ACTV Looking To Fund Online Services

A town committee wants to make sure that the Amherst community has continued, and improved, access to important town meetings and information.

Communications Infrastructure Committee chair Doug McAllister asked the Board of Selectmen this week to increase his FY14 budget in order to replace outdated equipment and maintain online access. He requested a $7,000 increase to his $3,000 budget, most of which will be used towards the new online resource for the Amherst community.

Amherst Community Access TV , which broadcasts daily bulletins from the Town of Amherst, including live and taped selectman’s, planning board and ZBA meetings, went online earlier this year with live streaming and video-on-demand services. This allows residents who are not of town, or do not have cable access, to watch important meetings.

McAllister said that these online services came free for a year with the installation of hardware, but will now cost $6,000 to continue them. He said that Amherst’s online access stores about six months worth of meetings, or about 4-500 hours.

Aging equipment is also an issue, as the town’s video cameras only use the now outdated tape format. McAllister said they are functioning right now, but are getting old with thousands of hours of taping over the years. There are already minor issues with strobing, which makes the image suddenly darken and lighten again.

The town’s cameras are also available to citizens who wish to produce their own video content. A good video camera is not cheap, so the hope is to replace one of them in the next fiscal year, and the other the year after.

Cable subscribers should know that a five percent fee is added to their bill in order to support public access television in their community. This amount, which is usually around $169,000, is usually put towards the bottom line of the town’s budget.

McAllister thinks this is a bit unfair to cable subscribers, and a portion of that money should be used towards improving the community’s media services. He said that he certainly cannot use all of it, but would like to see more of it put towards its intended use. Many other towns take the entire amount and put it towards public access.

Increased funds would allow him to expand the town’s media services and upgrade equipment so that no camera man is required. Right now, the money can be saved to immediately replace failed equipment.

Video content, audio content or notices for ACTV20 can be submitted to actv20@amherstnh.gov. Visit ACT20’s PEG Stream watch town meetings live online, and find past meetings on demand here.