About Montague Community TV

MCTV, a local public access station!

Montague Community TV, a project of MCCI (Montague Community Cable, Inc.), is a PEG Access station that serves the towns of Montague, Gill and Erving. There are approximately 3500 cable subscribers of a population of about 8500 in Montague.

What is PEG Access?

"PEG" stands for Public, Educational and Government Access. The purpose of PEG Access cable TV is to give a slice of the broadcast airwaves back to the public so citizens can retain a voice in a media-conglomerate dominated America, as well as have easier access to the goings on of Town government (you can only fit so many people into the selectboard meeting room).

MCTV controls two local channels...

• Channel 17 - All Montague, all the time. MCTV programs the eagles nest in Barton Cove from sun-up to 6:00 PM every day during the spring and summer (when the nest has chicks), and then runs either liveor pre-taped meetings or shows. We have a Princeton Server with 400 hours of content at the ready, and a live studio to provide content.
   
• Channel 15 - All Greenfield, all the time. MCTV has arranged to "pass-through" GCTV’s programming to Montague’s channel 15. This arrangement can change at any time, and we welcome the public’s input into how to best utilize Montague’s second public access channels.
  
  Our proposal to the town in 2005 stated that channel 15 would be the public and governmental channels, and channel 17 would be dedicated to the schools (Turners Falls HS, and Franklin County Tech) and that we would investigate the possibilities of a regional channel with the rest of our county, or at least the other stations connected at the Comcast Cable head-end in the TF Industrial Park.

MCTV Staff

MCTV has two part-time staff people:

• Station Manager, Robin Mide. Robin works 25 hours per week. Typically she’s at the station Monday through Thursday.  She is responsible for running the station, installing and maintaining equipment, training, and producing all MCTV programs including municial meetings and town meetings.
   
• Associate Station Manager, Dean Gavin. Dean works 20 hours per week. Typically he’s at the station Monday through Friday from 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM. He is reponsible for running the station, coordinating shoots, scheduling programming and creating electronic bulletin board pages.
  

These two staff people coordinate with each other and report to the MCCI Board, which fills the role of an Executive Director. The Board meets once a month.

Studio Hours

The MCTV Studio is open from 1:00 - 8:00 PM on Monday and Tuesday, 1:00 to 6:00 PM on Wednesday and Thursday and 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM on Friday.  Please use the contact information at the left or the directions link above to contact us.

MCTV Budget

MCCI, the corporate parent of the MCTV project, receives quarterly payments from Comcast as part of their franchise agreement with the town of Montague. This number fluctuates based on the number of cable customers Comcast has during a given quarter. In our 2005 proposal to the town we budgeted $21,750 per quarter. In July of 2010 we received our highest check ever for $27,618 (probably for all the new sign-ups for the 2010 World Cup). Here is the history of payments received:

* In September of 2005, while the RFP for the PEG contract was in motion, Comcast mailed the second of four capital grant payments to GCTV, who rightly put the money into escrow pending the outcome of the RFP. When MCCI won the contract GCTV passed the money onto MCCI, who used roughly $14,000 as administrative / programming funds to run the station. The remaining $6,000 was used for capital purchases. MCTV then "paid back" the $14k on a monthly basis, and has since established equilibrium.

** September 2007 Capital payment was spent almost entirely on a Princeton Server digital playback system, with 1.2 terabytes of storage (up to 400 hours of programming!) and two channel outputs so we can drive both channel 17 and channel 15 if we choose to do that again.  The next and last capital payment of $15,000 was paid in September of 2009 and has not yet been allocated.

There is more budget information available for download on this website in the FAQs & Documents section.

MCCI - The MCTV Board of Directors

MCTV, Montague Community TV,  is a project of MCCI, Montague Community Cable, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation based in Montague, and registered with the State of Massachusetts.  Our current board list can be found on the MCCI Board page of this website.

MCCI has other projects as well, including a fledgling Low Power FM station (LPFM). MCCI applied for and received a coveted LPFM license in August of 2005. However, the location that was requested is no longer available for the purpose of erecting a tower, so MCCI is researching other locations. More information will be made available about this exciting and potentially run-a-way project as it develops on the LPFM page here.

From October of 2002 until February 2005, MCCI had another long-term project called The Montague Reporter, a weekly local newspaper covering the five villages as well as Gill, Erving and Wendell. The newspaper was started up soon after MCCI lost the PEG Access "assignment" (as it was handled back then) both to continue providing access to local media to the residents of Montague, and to provide an income stream of some sorts so MCCI could survive until it had its day in court regarding the PEG Access issue. MCCI regained control January 1, 2006.

Another project of MCCI, although not a major or long-term project, is "The Villages of Montague" historical series. In the past there was also "The Family of Man."

MCTV looks forward to a bright future and sincerely hopes you will join in!