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Please have your access center consider joining CTAM as a voting member ($50 per year) or join as an individual non-voting member ($37.50). Your memberships help support CTAM's activities on behalf of community television and make this website possible. Click on the link below for details:

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Community Television
Association of Maine
PO Box 2124
25 Cottage Road
South Portland, M# 04116-2124
Phone: (207) 767-7615
FAX: (207) 767-7620
E-Mail: [email protected]

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Welcome to CTAM's Website

The mission of CTAM is to advance democratic ideals by ensuring that people in Maine have access to electronic media. In order for democracy to flourish, people must be active participants in their government, educated to think critically, and free to express themselves.
	CTAM is a state-wide non-profit organization created to support the efforts of community media in Maine. The membership represents a variety of existing community television organizations throughout the state that have developed, and manage, local cable "access" channels.

CTAM was founded in 1982 as a networking organization for community television stations in Maine and has been incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit since 1992. As an affiliate member of Maine Municipal Association, we assist more than 150 towns in Maine with their Public, Educational and Governmental television channels.

ACM-NE Video Festival - November 17, 2006

The ACM-NE Video Festival honors and promotes community communications and local cable programs that are first distributed on Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) access or Local Origination (LO), cable television channels. Awards are presented to creative programs that address community needs, develop diverse community involvement, challenge conventional commercial television formats, and move viewers to experience television in a different way.

All entries must be postmarked 9/15/06 or delivered in-hand by 9/18/06.

This year's day-long festival, to be held in Brocton, MA on November 17th, will include workshop tracks and a key-note dinner.

Note from Sally Hebert, CTAM Chairperson:

Please checkout the website for the 2006 ACM-NE Fall Video Festival and all day workshop/conference tracks.

This is a regional conference with three tracts - Technology, Producers & Staff and Management and Board. Each track will have a morning and afternoon workshop.

I would like to see some video entries from Maine. Maine has lacked in attending these conferences and video festivals.

Representative Mike Michaud meets with CTAM Board members

CTAM Board Members Dave Chipman and Tony Vigue meet with community television producer Toni Seger and friend, Representative Mike Michaud at the Norway Public Library on July 8 to discuss the potential impact of current federal legislation on the local franchising process. Representative Michaud was attending the Norway Arts Festival and graciously agreed to meet with us and listen to our concerns. The meeting was beneficial for everyone and we would like to take this opportunity to thank Representative Michaud for his time and Toni Seger for arranging the meeting.

CTAM E-Mail Address To Change

Please note that CTAM's e-mail address of many years, [email protected], will soon be discontinued. Please begin using our new e-mail address, [email protected], immediately in all correspondence. Thank you!

News and Announcements

New Resources Added
On the Resources page of this website you will find two new sections: Access Center Policy Manuals and Franchise Agreements. If you would like to share either your center's policy manual or your community's franchise agreement, please e-mail them to [email protected] for posting in the appropriate section. Other materials for the CTAM Resources library would also be appreciated.

Video Programs Available/Wanted

Until your webmaster is able to create an interactive database of programs produced by Maine access centers and independant producers, please post a listing of programs that you would like to offer to other access centers and suggestions/requests for programming you would like to receive in a newly created section of our CTAM Forums.

Interactive Database of Maine Access Centers

Your webmaster has finally posted an interactive database of information on each known Access Center in the State of Maine. In addition to being able to search the database by City or Center and by the type of access provided (educational, governmental, PEG, leased access, etc), you can click on the make PDF button to prepare a printable report.

Authorized access center contact persons will be able to add and update information to this database and even upload both a logo and photo image to be displayed with their center's information. We encourage any access center contact persons to register as a user of this site so that they will be able to make changes and additions as necessary. There are also several new fields of data that we had not included in the old Excel and PDF access center listings - center's website URL, cities or towns served (in addition to a center's place of physical location), contact person's title, and a brief description providing more information about the center. At this time, most centers have not filled in these new fields - we encourage them to do so as soon as possible.

