In a venture that town officials hope will increase the flow of information and encourage community involvement in town, Salisbury will be taking over its cable TV access programming.
As part of the license renewal the town granted
The town is creating a nonprofit corporation, the Salisbury Community Television and Media Center, to run its two access channels. Salisbury now shares the channels with Amesbury, Merrimac, and South Hampton, N.H., but starting Jan. 1, within Salisbury they will be dedicated to Salisbury programs.
"I think it's a great thing for our community," said Selectman Donald W. Beaulieu, who is playing a key role in readying the town for the change. He said it would expand opportunities for programming, which could lead to a more "informed electorate" and more "open communication."
"It builds pride; it builds enthusiasm for your community. It shows the positive things," he said of local cablecasts of town events.
Salisbury will join several other local communities that have taken over operation of their access stations through license renewals with Comcast. Others include Newburyport, which formed a nonprofit earlier this year to operate its access channels, and Essex, Gloucester, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Rockport, which recently formed a regional nonprofit to serve all four towns.
As is the case with those communities, Comcast will continue to provide funding for Salisbury' access channels. Four percent of the company's annual cable revenues from Salisbury will go toward operation of the channels. Comcast also provided a one-time payment of $75,000 and a $50,000 advance on its yearly payments, to help the town fund the capital expenses involved in taking over the programming.
With the Jan. 1 takeover date looming, the town is getting ready, helped by a consultant, Rika Welsh of Cambridge.
A "convenor" board appointed by the Board of Selectmen is filing legal papers to establish the new nonprofit corporation. It is also developing recommendations for selectmen on candidates to appoint to the board of the new corporation, one of whose duties will be to hire an executive director.
Drawing from the $125,000 in up-front money from Comcast, and $65,000 in bank donations, Salisbury bought the equipment needed to cablecast public meetings from a space within the newly renovated second floor of Town Hall that has been set aside for that purpose. Some funds were also used to furnish the space.
Plans call for the center's studio to be located in a town-owned former schoolhouse on Park Street right off Salisbury Square. But that building must be renovated first. Beaulieu said that project, which could take as long as a year, would be paid for with some of the money remaining from the equipping of the Town Hall meeting room and with funds the center will need to raise.
In the meantime, the town will use the cable-casting area in Town Hall as a makeshift studio. Beaulieu said plans also call for the new center to purchase mobile video equipment that could be used to videotape events outside Town Hall. That equipment could later be used in the studio when renovations are complete.
Until now, Salisbury has been served by Comcast's studio in Amesbury. The company has also maintained equipment at the Hilton Senior Center for cablecasting public meetings. Comcast is donating that equipment to the town, but Beaulieu said it is relatively old and as a result may be of only limited use.
Another startup task for the center will be to recruit volunteers to produce shows. Under an arrangement with Comcast, a small number of residents, including Beaulieu, gained experience the last few years voluntarily cablecasting public meetings that were aired in addition to those produced by Comcast's own crews.
But Beaulieu said many more volunteers are needed if the center is to provide enough programming for two channels, and potentially a third channel that could be added at a later date if there is need.
He has already begun the recruitment effort, which will eventually be assumed by the future executive director.
Welsh, a board member of Cambridge Community Television Corp., and a founder and former executive director of Malden Access Television, is impressed by the effort Salisbury is investing in its new access initiative.
"I think it can be a wonderful little jewel of a media center," she said. "They have very limited resources - the town only has about 3,000 cable subscribers. But the excitement about it in town and the willingness of people I've been working with to roll up their sleeves and say, 'How are we going to get this done?' is impressive," she said.
Welsh said she envisioned that in addition to operating the two channels, Salisbury's access center would establish a website through which it could stream" some of its cable programming, providing another option for residents to view it.
"Once we get our act together, it's going to be a definite plus," said Selectman Fred Knowles, a member of the convenor board.
He said one auspicious sign for the new center is the diverse array of candidates who have applied to serve on the nonprofit's board.
"It just covers a wide group of people from throughout the town - from the schools, seniors, business people. I think it's going to be a great, involved group," he said. "They heard about it and put their names forward. That's exciting."
