More About Our History
In the late 1990s, three issues arose in connection with Arlington community television:
1) Concentration of control: American Cablesystems, the first cable services provider licensed by the Town of Arlington, was subsequently purchased by a succession of other companies (Continental Cable, Media One, AT&T Broadband, and Comcast), each of which brought its own management style to Arlington Studio. Although the Studio retained a mandate in the town's license that each of these companies maintain a PEG access operation, it became clear that each company did nevertheless control day-to-day studio management and policy decisions. Many Studio volunteers believed that some of these policies and management decisions were counterproductive to their mission of producing a full schedule of quality public access programming. For example, the Studio closed and most of its equipment moved to offsite storage for two years between 1997 and 1999 due to a disagreement between town government and AT&T Broadband, the license holder at the time.
2) Uneven competition: During that same period, RCN wired the town for cable and began to compete as the Town's second cable services provider. However, due to specific license provisions insisted on in 1996 by AT&T Broadband Town and later inherited by Comcast, all program produced at the Studio were carried exclusively on that cable system alone, leaving RCN customers only a few live government meetings and educational programs to cablecast.
3) Restricted playing field: Although AT&T Broadband did pay to convert a town-owned building (the Dallin branch library at 85 Park Avenue) into a production studio, the company operated it as a "television only" community access facility despite its awareness that other community media organizations were already expanding rapidly into other emerging niches, namely the internet.
It was against this backdrop of local cable history that a number of Arlington community media enthusiasts identified the need to create an "access corporation" to address these and other issues. They argued that the establishment of a community-based, non-profit corporation, and its subsequent licensing by the Town to produce and cablecast local PEG programming, would address these issues by giving Arlington's public, education, and government institutions and organizations open access to local media technology and training.
First, Arlington Studio would finally be under local management, answerable to a board of directors that already enjoyed a close working relationship with town government and the citizens of Arlington. Second, all video and audio content would be shared equally with all cable subscribers of both (now three) companies. Third, the Studio would ultimately morph into a fully equipped public media center that would offer Arlington residents an opportunity to explore new ways and means of connecting with their neighbors, their education system, and their town government.
In April 2003, Arlington Community Media Inc. (ACMI) was incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a not-for-profit corporation. Subsequently and over time, a board of directors was chosen, the organization was designated as Arlington's official access corporation by Arlington's Board of Selectmen, and the corporation was granted tax-exempt status by the IRS.
In July 2006, ACMI signed its first agreement with the Town of Arlington, represented by its Board of Selectmen, to assume management of Arlington Studio and PEG community access television for the town. The agreement included a provision for funding from cable television company revenues, and included performance requirements for ACMI as the Town's licensed PEG cable access provider. After several years of organizational efforts by many dedicated media missionaries, Arlington finally had its own functioning access corporation!
In early September of the same year, following a nationwide search, the ACMI Board selected Norman J. McLeod as ACMI's first Executive Director. Norm had been the Executive Director for Community Television of the Southern Berkshires in Lee, Massachusetts. During his tenure there, he successfully transitioned that station from one analog to three digital channels and produced more than 100 programs in close cooperation with each of the five neighboring communities served by the Lee access station.
ACMI formally began, on September 26th of 2006, daily operation as Arlington's official community media and public access corporation and as operator and manager of Arlington Studio at 85 Park Avenue in Arlington Heights. Because of thorough preparation and hard work during the preceding several years, the transition from a company-run access studio to a community-based media organization was smooth and was conspicuous for the absence of even a single non-broadcast day.
By the end of 2006, a dedicated staff of four energetically engaged with the Executive Director in transforming the mostly analog station to a digital and high-definition production and editing facility for Arlington's existing volunteer producers and for those to come.
During 2007, the government access channel, lost to neglect more than 20 years earlier, was reinstated at ACMI's Arlington Studio. By the opening of the company's first Annual General Meeting in October, ACMI had come to be regarded as a leader in community access technology and innovation in Massachusetts. As such, the Studio has been visited by other cable access stations in the area as a showcase of leading-edge equipment and live cablecasting technology, using for example, its V-brick technology over the Town's I-net and fiber networks. The Studio now provides high-quality, live digital cablecasts of the Board of Selectmen and the School Committee meetings, and also of special town-wide events and high school sports and concert programs.
ACMI also offers monthly training workshops to its growing membership so that its members may learn to operate the new HD cameras and computer editing equipment that they will subsequently use in producing local programming, or in covering community political, cultural, athletic, or other events. This process not only brings our community together in common witness of shared events, but also teaches marketable skills to community members. Some of our staff and interns have covered regional sports events and, in one case, one of ACMI's finest was called to Fenway Park for World Series duty!
An ACMI staff of seven now approaches with eagerness a new calendar year of purposeful mission and just plain fun in bringing Arlington's people ever more in touch with its government, its educators, and each other.
Join us on Comcast channels 8, 9, and 10. Check us out on RCN channels 3, 13, and 15. Tune us in on Verizon's channels 24, 26, and 31. Visit us at www.ArlingtonStudio.com. We invite you to witness, and to make, Arlington history here with us at Arlington Community Media Inc.