Wednesday, July 7, 2010
BY TERESA EDMOND
Suburban Trends

The Borough Council has lent its support to a proposed bill geared at promoting the survival of public access channels like the municipality’s Channel 77.
The council passed a resolution supporting the adoption of the Community Access Preservation (CAP) Act at its special June 29 meeting.
The Alliance for Community Media, of which the Ringwood TV Committee is a member, put forth the bill to keep cable providers like Cablevision from committing perceived unfair business practices that include what Ringwood TV Committee Chair* Tracey Lawrence called “cable slamming.”** Cable slamming is the process of switching a channel to a new number “without any warning,” she said.
The borough has been fighting Cablevision, the Channel 77 provider, since it switched from analog to digital and deprived analog customers of Channel 77. At the time, Cablevision said customers could get a free digital converter box from Cablevision if they had either the company’s broadcast basic or family services.
The catch is that customers eventually would have to shell out around $7 for the box if they upgrade to digital, purchase more than one box per household, and/or pay around $7 per month for the first box after a one-year grace period.
“As you know, we’ve run up against some problems with our provider from time to time,” said Lawrence at the June 15 council meeting, when she talked about the CAP Act. “This bill helps to ensure our survival by forcing them to play by certain rules.”
The resolution asks congressional delegates to support the act as well.
Cablevision has declined to comment on the CAP Act.
In 2009, borough Manager/Clerk Kelley Rohde wrote letters on the borough’s behalf to the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about Cablevision’s attempt to get residents to buy converter boxes to view channels during a recession. The BPU is the state regulator for fair practices of the telecommunications industry.
Customers would still have to pay for channels they can’t watch without the converters, according to Rohde’s letter to the FCC.
E-mail: <mailto:edmond@northjersey.com>edmond@northjersey.com

*Tracey Lawrence is now Station Manager of Ringwood TV (there is no longer a cable TV committee to chair)

** The correct term, which was used at the meeting is “channel slamming.”