PROJECT OPEN VOICE - FRONT PAGE MEDFORD MERCURY April 3, 2012

Project Open Voice is Now in Medford

By Joe Viglione

With all the controversy over Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. in this city, it is interesting that both Verizon and Comcast are providing two separate options for those who enjoy hearing from a variety of different voices.

Verizon has "contiguous channels", usually the other public access channels from cities and towns touching a region that Verizon provides service to. In Medford you might find Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville, Stoneham, Malden, Winchester.... the one downside at the present time is that many of the channels are not listed in easily accessible program guides.  With so many people on the web that could be remedied soon.   Those who tune in to the Governmental Channel (Comcast 16) may have seen this writer discussing this at both the Verizon hearing on January 26th 2012 and at one or two meetings of the Medford City Council.

The second platform is just as interesting...it is Comcast's effort to put local programming on the internet as well as "On Demand".

If readers go to http://madeinmedford.com they can see the "beta" test site for the new platform.

A second website Comcast provides is http://www.projectopenvoice.com/city/medford/    Go to that page and click on MEDFORD and you'll see two banners -

PEG content - which means Public Educational and Governmental access and

Local Contributors

(Please note: http://projectopenvoice.com has six "test sites" from around the U.S.A., Medford being one of them.  When Comcast purchased NBC the Federal Communications Commission wanted Comcast - and I'm paraphrasing this -  to bolster areas that need a more "open voice.")

Clearly, with all the problems swirling around TV 3 Medford in regards to residents being censored and not having an 'open voice", one can see why the new project was needed in this city

COMCAST'S DESCRIPTION:
According to Comcast's introduction to their new public access platform,  Project Open Voice (POV) is a Comcast initiative designed to strengthen delivery of local content, including Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) programming.

MEDFORD AND ACCESS TV
On August 5, 2009 recommendations written by retired judge Marie O. Jackson-Thompson noted that Medford Community Cablevision, Inc. is a private "MCC Access."  We saw in the last election a handful of politicians getting preferential treatment on P/E/G while others were almost totally absent.  In a country like America, that is just plain wrong.

Tune in to the City Council meeting on April 3, 2012 on Channel 16 to hear me discuss more about this exciting new approach to access television.