Nonprofit takes over local cable station
Cape Ann TV to be managed by four towns
Residents may not have noticed a difference on their screens, but a new era has dawned for the cable TV access station serving Essex, Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Rockport.
A regional nonprofit corporation formed by the four Cape Ann communities has taken over the operation of the Gloucester-based station.
"On the whole, it's a good thing," said Josh Brackett, who served as Rockport's representative to a regional panel that oversaw negotiations with Comcast and the agreement to form the corporation. "It's much better for Cape Ann to have control over its own local access station."
While Comcast is no longer running the station, it continues to support it: The company agreed to devote 2 percent of its local revenue to the operation of the local station. It also provided its studio equipment to the new corporation for a nominal fee and donated $250,000 to help with the purchase of new equipment. The corporation plans to generate other revenue through membership fees and fund-raising.
The transfer to local control occurred July 29. But Essex and Manchester did not formally join the corporation until after that date because they had not yet finalized their licensing agreements with Comcast. The first meeting of the corporation's board scheduled for Monday will include representatives from the four communities.
A number of other municipalities served by Comcast, including Newburyport, Peabody, and Salem, also have taken over their local access programming, and others, including Salisbury, are in the process.
"Comcast has a long history of fully supporting public access and is committed to continuing that tradition," company spokesman Marc Goodman said. "In some communities, the town and Comcast have decided the operation of the studio should be handled by a third party in order to best meet the needs of the community and its residents. But even in these cases, Comcast continues to fund access in the same manner as the towns in which Comcast may operate the studio."
Sinikka Nogelo, executive director of Cape Ann TV, said the transition has been relatively seamless on Cape Ann in part because the four communities have long shared a station with a common studio, at Blackburn Industrial Park in Gloucester. Even the staff is the same: All three full-time employees, including Nogelo, simply transferred from Comcast to the new corporation.
"Typically, when a community takes over cable access," Nogelo said, "they are in a position of starting from scratch. That's not us. We're already operating. So our challenge is to continue providing the level of service we've been doing all along."
Nogelo said that as a sign of the quality of its programming, the station, which runs local channels 12 and 67, has won awards from two industry groups. Still, she expects some positive changes with the switch to local control. One is already underway: Cape Ann TV is in the midst of a project to renovate its leased studio building. Part of the project also involves retrofitting an area that Comcast formerly used for customer service, which will result in a new lobby, a new conference room, and new editing suites.
Nogelo said that as a nonprofit, Cape Ann TV will be better able to partner with other community organizations, including to raise money.
And through the training it offers to its individual and organization members, Nogelo said, the corporation looks forward to expanding the ranks of volunteer producers, which in turn could add to the amount and diversity of programming.
"It's exciting to strive for more and more community involvement," she said.
The president of the corporation board, Stacy Randell of Gloucester, said she also looks forward to the prospect of greater community use of the station.
"I think part of our job will be helping people to recognize its value," she said of local access. A specific priority of hers is to get "young people more involved, earlier" in the station, said Randell, director of Wellspring Cape Ann Families, a family support and education center.
Gregg Bach, chairman of the Gloucester Cable Advisory Board and a member of the regional panel that negotiated with Comcast, said the four communities needed to create the corporation since Comcast made clear to them in negotiations that it did not want to continue operating the station. But Bach also sees potential benefits.
"The hope is that with the right people managing this nonprofit organization, we could have a stronger local access studio" and the funding that nonprofits can raise, said Bach, who is principal of Gloucester's East Elementary School.
Bach said keeping the four communities together in the new arrangement made sense geographically, noting that the studio in Gloucester is "reasonably central for the communities and provides pretty good access for volunteers."
He said Gloucester and the three towns also have "a history of working together."
Paul Jermain, Manchester's representative to the new board and host of a local access show on recreational boating, said it is too early for him to assess the changes local control might bring to the station. But he said he is happy to do his part to promote local access.
"TV can be a great medium for getting across certain messages," he said. "It's smart to see how we can put it to best use."
