CURWENSVILLE – Curwensville Borough Council is looking at an option that might give them control of a spot on local television.
During Monday night’s council meeting Mike Papasergi of Atlantic Broadband was on hand to discuss a cable franchise agreement.
Council member Sam Ettaro questioned Papasergi about the possibility of the borough getting an option for a Public, Educational and Governmental access channel.
According to the Federal Communications Commissions Web site a PEG channel can be broken down into three components:
-Public access channels are available for use by the general public. They are usually administered either by the cable operator or by a third party designated by the franchising authority.
-Educational access channels are used by educational institutions for educational programming. Time on these channels is typically allocated by either the franchising authority or the cable operator among local schools, colleges and universities.
-Governmental access channels are used for programming by organs of local government. In most jurisdictions, the franchising authority directly controls these channels.
Papasergi told council that a PEG option could be put in their franchise agreement if council wished. This would not require council to go live but would open the pipeline for council to exercise the option in the future if they chose to.
Papasergi said the most prohibitive part of getting a channel live is the cost of the equipment. He indicated the infrastructure is there for such an endeavor.
“I see this as a huge asset,” said Ettaro. He added this could be one way to keep young people from leaving the area.
