6422-R1_ML&P_TownOfBuxton_2017-2018_AnnualReport-Web

Saco River Community Media Town of Buxton - Annual Report

Several words come to mind when you think about the Town of Buxton. Historic, industrious and sprawling are just a few ways to describe not just the town but the land mass itself. Roughly 40 square miles comprised of 7 villages. Saco River Community Media helps bridge the gap between many of these far-flung villages and the events and information discussed and debated at Buxton’s town hall. We’ve been televising the towns various meetings and events for nearly 20 years now and our broadcast and online services help keep the population informed and engaged. Relatively few Maine towns offer their citizens three local “peg” (public, education and government) cable access channels and we’ve always been honored to help the citizens of Buxton keep up on what’s going on in Buxton. Our public channel showcases talent from the Saco River Theatre, stimulating library presentations and a wide range of history focused lectures from the Buxton – Hollis Historical Society to cite just a few examples. Churches located throughout Buxton’s villages are free to advertise community events on our community channels and holiday concerts, Dorcas Society sponsored programming and the annual Wreaths Across America ceremony honoring veterans are just a handful of programming highlights our volunteers record for broadcast on community television. Saco River Community Media strives to be inclusive and responsive to the Town of Buxton’s needs. To that end, we recently added a Livestream feature that enables the citizenry to access all of Buxton’s meetings, not just a select few as in years past. The institution of public access television began when cable was first conceived in the late 60’s and early 70’s and we’ve done our best to stay on top of 21 st Century communication technologies. Despite our best efforts, we’ve had what might be called a challenging relationship with a corporate cable giant (Charter/ Spectrum) that simply does not place community interests and localism front and center. Quite the opposite – Buxton and the other 5 towns in our media services consortium have had their access channels unilaterally moved from our longstanding and readily accessible 2, 5 and 7 channel assignments to 1301, 1302 and 1303 or what we call “digital Siberia.” We also face tremendous challenges from a hostile FCC decision that could have devastating impacts on the franchise rental fees towns like Buxton use to provide communication services to their citizens. Top down corporatism is the biggest, most existential threat our media center has ever faced. Our fight is your fight – the right to expect reasonable technology accommodations from a cable giant that seeks to extract huge profits without offering adequate compensation for the use of the public rights of way. We are and always have been, on your side. Thank you for your continued support of a media resource that, in this age of declining print media and local news outlets, is more vitally important than ever.

Respectfully submitted,

Patrick A. Bonsant Station Director, Saco River Community Media

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