City Manager Objects to Move of Bay3TV to Charter Channel 99
Cable Operator Needs to Have City Approval to Make Change, Says Belleman
November 22, 2009
By: Dave Rogers
Channel change roadblock thrown up by Bay City Manager Robert V. Belleman.
Charter Communications wants to move Bay 3 TV from Channel 3 to Channel 99 on cable, but City Manager Robert V. Belleman is objecting to the change.
Mr. Belleman, in a letter to the cable operator last week, said: "The City of Bay City believes Charter Communications needs to seek the city's approval and authorization to make this line-up change."
While school officials apparently were willing to go along with the change, the county has not weighed in and the city is raising a roadblock.
The city has the contract with the cable operator that has specific requirements for the firm to gain access to customers.
Bay3TV was organized in 1987 by combining the city, Bay County and the Bay City Public Schools. Funds were pooled to operate the channel, hire staff and pay for equipment.
The organizers originally sought Channel 3 because it was easily accessible and was familiar to cable users. In order to play video tapes in those days, users had to switch to channel 3. That specific channel, that had been used for real estate listings, was sought by the channel organizers for that reason. Real estate listings then went to Channel 5.
Local officials met with a Charter Communications representative last week to discuss the proposed changes to the Bay 3 TV lineup.
After the meeting it was reported the public access channel will move from channel three to 99.
Edward Kavanaugh, Charter Communication's government relations manager, said the Bay 3 TV partners began discussing a possible name change and brought up an idea of adding a more regional public access channel.
City Commissioner Christopher Shannon, 1st Ward, discussed the possibility of a Great Lakes Bay Region public access television that would cover Saginaw, Midland and Bay County government and education.
Bay3TV is a governmental-education access channel, one of two public channels originally agreed to by Gerity Television in its initial contract with the City of Bay City in the 1970s.
Because no entity in the city was capable of programming the channel, it went unused for about two decades. Finally, Bresnan Communications, successor to Gerity, agreed uphold the contract by allowing the local units to have channel 3. Bresnan then was succeeded by Charter, a large cable operator throughout the Midwest.
Midland operates a public access channel that by law is open to any group or person without governmental control of programming.
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