Well, I've finally got something to blog about.
Mississippi Republican Congressman Greg Harper spoke to a press corp luncheon today in Jackson, Ms. and mentioned how hard it is to cut spending (meaning federal spending, of course). He cited a couple of different areas where expenses have grown rather than decreased.
At the question period I asked if "faced with the reality that many small business owners are experiencing less income due to the overall economy, would you (he) actively support --push for--a roll back in Congressional pay--thereby having members of Congress genuinely feel our pain?"
His answer was no and briefly spoke about his staff not being cut. When I pursued the issue, asking once again, would he take a pay cut he replied "NO!" and then commented he took a pay cut to be in Congress.
If he indeed makes less in Congress than he did in law practice, then it was his choice. The declining incomes of many small business owners is not by their choice.
I was hoping he was want to set the example for government curtailing expenses and lead the charge for all members of Congress to pass legislation to reduce their pay, that is their personal salary, 'perks', staffs as well as the overall congressional staffing.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
We started
StogTv will produce a weekly 'self-hosted' TV-Talk show for Hudson Holliday, GOP primary candidate for Mississippi governor.
I've been trying for years to get candidates to see the potential of this and finally shared the idea with one enterprising enough to say, "let's do it". It shouldn't be surprising. Holliday is a retired National Guard two-star General,"citizen-soldier", who joined in college as an enlisted soldier. He graduated from USM with a business degree and since then has successfully owned and operated a variety of businesses including a crop dusting service where he sometimes was the pilot; real estate and property development; concrete and sheet metal; part owner of a wetlands mitigation bank and for the past four years and elected local county official.
It's easy to see how someone this entrepreneurial is willing to now pioneer in TV with leased access.
StogTv has already been approached by one other statewide candidate and expects once the show is airing to see interest from local candidates in the six local areas the show will air; Biloxi, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Meridian and Tupelo, Ms. as well as Memphis, Tn.
I've been trying for years to get candidates to see the potential of this and finally shared the idea with one enterprising enough to say, "let's do it". It shouldn't be surprising. Holliday is a retired National Guard two-star General,"citizen-soldier", who joined in college as an enlisted soldier. He graduated from USM with a business degree and since then has successfully owned and operated a variety of businesses including a crop dusting service where he sometimes was the pilot; real estate and property development; concrete and sheet metal; part owner of a wetlands mitigation bank and for the past four years and elected local county official.
It's easy to see how someone this entrepreneurial is willing to now pioneer in TV with leased access.
StogTv has already been approached by one other statewide candidate and expects once the show is airing to see interest from local candidates in the six local areas the show will air; Biloxi, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Meridian and Tupelo, Ms. as well as Memphis, Tn.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Political candidate prospects
Many don't realize the rules that apply to cable LO (local origination) channels, cable networks and broadcasters do not apply to using 'leased access'.
Why not offer candidates low cost airtime as part of your leased access programming and help them post the videos on Google as well.
Check out http://mashable.com/2010/06/03/google-campaign-toolkits/
Leased Access programmers should 'rule the roost' in political programming.
Why not offer candidates low cost airtime as part of your leased access programming and help them post the videos on Google as well.
Check out http://mashable.com/2010/06/03/google-campaign-toolkits/
Leased Access programmers should 'rule the roost' in political programming.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Why no help from members of Congress?
I've been unable to get my U.S. Senator, a member of the Senate Commerce committee, with FCC oversight to simply make inquiry as to whether or not FCC is ever going to defend the new rules adopted in Nov. '07 that have been held up by a U.S. District court 'stay' at the request of NCTA, the powerful national association of the cable industry.
Then by accident I came across a website that shows NCTA's political action committee donated $5,000 to his campaign. To find out how beholden your member of Congress is to the cable industry visit (this site won’t allow a tag so fill in the spaces) campaignmoney / political / committees / national - cable – and - telecommunications - association – political – action – committee – committee – ncta – pac. Asp ? cycle = 08 (again, hopefully you can figure the URL by removing spaces and put in w w w )
If you're a LAPer (leased access programmer) or would like to be one or you simply think big government and big business run roughshod over what the chairman of BP calls 'the small people' then you may need to get involved in cleaning house before it's too late.
It’s no secret cable doesn’t like competition, yet it appears that is exactly what Congress wants. Section 612 of the 1992 Act, which deals with leasded access reads: “The purpose of this section is to promote competition in the delivery of diverse sources of video programming and assure the widest possible diversity of information sources are made available to the public from cable systems in a manner consistent with growth and development of cable systems.” Section 612 also encourages production and distribution of competing commercial programming that is not affiliated with the cable systems. In other words, while Congress is clearly interested in fostering diversity of information and programming, it wants to do it in a for-profit environment.
However, apparently that was a different Congress. My U.S. Senator only went to DC in 1993 as a member of the House. He was appointed to the Senate Dec. 31, 2007. NCTA bestowed $5,000 on him in 2008.
So much for representation of ‘the small people’.
