It just takes city leadership to fight for it.

During the cable franchise ascertainment period, WCCA held a focus group as part of the process. Respondents cited the need for WCCA to be seen outside of Worcester, in neighboring communities as their number one recommendation for improving WCCA services.

Subsequently, in consideration to our community needs assessment, WCCA has asked the city of Worcester to consider requesting that Charter Communication, the cable provider, allow us to distribute WCCA's channel county wide (on any available channel).

This would bring substantial value for Worcester citizens and for those who work in Worcester but live outside of it. During public hearings, at City Hall, Charter representatives said it could not be done. WCCA believed that it was technically possible. We pointed out that it is done in other areas. we've been hoping the new cable contract, which expired in 2006, will address this. We are still without a contract.

Jump ahead about two years. This afternoon, a resident of Paxton phoned us today asking for a way to view WCCA programing in Paxton. They also asked about our facilitation of the council meeting, which we partner with volunteers from Indymedia, to facilitate archiving it on line. During the conversation I learned that, for quite some time, Paxton cablecast the Worcester Public School cable channel 11 on its own Paxton system. Another resident of Paxton later confirmed this to be true. As Marvin Gaye sings it, “What's going on?” All the time this has been going on and no one brought this to the city's attention? Did anyone realize that if it can be done with one channel it could be done with others. WCCA TV programming could really be an asset to our city, if supported properly.

With sixty-eight percent of the participants of our focus group ( Worcester business and organizations) having less than $10,000 per year for communications, these groups and agencies face interesting challenges. Imagine WCCA's programming promoting all that is Worcester and helping all these community groups reach out to surrounding communities. Wouldn't that be useful to our cultural groups, event promoters, business'?
Here is a chance for our leaders to really step up and do something great. WCCA TV county wide before it's too late.