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Aug 16, 2023

Peter Gay: The fight to keep local cable alive

Peter Gay North TV was front and center recently at the Alliance for Community Media’s national conference held in Brooklyn. The alliance is made up of cable access corporations and the group’s annual

Peter Gay

North TV was front and center recently at the Alliance for Community Media’s national conference held in Brooklyn. The alliance is made up of cable access corporations and the group’s annual conference is like most in that it included panel discussions about timely issues addressing stations across the country.

We were asked to be part of the panel presenting “earned income case studies from around the country” and to show colleagues our website, specifically how to register to become a North TV Insider, and explain its impact on our revenue.

The topic was timely as our industry faces declining revenue as cable subscribers “cut the cord” in favor of HD antennas and streaming services. It may eventually result in the end of the coverage of community events, municipal elections and meetings, sports and more that we have come to expect over the last four decades.

It is a serious issue to everyone who wants to know what is going on in their city or town.

The VideoNuze Daily blog reported this week Comcast, which serves the majority of communities in Massachusetts, “lost 543 thousand domestic video subscribers, up from a loss of 521 thousand a year earlier. In total, for the past six quarters, Comcast has lost almost 3.2 million subscribers, or nearly 18% of the 18.2 million subscribers it had on December 31, 2021, to bring it to just under 15 million currently.”

Although North TV’s revenue hasn’t declined by that much, since January 2018 we have experienced a loss of 19.2% in the funding we receive as part of the Franchise Fee listed in everyone’s monthly cable bill. As a result, our fulltime staff is down to four from the six we employed just three and a half years ago.

Accepting a request from Plainville officials to operate their two channels a few years ago has helped offset that loss, but we also knew aggressive steps had to be taken to soften the blow.

It is why we put the live streams and archived programs on the four channels we operate on our website behind a paywall a year ago this month. Although not everyone was on board when the idea was first proposed, it was agreed that we would make the move.

Unlike our peers who put their live events on YouTube or Facebook, North TV only provides streaming on our website because we feel it’s important to bring them to our site. After watching the stream or archived video, a request for a registered email address and password pops up after 30-seconds. Viewers who have not already registered are directed to a page where they can do so.

We offer daily passes for $4.99, which are very popular among fans of sports teams playing against the local schools we cover, and three-month subscriptions for only $8.97 per quarter (less than $3 a month). The strategy brought in thousands of dollars in new revenue during the past year.

According to the caller from Minnesota who invited me to speak at the conference, North TV’s paywall is different than others across the country in that we allow free access to current cable subscribers in the two towns we serve. The only requirement is that they upload a copy of their latest monthly cable bill once a year.

“We agreed it was important to not charge the people who already support us through their cable subscription,” I explained.

I was joined on the panel by the executive director of a large cable access corporation in Washington state and the development director of a media group just outside of the nation’s capital.

Although North TV had little in common with two cable access stations with annual revenue in the millions, I was proud of the fact that we are on the cutting edge based on the response from the audience made up of peers from as far away as Hawaii.

In fact, we were contacted last week by one Massachusetts station who will be implementing our model at the start of the new year. I wonder why others aren’t doing the same.

The fees paid by cable subscribers make up 95% of the revenue most cable access stations receive. Is it fair to put the meetings, sports and shows that those cable subscribers are underwriting on platforms so residents who refuse to do so can view them for free? I don’t!

I forgot to mention Paul “Pin-High” Oliveira when thanking members of the Attleboro Area Golf Association. Sorry about that, Paul!

Peter Gay is a Sun Chronicle columnist and executive director of North Attleborough Community Television Inc. — NorthTV. Reach him at [email protected].

Peter Gay