Chairman Curry brought the meeting to order at 3:00 P.M.
SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION
The first agenda item was the approval of minutes for the Cable Board’s August 16, 1999 meeting. Motion was made by Mr. Hiltunen and seconded by Ms. Gretchen Gutman, to approve the minutes of the Board’s August 16th, 1999 meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
The next item on the agenda was the Cable Agency Report. Mr. Maultra presented the Cable Agency report which highlighted the events that have taken place at the Cable Agency last month. Mr. Maultra stated the Department of Parks and Recreation has asked the Cable Communication Agency to work with both Comcast and Time Warner to secure public service drops at a number of Parks facilities. Public service drops for cable service is a provision under both cable operator franchise agreements. There are sixteen sites that Parks is hopeful on getting cable service to. Time Warner has advised the Agency that four of the sixteen are eligible for free drops and cable service. Six other sites that are in Time Warner’s franchise territory would require plant extension to complete the service at a cost to Parks and Recreation according to the operator. The other six sites for service being contemplated by Parks are within Comcast’s franchise territory and we have forwarded that request to their Director of Technical Operations.
The Cable Agency continues its dialogue with Comcast to resolve possible non-compliance issues with the current franchise agreement. The Cable Agency assisted Corporation Counsel in reviewing the grant agreement draft between the City of Indianapolis and Central Indiana Radio Reading, a division of metropolitan Indianapolis Public Broadcasting, Inc.,. The grant assists radio reading programs for the blind and print disabled and is administered by our agency.
The Cable Agency and its counsel attended the 1999 conference of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisors, also known as NATOA. Mr. Maultra personally attended a number of NATOA business functions as he serves on its Board of Directors.
The Cable Agency and TV 16 attended the meeting of the Finance and Administrative Committee of the City-County Council to answer questions regarding their submitted budget for the year 2000. Cable Board Chairman Carlton Curry was also on hand to answer questions of the Committee who unanimously passed the proposed budget after being modified to remove the $75,000 set aside for Public Access of Indianapolis (PAI).
The Cable Agency took a number of cable complaints over the past month and worked with Comcast and Time Warner in an effort to resolve those matters.
The next item on the agenda was the Channel 16 Programming Report presented by Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery highlighted some of the activities of Channel 16 for the month of August. In August there were 52 hours and 23 minutes of Live Meeting coverage. Tape Delay meetings totaled 6 hours and 54 minutes. Special Events Production totaled 15 hours and 41 minutes. In the area of In-Kind Production, Channel 16 had 16 hours and 25 minutes. Series Programs totaled 3 hours. Total new production for the month of August was 744 hours.
Mr. Montgomery stated in reference to additional notes that room 107 Cameras and Audio have been installed and are now in service. First meeting to be covered live was the Capital Asset Management Committee budget hearing.
The next item on the agenda was the Cable Operator’s Report. Mr. Aldridge stated Time Warner lost 644 customers in its full cable service. Installations: Time Warner had scheduled 3,990 and completed 3,088. Incoming calls for the month were 41,711 with 95.9% answered in 30 seconds.
Busy rate 0.9%. Service calls for the month were 3,723 received and 2,238 completed. Time Warner had 55 outages including 4 planned outages. There was no construction for the month of August.
The Community Involvement report supports a lot of different community events and programming (see report).
The next item on the Agenda was the Comcast’s Management Report. Mr. Apple stated Comcast saw a decline in its full cable subscribers for August ending with 111,227 full basic customers. Mr. Apple also stated that Comcast meet the FCC standards for service level in August, answering 90.35% of calls in 30 seconds or less, busy rate 0.60%. Comcast had 99 outages and 6 unplanned outages. Comcast received and scheduled 4,788 calls and completed 5,129 ; 58.7% were completed after 36 hours by customer request. Comcast scheduled 3,736 installations and 3,734 were completed.
Mr. Apple stated that Comcast had 79.5 hours of leased access programming, which is also known as the Comcast channel. WAV 53 had 144 hours of locally produced programming. Comcast aired and produced 13 public service announcements and 11 newsmaker segments. For Comcast events and sponsorships; see report.
The next item on the agenda was the ETC Report. Mr. Harris stated the next ETC Planning Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 12th . The goal of the committee is to create a structure and plan for future of the ETC. The next ETC Planning Committee Meeting will take place on October 12, 1999. Mr. Harris stated Georgia Miller from Collaboration 2000 was present at the last ETC Meeting. She was present to request information about the ETC. This was in preparation for an October 27th meeting to discuss the relationship between C-2000 and ETC.
