stiglmeier, a member of both the current committee and the one that negotiated the last contract, agreed that public access would be desirable, but seemed skeptical: “How are these things going to be paid for?”

Committee members remain uncertain as to what changes—if any—will be sought in the next contract. “It’s a very different scene this time around,” said Torncello. “Right now, though, we’re just on a fact-finding mission.”

The city of Albany’s committee will meet again July 22 at City Hall.

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