Minutes Cable TV Teleprogramming 11 6 07MINUTES OF CABLE COMMUNITY TELEPROGRAMMING COMMISSION MEETING
November 6, 2007
CITY HALL ANNEX - 2nd FLOOR CONFERENCE ROOM #2
MEMBERS PRESENT: Sr. Carol Hoverman, George Herrig, Pauline Maloney, Jennifer Tigges.
MEMBERS ABSENT: Burton Everist. Two seats remain vacant on the Commission.
OTHERS PRESENT: Jim Barefoot, Mediacom
Becky Specht, Wahlert High School
Richard Traylor, Wahlert High School
Craig Nowack, City of Dubuque Cable TV Coordinator
Sr. Hoverman called the meeting to order at 4:15 p.m.
1. Acceptance of the Agenda.
Upon a motion by Ms. Maloney, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the agenda was accepted
unanimously as published.
2. Approval of the Minutes of the October 9, 2007, Meeting
Upon a motion of Ms. Tigges, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the Minutes of the October 9, 2007,
Commission meeting were approved unanimously.
3. Public Comment
None.
4. Access Equipment Expenditures
Mr. Nowack reported $129,912 left in the PEG fund to be awarded. He also reported that,
previously, he had inadvertently omitted the $14,500 grant for Dubuque Community
Schools which had been approved earlier this year, but today's figure takes that into
account.
Ms. Tigges asked about the grant for cameras at the Dubuque County Courthouse for the
Board of Supervisors meetings. Mr. Nowack stated that installation was in progress and
only the cost of the labor remains to be disbursed.
Mr. Barefoot reported that he is awaiting a quote for the remainder of the jib grant; as soon
as he gets it he will be ready to finish up that grant. He gave Mr. Nowack the necessary
paperwork so he could order the Anvil cases in Mediacom's latest grant.
Ms. Specht introduced Richard Traylor, the band director at Wahlert High School. He has
been helping her with the audio portion of her television productions in the school
gymnasium. She requested a total of $3,000: $1,300 for a portable light kit that can be
used both in the gym and on location, and $1,700 for a sound system especially designed
for field use. The equipment she is requesting will allow her to record much better sound
than she has been able to get up until now, doing so in three different scenarios in which
she works single-handedly. Mr. Traylor explained that the audio will be recorded on a flash
drive and then synced up later in editing. He also explained that the sound system at
Wahlert does not provide an output that Becky can record directly.
Mr. Barefoot has worked with Becky on productions in the gymnasium and explained that
the sound system there is geared entirely to handle audio for the audience; a separate
system to mix audio for television is what is needed.
Mr. Traylor said it all comes down to how far the camera has to be to get the proper shot.
The microphones need to be much closer in order to record quality audio.
Ms. Tigges asked about the computer and software that will be needed. Mr. Traylor stated
that one of the devices comes with software, as does the mixer they are requesting. He
also said an expert told him that afour-year-old computer is sufficient enough to buffer and
record the audio as long as no other programs are running simultaneously.
Mr. Herrig moved to approve the request for $3,000. It was seconded by Ms. Maloney and
approved unanimously.
Mr. Nowack presented a request for $15,000 to upgrade the Media Room at the Federal
Building in order to make it double as a small studio for interview shows and tapings. He
planned to do this all along as evidenced by painting the north wall of the rgom chroma key
green and installing four separate switched circuits for lights during the construction phase
of the Federal Building project. But the idea really took off, he explained, when he learned
that the Echolab switcher allows for different modes at start-up, so that a simple switch
allows the switcher to boot up in Council meeting mode or interview mode. To upgrade the
Media Room, the following are required:
• Expansion cards to increase switcher to 16 inputs (from 8)
• A series of small lights that attach to the dropped-ceiling grid
• Re-wiring the room to accommodate the additional switcher inputs and camera
outputs
• Coiled camera and microphone cables
Mr. Nowack also noted that the money for light-blocking curtains and pipe & drape
background is in the Federal Building budget.
Upgrading the Media Room to be a small studio drastically reduces the amount of time
required to record a show. Instead of needing 90 minutes each for set up and tear down,
now all that is required is to walk in and flick a couple of switches and he is ready to
record. This will be especially important in the immediate future since Mr. Nowack's
assistant recently resigned. It also provides another use for the equipment purchased for
the Media Room control room.
Mr. Herrig asked how much money the City Council appropriated for the Federal Building
project versus how much came out of the PEG fund. Mr. Nowack said that the
Commission awarded $20,000 from the fund to purchase three new cameras for the
Federal Building Council Chambers. He reminded the Commissioners that originally the
City was going to move the relatively new cameras at the Library to the Federal Building.