Under New Programming, at the last ETC meeting, Butler University presented two proposals for student produced programming. The first was for the new season of "Think Big", which has previously been seen on ETC. It is a fifth grade Quiz show with teams from Indianapolis area elementary schools. The second proposal was for the show ‘Butler Report" (a.k.a. "Butler News"). It is a weekly half-hour newscast produced by Butler University students.
Mr. Curry stated under old business, that an item that has been covered is that the Budget that the Board passed and recommended to be presented to the Council was adopted in the Committee with a reduction of $75,000 . The full Council did pass the budget and Mr. Curry stated that he does not anticipate any further action by the Council for the budget .
Ms. Piety stated that in reference to Time Warner Audit Issue the Board had authorized Chairman Curry to negotiate with Time Warner concerning the remaining issues from the audit that the Board asked Mr. Lou Karrison, of Crowe Chizek to conduct for the 1997 revenues and receipt transactions for Time Warner and Comcast. Ms. Piety stated the remaining outstanding issue is in reference to Time Warner and involves amounts not included in gross revenues for the purpose of paying franchise fees to the City.
Mr. Curry stated after speaking with Mr. Satterfield that the terms are fair and recommends the Board adopts them. Motion was made by Mr. Hiltunen and seconded by Mr. Rhodes, to adopt the settlement agreement as written. Motion carried unanimously.
The next item on the agenda was the review of Comcast rate filing. Ms. Piety stated that at the last meeting that Mr. Maultra submitted a report concerning forms 1240 and 1205 in reference to rate increases made by Comcast.
Mr. Curry stated that Mr. Leonard had concerns in reference to the review of these rates, however the Board does not remember his exact concerns and decided to defer any actions until Mr. Leonard’s can be consulted at the next Board meeting.
The next agenda item was the PAI discussion (statements from the August meeting). Mr. Curry stated that, in respect to the question about the new channel there are two channels, one educational and one government. The new channel was shared by educational and governmental because neither public safety nor educational did had enough for a full channel. Both had a need to exceed each channel they had. The third channel was used as a shared basis and the fourth channel would be used. Mr. Curry stated that the Board did not have a legal opinion of use of the channel. He also stated that the Franchise contracts with Time Warner and Comcast are clear the channels are for Governmental and Educational use.
Under Public Comment, Mr. Earles stated that in the McCANA newsletter says Ken Montgomery is in charge of public access programming. Mr. Earles asked for clarification of usage for Channel 16 and EPS also asked what are the guidelines to be on Channel 16.
Ms. Price stated there needs to be distinctions made in some of the Board’s review. She would like to see some distinct clarifications on what the differences are between Channel 16 and PAI business plan. Ms. Price also asked for the review of legal opinions on using a portion of the channel for community access. Ms. Price also stated she doesn’t feel that the franchise agreements are clear at all as to what it provides.
Mr. Smashey stated his frustration of the MCCANA newsletter. He asked whether Speedway and Beach Grove are separate LFA’s ?
Mr. Apple stated that there are a separate franchise agreements for Beech Grove and Speedway.
They do have their own Government channel.
With respect to clarifications of the MCCANA newsletter, Mr. Curry suggested that those questions should be addressed to MCCANA. Mr. Curry also stated guidelines for Channel 16 are a part of the public documentation. Mr. Curry stated in the course of negotiation of the two franchise agreements, that the City of Indianapolis wanted to make sure that a minimum of hours of local origination programming was provided. Mr. Curry also stated that if Mr. Montgomery has misspoken in his comments to MCCANNA newsletter, he might want to correct them.
Mr. Curry stated that this is the status of the Board regarding PAI, and the monetary issues have been settled through the public budget process.
Ms. Price asked the difference between what Channel 16 is doing and PAI business plan and what they want to do. Ms. Price also asked if PAI could have time on Channel 16.
Mr. Curry stated that Channel 16 is a government entity.
There being no further business to come before the Board, Mr. Curry adjourned the meeting at 4:40 p.m.
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Mr. Carlton Curry, Chairman
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Ms. Gretchen Gutman, Member
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Mr. David Leonard, Member
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Mr. Charlie Hiltunen, Member
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Mr. Stuart Rhodes, Member
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Ms. Janise Winston, Recording Secretary
