April 6 ,2007
Keep the local community on your TV.
Right now Branford citizens are being offered television deals that seem too good
to be true, deals for three months free and then hundreds of television channels
for very little money. But it is too good to be true.
Although Direct Satellite says they are offering local television, they are not
offering our public access channels, Branford's television channels. If you sign
up for satellite television you will not be getting the town meetings, the local
church services, the Pete Lombard show, the Ken Gregory Sports Show, the high
school football games, or any other programming you can watch now on channels 18, 29 & 20 if you have Comcast Cable. I'm not trying to promote Comcast, but I am promoting our public access channels, and particularly Branford public access channels.
Welcome to BCTV's website. As president of the board of BCTV I will be writing
about public access, and ways Branford citizens can use the media. Cable
television has been the only way that Branford citizens could use video;
satellite television could offer the access channels, but they don't.
Satellite television, or direct broadcast satellite (DBS) as the home satellite
service is referred to, is required to allocate at least 4% of all of the
channels it offers to noncommercial programming. The Federal Communications
Commission calls this their public interest set-aside obligation, and they have
determined that this requirement is there to provide program diversity, not to
provide local programming. The FCC has decided that the local commercial
broadcasters are there to provide the localism.
And the FCC is letting the DBS providers determine what channels they will carry
to meet their public interest obligation. So the 4% of channel space on Direct
Satellite is allocated to programming such as World Link, C-Span, FSTV and
Eternal Word Network. Many of these channels have valuable programming but not programming about us as Branford residents. If you wish to keep your community on your television sets, don't sign on to satellite.
Click on this important link to learn more about the implementation of the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999:
You can also contact BCTV President via email at the following address: