With the holidays over, I’m “back in the saddle” as it were. Lots of news came in while I was out, so I pulled together some of the top stories, the biggest of which has to be the $4 million that was “wasted” by the DC Office of Cable Television. In a time when PEG stations are having to fight tooth and nail for every dollar to keep their organizations afloat, stories like this cast a black eye across the whole community. Case in point, Evanston, Il is looking to cutting it’s PEG budget in half due to a loss in franchise fees.

In brighter news, Barnegat, New Jersey is launching a new PEG channel, and Portsmouth, NH is looking to follow suit.

Report: D.C. wasted $4 million on TV studio

The D.C. agency that regulates cable television in the city “wasted over $4 million” on a high-definition television studio that was never built, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General.

The report, released late last week, says the D.C. Office of Cable Television violated procurement policies by issuing a sole-source contract to a start-up company “without adequate justification and reasonable assurance” that the contractor could do the work.

In addition to the cost of the contract, which was canceled before the project was completed, the cable TV office bought more than $3 million in new HDTV equipment that was never installed or used. [ link ]

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Barnegat contracts with Comcast

Barnegat Township television watchers potentially could be locked into their cable TV arrangement for the next quarter of a century after the Township Committee adopted an ordinance finalizing a contract with Comcast during its Dec. 21 meeting.

The agreement allows for a 15-year contract, with a 10-year renewal option. Comcast will give the township a $65,000 technology grant and two local access channels, which will be used by the municipal government and the Board of Education.

“The most important aspect is the government channel,” Breeden said. “We need to get that channel up and running as early as possible.” [ link ]

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Evanston Considers Cuts to Its Public TV Station

A threat by the City of Evanston to sharply cut its contribution to the local community-access television station is making the tiny Evanston Community Media Center the latest front in a fight over money collected as franchise fees.

Evanston, facing a $9.5 million budget deficit, is considering cutting its contribution to the station to $200,000 from about $400,000 that it paid last year. Municipalities collect franchise fees from cable companies and typically pass roughly half the money to the local public-access stations.[ link ]

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Public access station leadership sought

Given the wonderfully diverse and articulate population of the Seacoast, it is surprising that Portsmouth does not have a public access television channel.

Sensing the potential and responding to the expressed desire of residents, the City Council recently approved the establishment of a nonprofit organization to develop public access television. To be called Portsmouth Public Media Inc., this endeavor could be up and running as early as late this year. It will air programs on the Internet and television simultaneously, and programs will be archived on the Web site providing viewers access at their leisure. [ link ]