[T]he Vermont Public Service Board has ordered Comcast to improve service for public access television.
In a decision issued late last week, the board said the cable giant disobeyed public access requirements it was supposed to be following as early as 2005. The board renewed Comcast’s permit for another 11 years while adding more public access requirements.
The new certificate of public good, as the permit is called, runs through January 2027 and imposes four major conditions:
• The company must not only carry public access channels, but within one year it must list the programs being shown on each channel in its digital television guide.
• Comcast must provide connections for live programming events, such as selectboard meetings, when the location is within 500 feet of a network connection point.
• It must participate in a new regulatory proceeding that will determine whether the company has to carry public access channels in high definition, or HD.
Comcast is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization just under $175 billion. The company is “by far the largest and most significant provider of cable television services in Vermont,” serving more than 80 percent of cable customers in 197 towns, according to the Public Service Board.
The company has 112,000 cable subscribers in Vermont, according to the PSB — a number that has shown almost no change from the 110,000 customers it had when it acquired Adelphia Communications Corp. in 2006.
From 2006 to 2015, operating income from Vermont customers roughly doubled from $101 million to $200 million, according to the Public Service Board. Over the same period, net income from those customers more than tripled: from $19 million to $63 million.
“As Comcast introduces and expands the use of new technology in Vermont for commercial objectives, there is a reasonable expectation that community needs and interests related to PEG access should also be served,” the Public Service Board wrote in its decision.
The Vermont Access Network, which advocates for 25 public, education and government — or PEG — stations across the state, intervened in the case to establish the public access conditions. The network hailed the ruling as “a substantial victory for free speech, open government and community cohesion.”
Lisa Byer, the executive director of CAT-TV in Bennington, said the public access stations turned to the PSB when negotiations with Comcast over the past several years were unsuccessful. She said the board ruled in favor of solving public access issues that have been around “for 11 years, if not longer.”
Two of the biggest tension points, according to Byer, were that Comcast was defining the term “cable plant” in a narrow way that kept it from having to pay to set up cable connections for live programming of events like selectboard meetings.
The Public Service Board wrote: “The board regards the live origination of programs, such as local governmental, school, and community meetings, as one of the most significant community benefits provided by PEG channels.”
The other major tension point was Comcast’s failure to list specific public access programming in its interactive guide, she said. The guide would often say something like “public access television” during all hours of the day, instead of specific listings like “Bennington Selectboard meeting” at a given time.
The board decided that not including specific public access information in the digital guide is an “apparent failure” by Comcast to meet the terms of its 2005 permit and therefore must improve its system “within one year from today.”
“The requirement that PEG channel schedules be listed on an electronic programming guide is, in the board’s view, the most important PEG channel outreach requirement” in the existing certificate of public good, the board wrote.
Byer said the public access stations did not win their request to require Comcast to provide public access stations in HD, but the stations will participate in the new proceeding that will decide that issue.
“We’re actually degrading our (video technology) to play back on Comcast channels, so our channels don’t look as good as other channels, and that’s because they’re not giving us access to HD channels,” Byer said.
Comcast can appeal the conditions of its certificate of public good if it successfully argues that the board acted unreasonably or exceeded its jurisdiction, or that the decision does not reflect the legal arguments in the case.
Nicole Boudreau, a spokesperson for Comcast, said in a statement the company is “reviewing the order and look(s) forward to continued discussions” with the Public Service Board and “building on our decade-long history of service in the state.”
“We’re proud to already offer our customers in Vermont best-in-class, reliable products and services, and more than $7 million to provide robust public access programming,” Boudreau said.
She said Comcast had given back more than $250,000 to local Vermont communities through grants and in-kind contributions in 2016.
