Vusumuzi Zulu MTN Board Bulletin      MTN is pleased to welcome new board member Vusumuzi Zulu, who takes the seat open by the departure of John Magnuson. Vusi serves as the Station Manager at KMOJ Radio here in Minneapolis. Welcome Vusi - we look forward to working with you.      Audrey Johnson, a nine year veteran of the MTN Board of Directors, resigned in March to pursue a seat on the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Directors. Audrey has been a very active board member at MTN most recently serving three consecutive terms as the Chair of the Board. We wish Audrey the best in her current endeavor and whole-heartedly thank her for nine dedicated years. The new MTN handbook New Handbook for Public Access      Hot off the press!! We now have available the latest updated copy of the Handbook for Public Access. This booklet contains all of our Public Access rules. We ask that no producer be without this essential guide. Please pick up a copy when you are here at MTN.

CABLE FRANCHISE NEGOTIATIONS - PARAGON & MTN
By Brian Brady

MTN Board member Brian Brady

     In recent months there has been a growing level of interest and public relations efforts about Paragon's on- going attempts to gain control of some of the bandwidth allocated for public uses on the Minneapolis cable system. To properly understand the issues involved, we need to review the terms of the City's cable franchise, which Time Warner agreed to when they purchased the system in 1995. Minneapolis' cable system was built in 1982 with bandwidth for 120 channels, a number unheard of at that time and more than any other Minnesota system provided before this year. As compensation for using public rights of way, 25% of that bandwidth was reserved for public and government uses just as any new real-estate development has to include land for parks and streets. In the case of cable systems, that bandwidth is used for public cable channels and various government data and telecommunications.

     When Time Warner purchased the system they paid for 90 channels of commercial capacity. If they can increase that capacity at little or no cost and add more revenue generating channels without additional investment, they could easily increase both their current profits and the price they will get when they sell the system. To understand how Paragon can fill more than 90 channels, we need to look at how they operate the system. When the system was built in 1982 they had to run two separate coax cables, an A cable and a B cable, to each house to provide that much bandwidth. However, since there weren't enough programs available to fill them all, many channels were repeated on both cables to save costs and simplify billing. That uses up much of the commercial bandwidth but that wasn't a problem until recently. By the mid '90's when it looked like it might become a problem, the previous owners, Houston Power & Light, demonstrated equipment to make the system "seamless" and free up the duplicate channels.

     However, when Time Warner purchased the system in 1995, they decided not to spend the money required to implement that system in Minneapolis. Instead they started negotiations with the City to take over some of the bandwidth reserved for public and government uses. Those negotiations have dragged on for over four years now and appear to be hung up on what constitutes a fair price per channel for the bandwidth. While the exact price Time Warner paid for the system in 1995 was not made public, it's probably not a bad guess to assume it was in the range of 50% more than the $120 million Houston Power & Light paid for the system in 1988. Based on that, they spent about $2 million per channel. As early as 1996 Time Warner had an agreement from the City to lease back available channels for about $77k each or 1/26th that amount. However, they chose not to accept those terms and have been holding out to not only get current channels at a cheap price but to also have the City give up its rights to a percentage of future bandwidth.

     Now that Media One is aggressively marketing cable Internet service in most of the rest of the Twin Cities, Paragon is saying they can't provide that service to Minneapolis residents until the City Council agrees to their demands for both present and future public bandwidth. If Time Warner refuses to make the capital investments needed to provide that service to their Minneapolis customers, that is their business decision. However, we view it as totally disingenuous for their publicists to try to blame that decision on the terms of the franchise agreement they freely made with the City in 1995.

     After over four years we find these negotiating tactics extremely frustrating and feel they short change the interests of over 78,000 Minneapolis cable subscribers. We would encourage those of you who live in the City to keep yourself informed on this issue and share your views and concerns with your elected representatives.

     Brian Brady has served on the MTN Board of Directors for ten years, he is currently the Board Treasurer.

---

In this Issue:
Page One: What's on mtn?
Page Two: Cable Franchise Negotiations
Page Three: MTN Profile
Page Four: Programming Notes
Page Five: Cyber-Bytes - Continued
Page Six: What's on mtn? - Continued
Page Seven: MTN board position opening