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from: MPN Now.com

Cable change: less control, less revenue?

By COLLEEN M. FARRELL
Messenger Post Staff
Posted: Apr 4, 01:00 PM EDT

A bill in the state Assembly could increase cable competition.

Before the Internet, there was public access.

Those channels, provided through cable companies, have been used by governments and communities to broadcast everything from town meetings to school events and parades.

"Before YouTube was here, it was the YouTube of the day," said David Renner of the popular video-sharing Web site. He's the town of Penfield's cable television coordinator and executive director of Penfield Community Television, or PCTV.

Now, he's worried possible state legislation could shake up how cable companies supply service.

"Residents could lose a voice, and that's the fear," he said.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a downstate Democrat, recently floated a bill that would, among other things, establish statewide cable franchises. Proponents say it would boost competition for cable service. Opponents fear it could also mean less control, and less money, at the local level.

Currently, Time Warner has franchise agreements with every town and village in Monroe County, including the city of Rochester. Each municipality receives a franchise fee, ranging anywhere from zero to a maximum of 5 percent.

The fee is charged on top of the rate for service charged to each customer. The company collects it, then passes it on to the municipality on an annual or semi-annual basis, said Brian Wirth, vice president of public affairs.

The amount of money collected in each municipality is based on that community's number of subscribers and franchise-fee agreement. Wirth declined to say how much the company collected in total franchise fees as well as for each individual community.

Franchise agreements spell out everything from negotiating times of service to providing access to public access channels, Renner said. Public access channels broadcast in their own communities, so what's shown in Greece typically isn't broadcast in Pittsford or Penfield.

The agreements vary between communities, and part of the negotiations between municipalities and Time Warner include addressing community needs, Renner said. For example, in Penfield, he'd like to see the school district and community center be directly hooked up to its public access channel so that events there can be transmitted live.

The agreements also let municipalities act as a point of contact for residents who can't remedy a problem with the cable company, he said.

"That's important because every community is different and every community has different community needs, and because of that we need to try to maintain a level of control at our community level to make sure that every citizen has a voice," Renner said.

Statewide franchising would eliminate local negotiations with companies supplying service, so that only state-level negotiations would happen, Renner said.

Locally, communities are voicing their concerns to the state. The Monroe County Supervisors' Association, made up of leaders from the 19 towns in the county, unanimously passed a resolution against the move, said Perinton Supervisor Jim Smith, the group's president.

The Greece Town Board passed a resolution at its March 20 meeting saying "franchising authority should remain with the localities," said Kathryn Firkins, the town's director of constituent services.

For 2006, the town was given a little over $1 million in franchise fees. That money goes directly into the town's budget as revenue, Firkins said.

The franchise agreements are non-exclusive, meaning that if another firm wanted to work with Greece, and the town was interested, it could break its agreement with Time Warner. The town is in its second or third year of a 15-year-agreement with Time Warner. No other firms have approached Greece, Firkins said.

There are some advantages to statewide franchising, Renner said. Smaller communities in New York that don't have the staff don't have public education and government facilities in place.

The bill also addresses allowing companies to build new networks quickly. Telephone companies, like Verizon, are hoping to get into the video industry, Renner said. Some have laid cabling throughout the state and want to negotiate with municipalities to get right of ways to broadcast, he said.

"So the opportunity here is to have fair and equal competition which we all hope to, and the hope of that would be to reduce rates or at least maintain rates," he said.

Wirth said Time Warner wants "any competitive landscape to be level and that our competitors are held to the same standards as we are."

The downside, Renner said, is that companies could "cherry pick" and build networks through the highest economic areas. In the county, that could mean Brighton, Rochester and Pittsford would be the target areas for new networks, "so fair competition is not so fair and equal."

He'd like to see a certain percentage of build-out, or expansion of networks, required throughout the state, not just in more affluent areas.

"But the bottom line is if we're going to accept a change in franchise renewal we have to make sure that local communities still have a voice, community needs are still being met and local municipalities are going to be receiving funding for their public education access ... and the community as a whole, if they have concerns or a problem with their local provider, (that) they have a local voice that they can go to to alleviate those problems," Renner said.

Colleen M. Farrell can be reached at (585) 381-3300, Ext. 464, or at cfarrell@mpnewspapers.com.