To access the searchable database of centers, please click on the "Centers" tab in the top menu of each page of this website. There are also two other views of a subset of this data found on other pages of the site: a list of access center e-mail addresses found under the "Contact" tab and a list of access center website addresses found under the "Links" tab.

Please advise your webmaster using the below e-mail link if you are having any problems with accessing or using this new information or if you have suggestions for other reports or fields of information to be added.

News Feed From Save Access

Here's a sample of some of the articles available at Save Access. Please visit the site for more information and ways you can get involved!

RSS Viewer saveaccess's blog

FTC Issues Municipal Wireless Report

from: <a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6379787.html?display=Breaking+News" target="blank"> Broadcasting & Cable</a> FTC Issues Municipal Wireless Report By John Eggerton -- , 10/10/2006 4:59:00 PM Democratic FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz says a new staff report on municipal Wireless Internet networks released by the commission Tuesday should be used to counter state attempts to prohibit cities and towns from creating a government "third pipe" to the home.
Minorities Complain About Cost Of Cable Regulation

from: <a href="http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-YMPJ1160158432091.html" target="blank">Technology Daily</a> Minorities Complain About Cost Of Cable Regulation By David Hatch (Thursday, October 5) Organizations representing minorities complained this week to the FCC that new regulations governing set-top boxes for cable television would trigger higher costs for consumers.
Senate Panel Releases Report On Its Telecom Bill

from: <a href="http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-LPDO1119389349629.html" target="blank">National Journal</a> Senate Panel Releases Report On Its Telecom Bill (Monday, October 2) The Senate Commerce Committee this past weekend released its long-awaited report on telecommunications legislation that it approved in late June. The 283-page report provides additional detail about the measure and includes a dissent from prominent Democrats.
Verizon may lobby states on TV service rules

from: <a href="http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/10/05/verizon_may_lobby_states_on_tv_service_rules/" target="blank">Bloomberg News</a> Verizon may lobby states on TV service rules By Bloomberg News | October 5, 2006 NEW YORK -- Verizon Communications Inc.'s lead lobbyist said the company is likely to abandon efforts to pursue federal rules to ease the sale of television service if pending legislation fails this year.
FCC Begins Public Hearings on Media Ownership

This week, the FCC began a series of public hearings on <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/" target="blank">media ownership</a> that covers issues of localism, diversity and ownership caps. This is a revisiting of a controversial issue stalled by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2004/03-3388-062404.pdf" target="blank"> Prometheus v. FCC</a> ruling of 2004. More recently it was revealed that FCC studies on local ownership were <a href="http://www.media-alliance.org/medianews/archives/002935.php" target="blank">'buried'</a> by the previous FCC chair, Michael Powell, when the results contradicted his position.
PA Video Franchise Stalled

from: <a href="http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/26298" target="blank"> Lancaster Online</a> Cable choice picture unclear Bills that could have brought competition die in state Legislature. Some customers could have been cut out. By Gil Smart Sunday News Published: Oct 01, 2006 12:05 AM EST LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - State Sen. Gibson Armstrong said he probably gets more complaints about ever-rising cable rates than anything else.
Letter writer uses ‘inaccuracies’ to make case

 Excellent overview and response to local media coverage of video franchises from: <a href="http://www.southportlandsentry.com/Edit5.html" target="blank"> Sentry</a> Vigue: Letter writer uses ‘inaccuracies’ to make case Editor: I read with interest the response by Annie Kerry to an interview that I gave to the Sentry two weeks ago regarding the current Federal Telecommunications legislation, HR 5252 [also known as the Advanced Telecommunications Opportunity Reform (ATOR) bill]. The arguments given by Annie Kerry are remarkably similar to those given by telecom industry lobbying groups and public relations firms in other parts of the country. They complain that cities and towns across the country are somehow preventing Verizon, AT&T, SBC and other Telecommunications companies from providing low cost, competitive video service to residents. Let’s take a look at the facts:
Lawmakers Hint At Conditions On AT$T-BellSouth Merger

