Letter: Amherst Residents Risk Losing Access To Amherst Media And Government Productions
Current Amherst Media Building at 246 College Street. Photo: Art Keene
Over 6,500 Amherst households currently subscribe to Comcast cable. They are at high risk to lose their ability to watch Amherst Media-produced local public, education, and government (PEG) programming, as well as such popular shows as Democracy Now. Government transparency and emergency broadcasts as well as crucial information sharing are also at risk of being disconnected by the Town of Amherst.
Acquired during the 2016 Comcast negotiations, the Town of Amherst is currently stringing municipal broadband, connecting the Institutional Network, commonly referred to as the I-NET. All 19 municipal buildings, schools, police and fire, DPW, Jones Library and Amherst Media are connected by I-Net. For most of the sites the fiber optic line has been and will continue to be the backbone for Internet Protocol Telephony (IP phones) and data. For Amherst Media it is the lifeline from our facility to all of the cable subscribers in Town.
In my capacity as Executive Director of Amherst Media, I have been in contact with the Town Manager, Paul Bockelman, since July 14, 2020 about the inevitable switch over to Town control. I was looking for reassurance that our cable signal wouldn’t be disrupted or discontinued. We needed to ensure a drop was to be located at our new facility site on Main and Gray Streets, while also continuing our signal from our current 246 College Street address until our official move into our new facility.
I have cited from the Town’s contract with Comcast, which requires the Town to be responsible for providing PEG access. Bockelman responded in July that he would “review this with Sean Hannon, (Amherst’s IT Director), and our attorney in the coming days.” I have never heard back from the Town Manager, even after two more attempts in September to engage a conversation on these matters. As of today (3/26) that represents over 250 days with no follow-up response, exacerbating the multiple threats of loss PEG programming to Amherst Residents.
Amherst Media’s contract is signed by the Town Manager. He is the sole person we have to go to with our questions and concerns. He disbanded the Cable Advisory Committee prior to the conclusion of the Comcast contract. The Town Council is the only elected body we can ask for assistance and intervention in acquiring the answers that the residents and Amherst Media deserve.
The viability of continuing our PEG Access service demands an explanation and response from the Town Manager in a professional and timely manner for the sake of all Amherst Residents and in respect of their rights. I have requested via email on March 19, 2021, that the Town Council call a special meeting or to refer this matter to an appropriate, and proactive committee.
Amherst Media deserves an opportunity to be heard, and the paying Amherst Cable customers, their constituents who pay for these services, deserve continued cable access. The Council’s constituents are at risk of losing the PEG programs that many rely on. Due to an existing digital divide, not everyone has the capacity to watch the Town’s governmental and educational deliberations, and public events on a non-cable internet-connected device but rather depend on cable programming. The time honored transparency of local government deliberations, produced by an independent media center is very much at risk. Please contact your Town Council representative and demand that they intervene in this pressing matter.
Jim Lescault
Jim Lescault, Executive Director of Amherst Media
Thank you for this letter, Jim. For the record, a few additional comments. I served on the 2016 Cable Advisory Committee and served as one of the two principal negotiators for a highly successful contract that Comcast deemed among its highest ‘awarded’ to a town. With a final meeting scheduled with the Comcast lawyers, we were notified that we’d be replaced with two Select Board members. That September, CABs five-member committee presented its report in the presence of town officials, requesting that the current committee be dissolved, and urged the formation of a new CAB to avoid the 10 year lapse and lack of oversight the occurred during our service and what we had hoped that future members and the town could avoid. Perhaps what you describe here could have been facilitated had the town chosen to appoint a new CAB. I hope readers will contact their Councilors and help move the issue to resolution in support of Amherst Media and our cable subscribers.