To bring up an old/new subject…
I see in the news paper that the City of York is negotiating with Suscom to provide Public Access Television.
Yes, this is true. I attended the meeting last evening which was open to the public to discuss the proposed cable franchise agreement. The meeting was aired live on YCAT which has yet to be dissolved. The papers haven’t been filed yet.
The meeting about a public access station I encouraged people was to save YCAT, Inc. a/k/a York Community Access Television, Inc. The outcome of the vote would have been different if YCAT’s secretary had carried out their duties and sent every member a renewal membership notice in the summer.
The public access station being discussed last evening has no name. The FCC mandates that anywhere cable service is provided a public access station must be available.
The problem with the proposed public access station is many members of YCAT, Inc. including myself who has been a lifetime member for over 10 years are of the belief that York City government is going to control the content of the public access station. There will probably be censorship of content which occurred while the current YCAT Board of Directors controlled the station. I don’t care what York City Mayor Brenner says to the media, I know differently from witnessing first hand what occurred at YCAT.
Am I missing the logic hear.. We close one public access TV project only to start another one in less than 6 months…
The public access channel is still there, it’s just that YCAT doesn’t exist.
I have a copy of the proposed cable franchise agreement. There are a lot of sections in the agreement that need to be addressed.
There is to be a public hearing on the agreement followed by a city council meeting in which council will vote whether or not to accept a 15 year agreement!
City council person Cameron Texter presented the agreement at the meeting last evening. I mentioned that in my opinion he has a conflict of interest in that he represented YCAT and York City.
Program Producers have been barred from the premises and several producers key cards do not work in the studio lock. Censorship is still occurring. We have a free live feed via satellite from Harrisburg for a program “Democracy Now.” The interim president and other BOD members won’t use that free service. Instead they are previewing the program before airing it by taping the program and then airing it only once at midnight when most viewers are sleeping.
Two weeks ago a producer who has had a live call in program every Friday for the past 10 years was kicked out of the studio by the interim president because the producer’s program was about the demise of YCAT and how it was handled. The interim president was at home watching the program and then drove to the studio after the program was over and raised cane with the producer and told him to get out. The following Friday the producer called the manager of SusCom and was told the interim president said that the interim president told him that he felt threatened him and that he is not welcome on the premises. The producer sent his cohost to run the program last Friday and the cohost was unable to access the studio because his key card would not work.
It is interesting that city council person Cameron Texter who is not a member of the BOD and hasn’t been for at least the last 3 to 4 years has access to the studio and editing suite for his political program every week. His key card works fine.
Another $100,000 year City Project with 90% coming from the tax payers.. Gee. Why not use the money on something the city tax payers could use.
The city is supposed to receive $135,000/year according to the agreement.
I wonder too what the percentage of city tax payers actually have cable TV. 100% pay, 70% benefit, 2% actually watch the service (Note 2% is my best guess)
When YCAT was up and running without censorship YCAT aired 24/7 and had a couple of thousand viewers in the city. This is not including the municipalities that were connected with YCAT.
On election nights YCAT was the station watched by the majority of city residents as well as where YCAT was available for viewing than WGAL. YCAT had instant results. YCAT even dropped a straight feed line right into 1 West Marketway for election results.
YCAT used to air live candidate debates. I organized the first candidate debate in the county and the majority of the other candidate forums. Viewers were asked to call in their questions. The majority of city residents watched these candidate debates and forums faithfully. YCAT would air them at least 3 to 4 times after the show aired live.
It is my understanding that all city taxpayers have access to cable television and pay the Suscom’s outrageous rates.
Jerry Turner who has announced that he is running for city mayor questioned the costs of the new agreement and the cost to the viewers, etc. Jerry also mentioned that it was announced the other day that the city is entering into pre Act 47. Act 47 being bankruptcy.
There is a lot more to the public access issue than the media is reporting.
