(adapted from Maryann Arrien’s report to ACM-NE)

ACM New York’s six current board members had monthly meetings in February and March. We have started the work of our Public Policy Committee & Public Relations Committee and discussed plans for a video to be produced at a PEG center in either Westchester or NY City to further our educational effort in pursuit of our Public Policy objectives in New York State.

In a recent Cablevision Franchise negotiation for Town of Putnam Valley, Maryann Arrien learned from the seasoned cable negotiator that New York State is now in the process of considering a tax on Satellite Video Providers. This shows that our two ACM New York videos (namely “ACM New York’s The Issues” and “The Future of
Community Media in New York State”), which included that idea for PEG funding, may actually be have been having some effect on the state Legislature’s thinking. Last year we physically mailed DVDs of both videos to every PEG channel in New York Statefor which we had an address. Four of our Board Members plus Keith Irish of the Albany Area have pledged to contact their Assemblypersons and State Senators to pitch our Legislative Wish List in the coming month, to try and get a bill introduced in the State Legislature.

In keeping with our educational mission, the ACMNY Board voted to spend an additional $500 over and above our $1,000 annual ACMNE chapter support for grassroots scholarships to send as many New York residents as possible to the Boston ACM ‘Super’ Conference in August. We prefer to give this $1,500 in the form of partial scholarships to help more people attend. We have tried a small targeted letter campaign to bring in extra funds for additional scholarships but have not yet received any response.

ACM New York filed ACM New York initial comments FCC 16-41 on the FCC Notice of Inquiry MB 16-41. We had discussed this FCC NOI at our meeting and recognized that this was a VERY important FCC filing. ACM-NY encourages those who have experienced unfair cable negotiating practices to take this opportunity to report it, as well as the concern over the lack of High Definition for PEG in New York State, and the lack of inclusion in the Electronic Programming Guide, necessary to record PEG programs on a DVR. Five more comments from New York State that were included with ACM’s filing were from our Board member Matt Sullivan of LMCTV, Herkimer College Television, Anthony Ingraham of Pegasys in Ithaca, David Renner of Penfield TV and Michael Vandow of SCHOPEG, Inc, who all responded to our ACM New York e-mail appeal on March 30th.

We will have our next ACM-NY meeting in May, when we hope to have some reports on Legislative Meetings.  For more: http://acmny.org/