Friday, September 30, 2005
There's an excellent story in today's Herald on Comcast's sudden change of heart concerning Wednesday's mayoral showdown. Comcast originally committed to making the program available to its On Demand customers through November 2.* Now the program's going to be yanked after 48 hours, the standard window for On Demand programming. (Blue. Mass Group discusses Comcast's move here.)The most troubling aspect of this whole story? Longtime Menino adviser Ed Jesser is a Comcast consultant.Here's what Mark Mills, the executive director of Greater Boston (where the forum aired), told the Herald's Kevin Rothstein:"I was definitely under the impression that some people at Comcast had known for some time we were looking to have it on there throughout the month, and I think at Comcast, once this issue reached a higher level, they decided to do something else."
Simply put, this stinks. Boston voters deserve an explanation. And Comcast, if it has any civic conscience at all, should stick with the original arrangement.
I'll be trying to find out more this afternoon. Hopefully plenty of other members of the local media will as well. In the meantime, take a look at these comments that at-large councilor Steve Murphy made to the Globe back in 1999 (emphasis added).
"Councilor at large Steve Murphy, seeking to block Cablevision from reducing the number of public access channels in Boston from three to two, settled comfortably into the role of TV critic last week, bemoaning the lack of community-based programming on the public access channels that exist today.
"It's all mayor, all the time," said Murphy, referring the round-the-clock tapings of various appearances by Mayor Thomas M. Menino. "I must have seen the State of the City address 50 times. I turn on the TV now to go to sleep."
Menino has his own videotaping crew that follows him around, and Cablevision allows the moments in Menino administration history to be played over and over on channels like A-22. Not that Cablevision needs much convincing to give his honor air time. No one wants anything bad to happen with Cablevision's lucrative agreement with City Hall to operate in Boston, and it just so happens that top political strategist Ed Jesser is a hired gun for Cablevision as well."
*CORRECTION: I had mistakenly said that Comcast allegedly planned to make the forum available through November 8.
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
| Adam Reilly's news and notes from Massachusetts' always interesting political scene. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| June, 2008 (18) |
| May, 2008 (23) |
| April, 2008 (22) |
| March, 2008 (25) |
| February, 2008 (14) |
| January, 2008 (59) |
| December, 2007 (43) |
| November, 2007 (19) |
| October, 2007 (31) |
| September, 2007 (32) |
| August, 2007 (21) |
| July, 2007 (18) |
| June, 2007 (27) |
| May, 2007 (36) |
| April, 2007 (27) |
| March, 2007 (53) |
| February, 2007 (36) |
| January, 2007 (43) |
| December, 2006 (49) |
| November, 2006 (38) |
| October, 2006 (27) |
| September, 2006 (35) |
| August, 2006 (21) |
| July, 2006 (18) |
| June, 2006 (52) |
| May, 2006 (31) |
| April, 2006 (29) |
| March, 2006 (57) |
| February, 2006 (27) |
| January, 2006 (18) |
| December, 2005 (1) |
| November, 2005 (12) |
| October, 2005 (28) |
| September, 2005 (7) |
| March, 0200 (1) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 del.icio.us/OnTheDownload
|
|
|