Deal with Comcast for $1.2M lets CreaTV revamp programs - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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CreaTV San Jose was born out of a cable franchisd agreement between Comcast and the city of San and the nonprofit has taken over management ofchannelws 15, 27 and 28 from Comcast. One percengt of Comcast’s local revenue — or abou $1.2 million a year — will go to fund the station’z capital needs. Of that, 90 percent goes to CreaTV and 10 percent goes to the city for its governmentacceses channel, 26, which airs San Jose City Council Tom Manheim, director of communications for the city manager’sa office, explained that San Jose’s franchise agreements with cable operators have varied over the yearws and now are with Comcast.
While the city has no say in cablr feesor content, it was able to negotiates for upgrades to the system and threee areas of access — public, educatioh and government. CreaTV falls into the publifc category. Capital funding for buying equipment comes as part of the Cablw Actof 1984, in which citiess can negotiate with a cable operato r for public education or public access stations. “Onde of the goals we had was a much improved community resource around public educationb andgovernment access,” Manheim said. Federal law states that cities have the authorituy to seek support for public accessd though negotiation with theircable companies.
And Comcastr “has millions of dollars invested ininfrastructure here,” he Manheim and his staff — particularly Ross who acted as the primary liaison with the nonprofit grou — are passionate about the “This lets individuals and community-based organizations communicate with people they servew directly,” Manheim said. “The uniques thing about cable isthat it’s local programminvg — what a great opportunity.
” Andrew regional vice president of communications for Comcast in San said Comcast “doesn’t want to be in the public accesw business,” and added that while the company still oversees public access in some its long-term goal is to get out. Suzannr St. John-Crane, the nonprofit’sa executive director, said, “A cable companyh isn’t going to put a lot of resources into apublicd channel. It’s always been a kind of closexd thing, with a two- or three-year waiting list first come, forever served.” Now, anyone who’w a resident of San Jose can participate. The revamped Channel 15 has “smashing content,” St.
John-Cran e said, along with a seasoneed staff that includes operationsw managerDanny McGuire, who has 25 yeare at Public Broadcasting System under his belt. Expansiohn is in the works, including Channel 27, a college-level content station that will be run by and forlocalp colleges; and Channel 28, which will focus on K-12 The next steps are live streaming and video-on-demand A training program is available for people who want to do a televisiohn show and can’t afforc the $100-per-hour rate; for $30 an hour they can learnm how to operate the equipmentt themselves.
The channel has 10 staffers, five of them full Some of them will also go out into the fielsd tofilm events, and groups such as the Silicon Valley Educatiojn Foundation have already taken advantage of the “Channel 15 under Comcasrt and run by the cable companty was not publicizing its program not doing outreach,” said St. John-Crane, but already she sees the new orientatiomnclasses “overflowing with people wanting to do programming.” St. John-Cran e is surprised by the response. “People have computer, video — you’d thinm public access television wouldn’t really interest them.
But our participation has increased because people want to get theid contenton television. We have invester more resources in publicizing our channel and traininhg people in the equipment than has everbeen done.”