People often think Community Access Television is by law "non-commercial television." Actually, there is no federal law stating this. Instead, the cable companies make "no commercials" a condition in their cable franchise agreements with local governments, which ensures that the community's access television will not be competing with them for advertising dollars. As a result, community access television often relies on underwriting announcements to help support operations. MCCET is just beginning an underwriting program. We are following the basic underwriting guidelines adopted by most Public Broadcasting stations. The guidelines say that

For instance, an underwriting announcement cannot say "Vote for Joe Blow," but it can say "Joe Blow urges you to vote on election day" or "This program is being brought to you by The Joe Blow Campaign for Accountable Government." The underwriting cannot say buy this widget at 50% off, it can say brought to you by Togets, selling fine widgets on the coast.

Underwriting typically portrays a company name and logo and often a picture of a place of business or product as well. Underwriting announcements tend to last 10-15 seconds and run at the beginning and end of programs. But there are lots of variations: Longer underwriting spots can be used to promote special events, such as the Music Festival, Winesong, and circus. Underwriting also can be linked with specific programs or be scheduled to appear during breaks in cablecasting.

MCCET staff, in collaboration with independent video producers, can prepare underwriting announcement for businesses and organizations. The cost of preparing the announcement can be as low as $25 for a 15-second slide or for listing names with others before and after a program. Announcements using images or video will range from $50 to $250 depending on their complexity and length.

The focus here has been underwriting that will help support MCCET's operations. There is also underwriting that supports specific programs, helping to cover the cost of their production. For example, Century 21 Fort Bragg, Inc., currently pays the production costs for one Fort Bragg Plannning Commission meeting a month, and their underwriting credit is almost ready to be shown. Our new space, and soon our new equipment, will attract people who want to produce new programs, which in turn will generate opportunities for program underwriting.

Call Elizabeth at 961-0422 for more information.

Jane has been taping events and making programs for MCCET at a steady clip for over 10 years. Jane began taking a Regional Occupational Program (ROP) video class around 1990 because she wanted to do something after retiring from 37 years of teaching science in the Bay Area. She always had an interest in light, so photography and video seemed like a natural extension of that interest. Jane learned enough in the ROP class to be hired by Channel 8 and worked with Ed Kowas on the news for a couple of years. Her title was ENG, Electronic News Gatherer, and her job involved taping news and then editing tapes she had created, as well as other tapes, for news programs on that station.

At the same time, Jane began taping community events. In 1992 she met another MCCET volunteer, Rita Lorenz, while they were both videotaping the same event. For several years, they both taped every public and private function they could possibly fit into their schedules, including meetings, dedications, rodeos, craft and art shows—making a video record of life on the coast. Jane figures that since 1992 she has probably taped over 300 community events, most of them without pay. Since January of this year alone, she has worked on at least 22 projects and spent over 200 hours shooting and editing.

She has master tapes of everything she has made, and people often contact her to get copies of the tapes that include them or their families.

Last year Jane began work on the MCCET Memories Series, reviewing and editing tapes into one-hour programs of different events for each year, beginning with 1983. This work takes hours and hours and she is now up to 1995. MCCET is showing these tapes twice a week at various times, so check the schedule.

It is hard to imagine, but Jane, who is 78 years old, finds the time and energy to be involved in other interests as well. She repairs books for the Fort Bragg Library and the Fort Bragg School District; she produces her church bulletin and serves on the board of the Westport-Ten Mile Cemetery District; she is active in Delta Kappa Gamma, a world-wide society of women educators formed to help other women educators; and she is a participating member of the Gem and Mineral Society.

Making local television shows benefits both the people making the programs and the community. This community access television center would like to see lots more people producing local programming. With MCCET's move downtown and a supportive cable franchise agreeement, MCCET can become a center that facilitates people working together; volunteers learning from staff and other volunteers; people helping each other to produce television programs. To that end, MCCET recentily purchased a used MacIntosh computer and software to enable people to do non linear editing. Once we are in our new facility we will begin to offer training in computer editing as well as other televison production skills.

If you think you'd like to learn to make TV, come by or give us a call at 961-1127.

The cable franchise agreement with Adelphia may be settled by the end of this year. If so, MCCET will begin receiving money within the first quarter of 2004 and be able to purchase equipment and support operations. In the meantime, however, we must still jump over several hurdles.

On August 25th, the Fort Bragg City Council took two actions that set the stage negotiations with Adelphia. The council considered the new city ordinance governing cable franchises, which will come before the council again on September 22nd and, if approved, clear the way to begin negotiations. It also reviewed and approved, with modifications, the franchise needs assessment.

The council also approved a revised list of facilities to be wired for live origination on the coast. The current list includes 16 buildings.

We learned from Steve Lamb at the August 25th City Council meeting that Adelphia has hired a marketing research firm to conduct phone surveys throughout the county starting September 8th. The purpose of the survey is to ascertain if subscribers are willing to pay for PEG Access and rebuilding of the cable system. Lamb claims that the support for PEG Access that is requested in the proposed franchise agreement would mean a $6.50 increase to each cable bill. This figure is much higher than the one MCCET has been using—between $1.25 and $1.50 per subscriber—and Lamb was not able to explain how the figures he gave were calculated by Adelphia headquarters in Colorado.

Throughout the country, cable companies are currently challenging communities' right to have PEG channels and cable company financial support for those channels. This is a classic "big money against little cities" story. The August 22nd "NOW with Bill Moyers" PBS television show reported on this trend in California. Copies of the 15-minute tape are available through MCCET.

Earlier this year, city staff and MCCET sat down to figure out what is needed in order to have a good sound system in Town Hall. Our conclusions were as follows:

The obvious need is speakers for sound amplification, but there also have been other sources of the Town Hall problems. Many of the microphones are not working properly, and the sound equipment that MCCET has been using to adjust volume is not meant to function in such a situation.

We also need to have a system that is easy to set up and put away. Town Hall is used for all kinds of events and needs to be frequently rearranged, so installing a permanent sound system cannot work.

Following the meeting, MCCET consulted with sound engineers and equipment vendors in order to develop a plan and budget for a new sound system. MCCET submitted the proposal to the City, and the city council voted to include the purchase of the equipment in this year’s budget.

So we will soon be able to hear what’s going on at city meetings. First, however, it’s necessary to build a storage room at the rear of Town Hall and install speaker wires. Once the equipment has been purchased, a sound expert will come to set up it and train MCCET and city staff on its use.

We estimate that the new system will be up and running by late September or early October.