Instead, the Federal Building got all new cameras and the three Library cameras are now
being installed at the County Courthouse for Supervisors meetings. But apart from the
$20,000 for three new cameras, no PEG fund money was spent on the Federal Building.
Beyond that, Mr. Nowack did not have handy all the money spent on equipment at the
Federal Building. It was broken down into several areas: presentation equipment for the
Council Chambers, production equipment for the Council meetings, and equipment to outfit
the 2"d- and 3`d-floor conference rooms.
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Mr. Herrig expressed concern over the amount of money remaining in the PEG fund to be
awarded and the fact that seven months remain in the fiscal year. He said he was sure Mr.
Nowack knows when it is appropriate to ask the City for money and when it is appropriate
to ask the Commission for funding. Mr. Nowack said that the City paid to outfit the Federal
Building to do Council meetings. What he is requesting tonight is to produce programming
that is separate and unrelated to Council meetings.
A motion by Mr. Herrig to approve the request for $15,000, seconded by Ms. Tigges, was
approved unanimously.
Ms. Maloney reiterated Mr. Herrig's concerns about the balance of the PEG fund and the
amount of time remaining in the fiscal year. A discussion ensued about the I-Net and the
potential for funds to be requested for it.
5. Access Programming and Promotion
Mr. Barefoot brought up for discussion recent and upcoming productions that he and
Dustin have been or will be involved in that combine this agenda item and the next one,
the Mediacom Cable Report. The list was quite extensive. He explained that they are
often involved in three, four, or five productions a week, and that the amount of time
required for this comes at the expense of their other duties. Ms. Tigges asked if these
productions required both Mr. Barefoot and his assistant, or if just one person was
involved. Mr. Barefoot said it often depends on the production and the expertise of the
organization originating the production.
Mr. Barefoot raised the question of what the franchise means when it requires access
facilities be available for 57 hours per week. He and his assistant are now working six to
seven days a week with a couple of 12-14 hour shifts in order to accommodate everything.
He discussed the fact of all the money being poured into equipment over the life of the
franchise and the staffing issues that result. The PEG entities in Dubuque are often one-
person operations that look to Mediacom to help out.
Mr. Barefoot stated that encoding is becoming afull-time job, off-site production is
becoming afull-time job, and the access community is not close to making full use of video
on demand (VOD). When he is out on a shoot for half a day, many things are not getting
done. In addition, people "are coming out of the woodwork" to be trained. Gary Olsen at
the school district wants to do a lot of production but he does not have any help. The
same is true for Becky Specht at Wahlert. Ms. Tigges said the Commission has no control
over staffing, and the franchise agreement only has so much information about the
availability of the access studio.
Mr. Nowack said the franchise agreement says the access studio must be available 57
hours per week with some of the hours being at night.. It does not require Mediacom to
staff access users' productions. Mr. Barefoot said that he had interpreted that to mean the
building was available 57 hours per week, but it could mean that they are involved in
access production that amount per week, whether at Loras or some other facility in the city.
Mr. Barefoot told the Commission they might want to consider closing the public access
studio on Mondays to devote that day to encoding.
Mr. Nowack said that at some point you must say, "No, this cannot be done." Mediacom
cannot staff every production done in the city, but they must operate the three PEG
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channels as required by the franchise and they must make the access facilities available to
local users.
Mr. Herrig and Ms. Tigges wondered what the Commission could do to help Mr. Barefoot,
to perhaps write a letter asking various entities, such as Loras College and the school
district, to provide staffing and other support to those producing public access
programming. Ms. Tigges did not realize how much support Mediacom was providing the
local community, such as the amount of support they gave Gary Olsen to shows like
Doctor Doctor and Maestro and Me.
Mr. Nowack said that if someone wants to run a cable network and produce 10 different
series concurrently, that person will have to come up with the resources to do it; that
responsibility cannot fall to Mr. Barefoot. Ms. Tigges told Mr. Barefoot that the
Commission could support him if he has to tell someone that he cannot staff a production.
Mr. Barefoot stated that he has received four shows from Tom Degree at Roosevelt Middle
School. Mr. Nowack wondered why this material is not going to Gary Olsen at the school
district. Other commissioners agreed that the new educational channel is where public-
school-generated programming should be running. Ms. Tigges stated that the Commission
should do something about this. She has talked with Mr. Degree about this, and was told
that it is difficult to get things to Mr. Olsen. He has tried but has been told that it was not in
the proper format. Basically, he has been unable to get his programming on.
