Eventually, a more structured group began to meet regularly and decided to become a non-profit organization and establish an affiliation with the New Hampshire Local Government Center (LGC), the National Alliance for Community Media (ACM) and the Alliance for Community Media – Northeast Region (ACM-NE). We have offered workshops in a variety of areas from re-franchising to lighting and more. Members also present workshops at numerous conferences around the state and New England.

Our primary objective is to contact all communities in the state and raise their awareness of PEG in general and specifically notify them of our existence and willingness to help support and foster PEG access television. To this end, the NHCCM has surveyed all towns across the state and is currently sending information to each of them. It is our hope that membership in the NHCCM will be a valuable resource, especially to small communities with limited resources.

For membership information, please go to the membership page.

(0) Discuss This Article

Community Television is normally referred to as “PEG Access Television.”

When a community negotiates for a franchise agreement with their local cable provider, one of the things that the community can insist on getting is channel space for local public, education and government television as well as franchise fees to operate them. This is considered to be a payment of sorts for the rights of way (ROW) that the cable company uses when it installs the cable lines throughout the community. The number of channels and the franchise fees vary amongst communities and are based on local preferences. For example, in NH, some communities have no channels and one has as many as six. Franchise fees also are negotiated and range from zero to 5% (the maximum allowed by the FCC). Equipment grants can be negotiated as well and vary greatly from community to community.

The “P” or public channel is used by community members to televise whatever programs they create or sponsor. Many communities provide training on various types of equipment that the public can use to create these programs. The public channel is the one where 1st Amendment Rights of Free Speech are totally protected.

The “E” or education channel is usually turned over to the local school district to determine who can use it and what kinds of programs will be shown. Very often, this is where you would see videos of classroom activities or student productions which would be approved by the school authorities.

Finally, the “G” or government channel is most often used to show gavel-to-gavel coverage of government meetings. These meetings may also be taped and replayed. Some communities also produce informational programs about the government or its projects on these channels.

Programming for the PEG channels is usually produced by community volunteers. Some Access Centers also have paid staff to assist in the production of programming but this varies widely among communities.

(0) Discuss This Article