City, Comcast work on local programming

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — City officials are working with Comcast representatives to put a few extra hours of local content onto Gallup's airways.

Gallup's 2001 franchise agreement with Comcast spells out the access the national cable provider may have to city property back alleys and utility poles, for example in order to beam its signal into local homes. In return, Comcast must pay the city 5 percent of its local revenue.

Unlike its franchise agreements with some other communities, Comcast's says nothing about providing any local content in return. So locals think the city got a raw deal.

Mayor Bob Rosebrough and City Attorney George Kozeliski won't go so far as to criticize the 2001 agreement, though both offered to point out that the city did not have an on-staff attorney at the time. Kozeliski said the deal looked like a generic agreement Comcast's attorneys probably came up with.

Some language about local content might have been preferable, Rosebrough said, "but I don't see a problem because I think that Comcast is willing to accommodate our desires."

What the city is asking for, he said, is at least two more hours per week on Channel 21 the cable channel set aside for local programming in addition to the two to three hours being aired now, at no cost to the tax payers.

Rosebrough said Comcast's general manager in Albuquerque, by way of a few e-mailed correspondences, appeared open to the idea.

It's the city attorney's job now to work out the details.

The city's current franchise agreement with Comcast does not expire until 2011. Bringing about more local content, Kozeliski said, could require amending it.

Although the content of those two extra hours has yet to be decided, Rosebrough said he would like to see more promotion of the community's cultural events and a regular roundtable-style discussion with its government and business representatives.

"I think Channel 21 is under-utilized in terms of local programming," he said. "It would be in the community's interest if we could have more."

Much of the push for more local content on Channel 21 has come from the Gallup-based Bigfoot Productions.

The company's founder, Hans Swets, has been more critical of the city's deal with Comcast, considering the concessions other communities have won from the national cable provider.

"The city didn't get enough out of the agreement with Comcast," he has said. "The city got screwed, basically."

That was Swets' take on the agreement back November, when he was having a hard time working out a deal with Comcast to air the following month's Red Rock Balloon Rally. A Comcast attorney said the company was doing all it could to accommodate the request.

Bigfoot's plans include airing Sunday church youth services, the away games of some local sports teams and, eventually, its own news program.

For Bigfoot, and anyone else interested in giving Gallup more locally produced television, the city's negotiations with Comcast could prove an important step.