Ms. Tigges wondered about editorial control at the school district channel. Mediacom is
prohibited from refusing any programming it receives that meets proper criteria and
wondered if the same rule applies for Channel 19. Mr. Nowack said he believes the same
rule does not apply. When asked why, he said that the school district exercises editorial
control, that a student at Hempstead could not produce and program and demand it be
shown on that channel.
Ms. Tigges wondered if the other schools are aware of how to get programming to Channel
19. Mr. Nowack said that it is up to the school district to decide what goes on on its
channel. Sr. Hoverman wondered if Mr. Olsen prepared the schedule for that channel, or
would it be possible for Mr. Barefoot to insert other schools' programming on it. Mr.
Nowack said that the operation of the channel is based at The Forum; all programming get
played from there.
Mr. Herrig thought it would be nice if the school district would realize how easily Gary could
get burned out. They should also realize what a tremendous service he is providing and
get him some help. Mr. Barefoot urged the Commission to put things in perspective.
Assisting on a show like Doctor Doctor is two hours every Wednesday. Loras basketball is
eight hours on a Saturday. He also said it's not one entity monopolizing his time, it is all
the entities put together.
Mr. Barefoot reported that a show entitled The Clinton Chronicles was recently brought to
him. This is an old show that brings to light the issues of the Clintons and says some
harsh things about them. Mr. Nowack said that someone will have to do a program to
balance this one if they are upset by it. He mentioned that Ms. Maloney is ready to go into
the Vietnam era on her show collecting oral stories of military veterans. He now has an
intern from Loras working approximately 15 hours per week depending on the school
schedule.
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Mr. Barefoot mentioned a statewide Mediacom initiative to award technology certificates
for outstanding work. He wrote a proposal as to why the Dubuque Community
Schools/Mediacom partnership should receive one, for utilizing the Anycast, a Steadicam,
server playback, and Internet availability. He said a certificate will be handed out at the
December 10 school board meeting.
6. Mediacom Cable Report
The Mediacom Cable Report was combined with Mr. Barefoot's report on Access
Programming and Promotion.
7. Cable TV Division Report
As Mr. Nowack reported earlier, his assistant resigned last month. The position will be
filled, but he must go through the Civil Service Commission and that process takes a little
longer to play out. He is going to change the job slightly to put more emphasis on
television production and the management of digital assets. He is hoping it will be an
attractive position between the involvement in City activities, the wide of range of
programming opportunities, and benefits.
He said that ECS called during the course of this meeting and camera installation at the
Dubuque County Courthouse is now complete. There are now four cameras in place for
Supervisors meetings, meaning that each Supervisor has a camera to provide aclose-up,
and meeting coverage will now be much more watchable. He reminded the Commission
that the audio facilities there were upgraded earlier in the year.
He informed the Commission that the FCC on Halloween issued a Second Report and
Order based on their controversial order of late last year regarding local municipalities
being a barrier to entry to new video providers. This second order, not yet made public,
applies some of the provisions of the first order to incumbent video operators.
Mr. Nowack stated that he is working with Mediacom and the school district to get
Sageville School connected to the I-Net. This school was left off the original list of I-Net
sites presumably because it is outside city limits.
Mr. Nowack informed the Commission that he had his initial budget meeting with the City
Manager earlier in the day. Mr. Nowack is now asking for an additional part-time position
rather than afull-time position. He feels this has a better chance of being approved. He is
also proposing the Granicus web solution to provide Internet archiving and streaming of
meetings and programming. He is also proposing a small amount of money -- $2,500 - to
be set aside to pay for unexpected infrastructure needs of the I-Net. Already this year he
has had to pay for I-Net fiber to be re-routed into City Hall and the Federal Building.
Mr. Barefoot asked, in light of something he read in the previous month's minutes, about
the eight-month time frame before an I-Net management firm is in place. Mr. Nowack said
that was his guess, and Ms. Tigges stated that she had asked the question to determine
when PEG fund requests for the I-Net might be forthcoming.
8. Video On Demand
Mr. Barefoot admitted that VOD is not working properly, and he attributes much of this to
the situation in Des Moines. When VOD started almost a year ago, Mediacom had only
Dubuque to worry about. Now it has expanded statewide and this has presented logistical
problems in Des Moines. Programming has been placed in the wrong folders and there
are software issues.
The equipment for the direct VTN connection between Dubuque and Des Moines is on
order.
9. Future Agenda Items
Ms. Tigges recommended an agenda item to clarify channel programming policies.
10. Adjournment
Upon a motion by Ms. Tigges, seconded by Mr. Herrig, the meeting was adjourned at 5:42
p.m.
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