Marblehead retains Comcast

MARBLEHEAD – Selectmen have renewed Comcast’s 10-year license to provide cable TV in Marblehead, which will continue company support for two new local access TV studios and improve local service.The company’s previous license expires this month. Cable TV Oversight Committee Chairman Paul Rabin said his committee has been negotiating with the cable firm for the past two years and the renewed agreement places the independent studios on firm footing.Rabin noted that local service complaints are down and, while Comcast declined to include senior discounts in the license, the company has made assurances that they will be offered.Those two factors address concerns expressed at a cable TV public hearing and the approval of the Verizon cable provider license.He noted that the decline in Comcast service complaints may be related to the fact that Marblehead now has two competing cable companies. Verizon began offering cable TV services in 2009. "This has been a year of enormous change," Rabin said.Both companies will give the town a quarterly percentage of their gross revenue to support the independent TV studios, which Comcast stopped operating in 2008, "a formula that all the people on our committee felt comfortable with," Rabin said.The studios at Marblehead High and the Marblehead Veterans Middle School are used to broadcast local town government meetings and other events on the town’s local access Channel 10. A second channel is being organized to broadcast local education-related programs and there has been talk in the past about a third channel.The local access programming is run by an independent non-profit corporation, Marblehead Community Access and Media Inc. Media Inc.’s five-member board of directors includes three members appointed by the selectmen and one each appointed by the superintendent of schools and the Cable TV Oversight Committee."I feel terrific about how far we’ve come," Rabin said, "and we anticipate big changes in TV in the future."Selectmen approved the license renewal unanimously, 4-0, with Selectmen Judy Jacobi, Jackie Belf-Becker and Mike Rockett and Selectmen Chairman James Nye in favor.Cable TV Oversight Committee member Paul Lazarus, whose term expires this year, resigned from the committee with a letter read Wednesday evening. Lazarus noted that he has served on the committee for 15 years and listed some of the recent changes.