Public Access TV Petitions L.M. Board of Commissioners; Committee to Meet Thursday

Lower Merion Township’s Cable Television Advisory Committee (CTAC) meets this evening at 5:30 p.m., and on the agenda is a report from Verizon, a brief on PEG (“Public, Education, and Government”) Grant Funding, and a look at something called the CAP Act (HR 1746).

Normally, CTAC runs very much below the radar compared to other township committees and departments, but currently it is somewhat at odds with the Lower Merion and Narberth Public Access Board of Directors.

The CAP Act legislation, if adopted, “would restore PEG funding eliminated by some state laws, allow PEG funding to be used for operating expenses, prevent operators from discriminating against PEG channels, and make it clear that any entity that provides video services via facilities in the rights of way is subject to the Cable Act’s franchising requirements,” according to the Alliance for Community Media web site.

“I can’t imagine anyone, including the Commissioners, being against this Bill except the cable operators, of course, because this Bill would remove the cable companies’ ability to take advantage of municipalities lacking strong negotiating positions,” said Irene McNeil, a full-time volunteer and the founder and CEO of Lower Merion & Narberth Public Access Television. “It’s a no-brainer because it doesn’t impede municipal authority but rather ensures that each municipality will pay less for lawyers to negotiate the PEG Grant.”

To that end, the board has submitted a petition and letter (which can be viewed and/or signed at this link) to the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners, detailing their concerns.

Lower Merion and Narberth Public Access Television can be viewed Comcast XFinity channel 99 and Verizon FIOS channel 34.

There’s another bit of tension, too, that’s related to the funding. Part of the CTAC recommendation, the board says, is to force Public Access TV to produce the majority of programs in a studio, as opposed to “letting the people choose how and where they want to produce their programs for the purpose of showing off where they live, learn, work, and play.”

For more details on the issues, tune into the above channels in the coming days. Like all township public meetings, Thursday evening’s CTAC committee meeting will be taped and rebroadcast there.

Or go to LowerMerionandNarberth.Tv for links to the petition and more information on all the issues.

“There may be some who think that Public Access has an agenda, and, of course
it has,” said McNeil. “Our Public Access wants to improve the lot of the PEG channels, not only our Public Access (on Comcast 99 and Verizon 34) but also the lot of the Education Access (School District channel on Comcast 6 and Verizon 36) and the Government Access (Township channel on Comcast 7 and Verizon 37).”