Research Bureau: many numbers, few clues

It’s time for the city to renegotiate the cable monopoly, and the Worcester Regional Research Bureau has released a report in which it tries to make sense of the situation.

Among the more controversial recommendations, it wants the city to slash funding for the public access station WCCA TV13 by 2/3.

As a former WCCA employee, current volunteer, and general community media enthusiast, I’ll have some comments later. But a paragraph in today’s T&G story does a nice job highlighting the cluelessness of the WRRB researchers:

“The city should specify clearly in its contract with WCCA that public access funding be used for production and training — those activities related to providing public access,” the Research Bureau said. “Services that WCCA currently provides, such as a community computer lab, may be deemed by the city as an unnecessary expense for the public access studio and not a suitable public access service.” Mr. DePasquale said the computer lab is made up of donated equipment and that the only cost to the station is the electricity needed to run the computers.

Yes, the WRRB thinks the city should ditch four public computers in order to save the electricity costs. Penny wise and pound foolish.

According to an assessment WCCA had conducted earlier this year:

“From a brief look at the community survey, it looks like WCCA is enjoying a seventy-five percent approval rating from the community,” said Riedel.

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