Submitted by: Laura Reams
Submitting Department: Communications
Agenda Section: Presentation
Item Title:
title
Hyattsville Ordinance 2022-07 Comcast Franchise Renewal and Agreement
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Suggested Action:
recommendation
For presentation.
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Summary Background:
The City has existing franchise agreements with Comcast and Verizon for a Public-Educational-Governmental (PEG) channel used for programming and airing of content including Council meetings and other originally produced City programming. The current Comcast agreement provides the City with 8% percent of gross revenues earned by Comcast, calculated on the subscriber base for the City. The funds are restricted for use to support channel programming and equipment to support public broadcasting. The franchise agreement also provides for access to the Intergovernmental Network (I-Net) which is used for governmental internet access and intergovernmental communications in cases of emergency.
In 2012, the City entered into negotiations for renewal of the franchise with the County and 16 other municipalities. The coalition benefits the City through pooling of financial and other resources to reach an agreement is beneficial for the municipalities. Over the last 10 years, negotiations have been ongoing, with the coalition represented by Attorney Sue Ellen Ferguson. Ms. Ferguson will present an overview of the negotiations and the next steps at the Council Meeting of November 21. Due to the timing of the negotiations, the agreement must be adopted by the City Council and effective prior to January 1, 2023. A summary of the main points of the negotiations is below.
While the majority of franchise conditions have been preserved in the negotiations, there is one major change, pertaining to I-Net. The cable companies no longer wish to maintain the Intergovernmental Network (I-net) systems and would rather provide managed service accounts at a greater cost. In the proposed agreement, I-Net is now called the C-Net....
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