Posted: 2:21 p.m. Friday, March 18, 2016

Middletown to stream council meetings on Internet

By Mike Rutledge

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — 

Middletown plans to fully abandon community-access TV Middletown (Channel 24), which went dark Jan. 10, and instead give residents access to Middletown City Council and the Middletown Board of Education meetings via the Internet.

City officials, who will save most of the $112,000 that was budgeted for TV Middletown this year, hope live streaming of meetings over the Internet — and posting them the next morning on YouTube — actually will give more residents access to meeting footage. Losing access will be mostly older residents who have cable, but don’t use the Internet.

City Manager Doug Adkins recommended to council this week that the city seek bids to buy video-recording equipment for council chambers, the usual meeting site of both the council and school board meetings.

Time Warner Cable recommended “that we abandon 24 completely,” Adkins said. “They said their online streaming customers now significantly outweigh their cable customers in Middletown, and that by going to a streaming option or a YouTube-type option for council meetings, anybody that had Internet access would be able to continue to watch city of Middletown meetings from this chamber, as opposed to the Time Warner customers who only have cable, which is less than half the households.”

There will be some costs associated with the change: The city needs to buy recording equipment for council chambers, and the city’s in-house communications intern will spend time recording the meetings.

Nobody complained when TV Middletown stopped sending Channel 24 signals on Jan. 10, Pamela McDonald, Time Warner’s vice president of government relations, wrote in a March 7 letter to the city.

McDonald in her letter also noted that under state law, community-access channels are not considered to be “substantially utilized” — and can be reclaimed by the cable provider — if fewer than 40 hours of programming appear on the channel weekly and less than 60 percent is locally produced. The company told Adkins it doesn’t count if the city merely shows meetings over and over.

“In their opinion, it would take at least a full-time and a part-time employee to operate Channel 24, because they would be expecting us to generate the programming throughout the times,” Adkins said. “Now you’re actually talking about running a TV station in-house, and I’m not sure we want to get into that.”

Adkins said Time Warner had no way of knowing how many people viewed the meetings on Channel 24. But with YouTube, it will be possible to track viewership.

“We’re going to talk to the school district,” Adkins said. “If they want some extra bells and whistles, they can kick in some money for their bells and whistles. But we’ll make sure we have whatever council wants for our needs.”

 

And, let us not forget that the shows that were produced by Thomas and company were mostly about the "good news" that ones like Mort and our city building buddies like to talk about. TV Middletown was nothing more than a vehicle for the city building propaganda machine for the purpose of delivering the city message to the people. The type of programming and the guests, who were friends of the city, told us that. Never a program presented nor an opportunity given that offered a dissenting viewpoint to counter the nonsense the leaders and council spew at times. How can we all, on both sides of the issues, have a spirited debate, if just one side of the story is always told and how can we possibly see any positive dialogue between the leaders and the citizens who disagree with the direction of the city if there is no opportunity to discuss things, be it on TV Middletown, in council chambers or in community forums? (which died when Josh Laubach left council by the way)

Like council, the same goes for the schools. When was the last time any of you saw the schools offer a chance for some community dialogue (school board meetings don't count as they are not "off the record and limited in time as to response") and offer a chance to hear from the people who may have differing opinions about things? (they seem very eager to hear from the supporters to discuss the plans for a new school or to solicit help for a new levy passage) They could care less what the people think unless they know it's a friendly crowd. To be impartial, they should also feel obligated to discuss issues with the folks who don't necessarily approve of what is transpiring in this district.

John Beagle wrote: Seems that this site is the only place for people of Middletown to speak and hear all sides of the issues. Not just the politically correct view.

And we thank you for this site, Mr. Beagle!!!

Agree also
As much insulting as we receive , it is obvious that this site has touched the nerves of those living off of our tax $$$
So it is being read and it matters

Still, I am glad they will be streaming the council meeting and then posting to youtube.