Cox Communications Inc. has begun rolling out a marketing campaign to generate interest in public access television around Rhode Island. The cable company has been on the hot seat this year with regulators and public access television producers for not doing more to promote the service, which gives residents a chance to have their own television show.
“The thought was that additional advertising and encouragement would make what is actually a very good public access provider effort now even better in the state,” said Eric Palazzo, associate administrator for cable television at the state Department of Public Utilities and Carriers. “We encouraged Cox–and Cox was very cooperative–to expand its advertising effort to solicit additional public access people.”
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Local Cox Communications officials didn’t return calls by press time, but regulators and public access producers familiar with the new marketing thrust say the company will air public service announcements, circulate brochures explaining how to launch a public access show and include other information in customers’ bills.
Cox Communications presented its plans for the advertising push in October to regulators and members of a special state Senate commission studying the cable television industry in Rhode Island.
“I think it addresses many many of the concerns that were raised by the advocates in the public access community,” said state Sen. Thomas Coderre. The Pawtucket Democrat is the chairman of the Senate commission studying cable television here.
Coderre attributes Cox’s public access woes in Rhode Island to its rapid move into the state and the hodgepodge of public access studios it acquired from its predecessors.
When cable first came to Rhode Island in the 1960s, the state had a dozen cable franchises run by separate companies. The number has been whittled over the years, and Cox now controls cable in most of the state.
But Coderre believes the cable company’s new marketing campaign, particularly the slick public service announcements scheduled to air on major cable networks such as CNN and ESPN, will jump start public access television here.
“I would have hoped that they could have done it a little bit more quickly, but I’ll say that the results are so good, I’m glad they took the time that they did,” Coderre added.
But one of the company’s most vocal public access critics, Department of Public Utilities and Carriers Administrator Thomas Ahern, is withholding judgment.
“I want to see how it materializes, sure,” Ahern said. “My objective is to increase participation in public access there’s a huge demand. This is the people’s television network, and we should give it back to the people, not the companies that run it.”
His objective is shared by Milton Nachber, producer of the public access show “Access Rhode Island.” Nachber stars in one of the new Cox public access commercials.
Although he can’t say how long it will take for the campaign to be effective, Nachber said he’d like to see so many Rhode Islanders get involved in public access television that Cox Communications has to devote additional channels to the service.
