“Target Peoria: An Open Discussion On Crime,” will air tonight from 8 to 9 p.m. on WMBD-TV channel 31, WEEK-TV channel 25, WHOI-TV channel 19, and WMBD-AM 1470 radio. WTVP-TV channel 47 will rebroadcast the meeting at 11 p.m. tonight.
Don’t miss it! Everyone will be talking about it tomorrow, and you don’t want to feel left out.
In case you don’t read the comments section on Billy’s or my blogs, here’s the information on the upcoming “Target Peoria: An Open Discussion On Crime” television event.
I will be the moderator for this special program, broadcast on WMBD, WHOI, and WEEK from 8-9pm [Wednesday, Sept. 13]. WTVP will tape it and play it at 11pm.
The reason there are not a lot of details is that the organizers are still working them out. I feel pretty strongly that it will be an important hour and a good broadcast.
And on Billy’s site, Ahl added:
The idea for the meeting came from discussion between the GM’s at WEEK, WMBD, and WHOI. Those three worked with Ardis to get things moving. […] Mayor Ardis et al will have a Sunday press conference at 2pm to talk about it.
My thanks to Jonathan for the information.
Lately, I’ve been more and more impressed with WHOI as a local news channel. I believe they usually come in last in the ratings, but I’ve noticed quite a few stories lately that they’ve covered better than WEEK and WMBD, in my opinion.
Now, they’re planning a one-hour, commercial-free special report on fighting crime in Peoria. That’s ambitious — and exciting! Here are the details from HOI’s website:
On Wednesday, September 13 HOI-19 will air a special report on fighting crime in Peoria. It’s called “Target Peoria: An Open Discussion On Crime.†It runs from 8 to 9 p.m., commercial free.
I can’t wait to see who they interview and what the format of the show will be. Kudos to WHOI’s news department!
Tonight, Jonathan Ahl looks at blogging and its effect on public policy on “At Issue.” (Jonathan is filling in for H. Wayne Wilson, who is on sabbatical.) His guests: Billy Dennis of the Peoria Pundit and yours truly of the Peoria Chronicle. It’s on WTVP tonight at 8:30 and will replay on Sunday, September 10, at 4:30 p.m.
Have you seen a commercial like this one lately?
In this ad, which I got online, it lists Tennessee senators, but I’ve seen this same ad locally (frequently) with Illinois senators listed. It leaves you with the impression that some nefarious “special interests” are sabotaging a chance to lower our cable bills and allow something called “cable choice.” But these ads are totally misleading.
What the ads don’t tell you is that they’re advocating a bill in Congress known as the Advanced Telecommunication and Opportunity Reform Act. The House version of the bill (HR5252) passed 321 to 101, and is due to come up in the Senate. If passed and signed into law, this bill would allow the federal government to award cable franchise agreements.
I first brought this up back in April when Peoria’s franchise agreement with Insight expired. Right now, companies who want to offer cable television to a community must negotiate a franchise agreement with the local municipality. Peoria is still trying to negotiate a renewed franchise agreement with Insight Communications; according to city attorney Randy Ray, Insight and the City will be meeting again September 11 to hopefully hammer something out.
By law, cable franchise agreements are non-exclusive. That means no one is keeping “cable choice” from happening. Any company who wants to offer cable TV to Peoria can come in and negotiate their own franchise agreement with the city. But big telecom congomerates like AT&T don’t want to have to negotiate with every municipality, hence the push for a national franchise agreement.
The telecom-backed www.WeWantChoice.com, which sponsored the above commercial and others like it, call the current franchise system “a lengthy, expensive process that just doesn’t make sense.” By having a national franchise agreement, it will make it easier for them to compete, they claim, and that competition will lead to lower cable bills.
The Illinois Municipal League (IML) sees it differently. Local governments and their advocates like the IML are undoubtedly the “special interests” to which the commercials refer. The IML believes this legislation “would harm consumers, cities and counties in many ways, including:”
- It fails to keep local govemment financially whole because it strips state and local governments of tax authority over broadband and wireless telecommunications services.
- It would permit local telephone companies to pick and choose the neighborhoods in which they want to provide video and broadband services, while allowing them to bypass other
neighborhoods completely.- It would replace strong state and local consumer protection and customer service standards with federal standards drafted by federal bureaucrats not accountable to state and local communities and consumers.
