Published: Thursday, October 14, 2010 Boyertown Area Times
By Phil Ellingsworth Jr.
Times Editor
pellingsworth@berksmontnews.com
BOYERTOWN –– A Boyertown Area Senior High School teacher is on a mission to get educational programming a part of local municipalities programming on the heels of their new franchise agreement with Comcast.
Technology education teacher Bill Cherkasky explained to the Boyertown Board of School Directors Tuesday night that he began working on the franchise agreements in 2001, but discovered a majority of the municipality’s agreements did not expire until 2011.
Currently, Earl Township is the only municipality that has a provision for educational programming in their agreement. The remaining nine municipalities, Bally, Bechtelsville and Boyertown boroughs, and Colebrookdale, Washington, Upper Frederick, New Hanover, Douglass (Mont.) and Douglass (Berks) townships do not.
“That’s a lot of townships,” Cherkasky said.
Cherkasky is working to get this provision in the agreement because he wants the district to have its own channel in the future, so residents can have original productions with unrestricted time.
The district does run programming for the community, but it is on a limited basis through Pottstown-based PCTV.
The network runs two-hours of programming a week, including school board meetings, but if the broadcast goes over the time limit, it is cut short. If the district wants to have additional time, they must pay PCTV a fee.
To get this agreement off the ground, the remaining nine municipalities in the district have to add a provision into their franchise agreement with Comcast, with six coming due in 2011 and the remaining three following in 2012 through 2014.
For the six municipalities renewing at the same time, a joint agreement is in the works, which would have the same language and would have one solicitor working on the agreement.
Cherkasky explained that it is “so important” to get into the renewal now because the agreements only occur every 15 to 20 years, so the district needs to act quickly.
With the provision, it does not mean the district will broadcast now, but it will open the possibility for future, he said.
By Boyertown having its own channel, there would be an opportunity for creative content like other schools have done, like antique and cooking shows, he stated.
“It gives [students] more of a real life experience,” he said.
Cherkasky said there is a possibility the high school could also broadcast school board meetings, graduation and other events live for the community.
“It opens up that whole other realm of possibilities,” he added.
There would be a cost to the district to start broadcasting to the community.
Comcast would cover the cost of the equipment, which would send the signal to the service provider, but the district would be responsible for some costs, such as a computer system to run an information board and an automated system to distribute programming.
These two items would cost the district approximately $10,000.
Cherkasky said the district could mitigate that expense by writing it into their franchise agreement with Comcast, which the cable company could potentially pay.
http://berksmontnews.com/articles/2010/10/14/boyertown_area_times/news/doc4cb5eef27463a641343060.txt
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