from: <a href="http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-ONOQ1159551166617.html" target="blank"> Technology Daily</a> Lawmakers Hint At Conditions On AT&T-BellSouth Merger By David Hatch (Thursday, September 28) Two influential senators urged the FCC and Justice Department to consider imposing conditions on the proposed AT&T and BellSouth telecommunications merger.
Shame on the GOP and Dems in CA

from: <a href="http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog/?p=106" target="blank"> Digital Destiny</a> Shame on the GOP and Dems in California: Gutting Community Oversight of Broadband If we ever needed evidence about how both major political parties are in the pocket of the telecommunications industry’s very deep pockets, all we need to do is look at California. The new cable law kills the historic and critical role local governments have played in ensuring cable systems are held accountable and required to do public service. Now all franchising (the licensing of cable systems) will be governed by a single statewide agreement. Doling out these “one-size fits all, lowest common denominator” deals will be the feckless Public Utility Commission.
Telcos Celebrate Franchise Wins

From: <a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6376739.html" target="blank"> Broadcasting & Cable</a> Telcos Celebrate Franchise Wins From Broadcasting & Cable, September 29, 2006 By John Eggerton California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Friday signed the state’s new video franchise reform legislation. The law makes it easier for competitors like telephone companies to get into the multichannel video business in competition to cable.
Fee Fi Fo Fios

 A review of Verizon's recent update for analysts and investors. You can <a href="http://investor.verizon.com/news/20060927/20060927.pdf" target="blank"> download </a> the PowerPoint presentation and learn about "Driving Growth and increasing wallet share. from: <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/78418" target="blank"> Broadband Reports</a> Fee Fi Fo Fios Verizon's plan to dominate broadband going swimmingly
Verizon planning local content unit

There is more discussion of this at: <a href="http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/78364" target="blank">Broadband Reports.</a> It should be noted that cable companies have often attempted this ploy when negotiating local franchises. from: <a href="http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/verizon_local_content_092206/" target="blank"> Telephony Online</a> Verizon planning local content unit
Verizon's push into TV to cost $18 billion

from: <a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/15624855.htm" target="blank"> Philadelphia Inquirer</a> Verizon's push into TV to cost $18 billion The second-largest U.S. telephone company wants to compete with Comcast and other cable providers. By Christopher Stern and Rebecca Barr Bloomberg News Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. telephone company, said yesterday that it planned to spend $22.9 billion expanding its fiber-optic Internet and television network through 2010, placing a price tag on its effort to compete with the cable-TV business for the first time.
Rural Areas Left in Slow Lane of High-Speed Data Highway

from: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/technology/28vermont.html?hp&ex=1159502400&en=5256374abba709e1&ei=5094&partner=homepage" target="blank"> NY Times</a> September 28, 2006 Rural Areas Left in Slow Lane of High-Speed Data Highway By KEN BELSON CANAAN, Vt. — For most businesses, the goal is to attract as many customers as possible. But in the fast-changing telephone industry, companies are increasingly trying to get rid of many of theirs.
Telco’s Plot New Challenges to Localism and Broadband

from: <a href="http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog/" target="blank"> Digital Destiny</a> Telco’s Plot New Challenges to Localism and Cable Broadband September 22nd, 2006 The telephone broadband giants—AT&T and Verizon—say they are stepping up efforts to scuttle the local cable franchising process. According to Light Reading, they “are working hard at the state level to push statewide franchises into law…” While the phone lobby hopes that Congress will pass the Stevens/Barton/Rush telecom give-away bill this session, they acknowledge that they were blind sighted by the fierce support for network neutrality. “For many of us it’s just been really frustrating,” says Jeff Brueggeman, AT&T VP of regulatory planning and policy in Washington.” As noted in Light Reading, Brueggeman told a conference that he and his colleagues didn’t see the net neutrality log-jam coming. So that’s why they plan to continue state-by-state, to secure laws that preempt the ability of local governments—and their citizens/residents—to ensure broadband services really benefit the public.

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