- It would unilaterally preempt other carefully crafted state and local laws that encourage competition and protect the public interest.
If this process is so expensive and burdensome, how is it that cable companies have figured out a way to do it profitably? Why should telecom companies be allowed a shortcut — an end-run around local control? This is not about leveling the playing field — it’s about very large telecom companies wanting an advantage over cable companies. This is not a process that needs to be nationalized. Cable franchises should not be a federal issue; they are a local issue, and they should stay local.
Incidentally, Randy Ray mentioned that the city has been lobbying our representatives in Washington concerning this, and “the Mayor has written several letters.”
No one has admitted it, but I’m guessing this legislation is one of the sticking points that’s delaying the new franchise agreement between the City and Insight. I’ll bet Insight wants language in the agreement that will allow them an “out” if national franchise agreements are permitted in the future. Otherwise, they would be at a competitive disadvantage.
Well, another Emmy awards show has come and gone, and once again I’ve been passed over for “Best Editor of a Local Paid Religious Broadcast.” When, oh when, will the academy recognize my work?!
😉
I got to take a tour of WTVP’s new building today. I don’t much care for the aesthetics of the outside of the building (it’s got that PSA-prison-architecture look), but the inside is full of interesting and impressive high-tech toys and gadgets. From their enormous production-control flat-screen monitor to their high-definition cameras, it was a sight to behold. Our church, of course, will be moving soon and so our television ministry will likely be getting some new equipment of its own. Obviously it won’t be nearly as extensive as WTVP’s setup, but it’s exciting to see the possibilities.
As I was looking around the facility, I couldn’t help but think that public television must be very popular (and donors very generous) in Peoria for them to be able to afford all that equipment and the building to put it in. I guess those auctions and pledge drives really pay off.
I wonder (tongue-in-cheek) when our local public radio station will be getting its new state-of-the-art building. Is that part of Bradley’s expansion plan, perhaps? Nah. Well, maybe, if WCBU started carrying Bradley basketball games….
On an unrelated note, parking was a cinch — free diagonal parking is available right in front of the studio.
Kudos to WHOI for hitting the pavement and actually getting some local reaction immediately instead of just parroting back the news conference on Bradley’s expansion plans.
Carl Bloch, who lives on Cooper and will be looking at a five-story parking deck in his back yard soon, explains what’s happening as a result of Bradley’s covert expansion plans:
Bloch lives on Cooper Street, just a block from where the new sports complex will be built. As the university’s borders expand, Bloch says more families are leaving the area.
“It seems like more and more of these houses are going for rental properties and families are moving out,” said Bloch.
That’s what I mean by Bradley’s actions destabilizing the neighborhood. Stable families move out and the area becomes more transient, and less attractive to stable families. That’s what happens when people don’t know what to expect from their 800-lb. gorilla neighbor to the east.
The funny thing is, I don’t know what Bradley is afraid of — a lot of people are actually quite understanding. They know Bradley needs to expand. They just wish the university would “work with the neighborhood” ahead of time, instead of waiting until the planning is all completed, like they have in fact done.
WEEK has put a portion of my interview last night on their site this morning. You can watch it by going to this page and clicking on “Video.”
Whew. I appreciated the opportunity to be interviewed on TV, but boy am I glad that’s over! I was so nervous. I feel so much more comfortable writing, where I can meticulously craft exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it — rewriting several times in the process.
I was impressed by how nice everyone was to me. I was impressed because, if I were they, I would have been totally annoyed with someone like me hanging around. They took the time to answer my questions and let me stick around and watch them produce the 10:00 news. I was interested in that because, of course, I do a little bit of TV production in my job at Grace Presbyterian. Their production is much faster-paced than ours, which is to be expected since they don’t spend a lot of on-air time praying, and we don’t spend any on-air time giving the weather or lottery numbers.
Surprises:
I asked Mike if they were going to interview any anonymous bloggers, and he mentioned that one may be “coming out” on the air in the future. That made me raise an eyebrow….
Thanks to everyone who watched tonight. And now, back to our regularly-scheduled program.