Then by accident I came across a website that shows NCTA's political action committee donated $5,000 to his campaign. To find out how beholden your member of Congress is to the cable industry visit (this site won’t allow a tag so fill in the spaces) campaignmoney / political / committees / national - cable – and - telecommunications - association – political – action – committee – committee – ncta – pac. Asp ? cycle = 08 (again, hopefully you can figure the URL by removing spaces and put in w w w )
If you're a LAPer (leased access programmer) or would like to be one or you simply think big government and big business run roughshod over what the chairman of BP calls 'the small people' then you may need to get involved in cleaning house before it's too late.
It’s no secret cable doesn’t like competition, yet it appears that is exactly what Congress wants. Section 612 of the 1992 Act, which deals with leasded access reads: “The purpose of this section is to promote competition in the delivery of diverse sources of video programming and assure the widest possible diversity of information sources are made available to the public from cable systems in a manner consistent with growth and development of cable systems.” Section 612 also encourages production and distribution of competing commercial programming that is not affiliated with the cable systems. In other words, while Congress is clearly interested in fostering diversity of information and programming, it wants to do it in a for-profit environment.
However, apparently that was a different Congress. My U.S. Senator only went to DC in 1993 as a member of the House. He was appointed to the Senate Dec. 31, 2007. NCTA bestowed $5,000 on him in 2008.
So much for representation of ‘the small people’.
waking up
New post on why LAPers may not be getting any help from their members of Congress coming soon. My two U.S. Senators each got $5,000 from the powerful cable industry, NCTA, in '08.
Our troubles with being ignored by FCC became worse beginning in '08.
Our troubles with being ignored by FCC became worse beginning in '08.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Switched Video
Cable systems should be regulated based on two categories:
A. those who employ switched video and
B. those who don't.
Since most cable systems have exiled leased access to TV "Gorky" i.e. the digital tier, when they employ Switched Video, our presence on their digital line up uses no more bandwidth and capacity regardless of weather the customer is watching us or something else since switched video only sends one digital program stream at a time to each set top box (not counting previews).
We should get a break on the price since our presence in their digital switched video line up is not effecting their capacity at the expense of another channel or service. On analog we did use bandwidth even if no one was watching. Not so with switched video.
A. those who employ switched video and
B. those who don't.
Since most cable systems have exiled leased access to TV "Gorky" i.e. the digital tier, when they employ Switched Video, our presence on their digital line up uses no more bandwidth and capacity regardless of weather the customer is watching us or something else since switched video only sends one digital program stream at a time to each set top box (not counting previews).
We should get a break on the price since our presence in their digital switched video line up is not effecting their capacity at the expense of another channel or service. On analog we did use bandwidth even if no one was watching. Not so with switched video.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Live Remote Broadcast - Election Returns
In an email Charlie Stogner asked me to share my experiences putting together the live election returns for our lease access channels.
I had purchased an "old" tv studio about two years ago...most of the inventory ended up in the garbage. A keeper of the equipment was an Videonics MX1 and an audio mixing board.
First, I got with the local phone company, they were very receptive to the idea of placing an internet connection in the county courthouse. We ended up with a two T1 lines paired, which gave me 1.5mb up and 1.5mb down...dedicated. We needed all this so we could communicate with our "broadcast" equipment at the two cable headends. We did not use full screen video, we used 320X240 and centered it to the bottom of the screen and placed an advertising banner above the video screen for the phone company. (The phone company traded the ad space for the two T1 lines) We also sold the ad space on the right side of the screen and kept the left side of the screen for self promotion.
WE use Scala InfoChannel5 as our playback units at the headends. Scala picked up our internet feed without any real problems.
We also streamed the election return on our website. We used a hosting company for the streaming and they seemed to work very well. Although we did get one disconnect to the cable headeands. I'm not sure if it was the Scala Players or the hosting company. I'm leaning toward the players.
Anyway, we showed up at the court house about 4 hours ahead of broadcast for set up. We had the following equipment:
Videonics Video Mixer
Audio Mixing Board
2-laptop computers....one was for palyback of sponsorship commercials and the other was to monitor the scala players at the headends (this was very important).
3 cameras
Mics
router
Desktop computer for sending the Windows Media Encoder feed to the hosting company.
All in all it went pretty smooth. Our small community has never had anything like this done live before. We received loads of complements and 25 paying sponsors. We made the splash I wanted to make with this Live Election Returns on TV Camden.
I had purchased an "old" tv studio about two years ago...most of the inventory ended up in the garbage. A keeper of the equipment was an Videonics MX1 and an audio mixing board.
First, I got with the local phone company, they were very receptive to the idea of placing an internet connection in the county courthouse. We ended up with a two T1 lines paired, which gave me 1.5mb up and 1.5mb down...dedicated. We needed all this so we could communicate with our "broadcast" equipment at the two cable headends. We did not use full screen video, we used 320X240 and centered it to the bottom of the screen and placed an advertising banner above the video screen for the phone company. (The phone company traded the ad space for the two T1 lines) We also sold the ad space on the right side of the screen and kept the left side of the screen for self promotion.
WE use Scala InfoChannel5 as our playback units at the headends. Scala picked up our internet feed without any real problems.
We also streamed the election return on our website. We used a hosting company for the streaming and they seemed to work very well. Although we did get one disconnect to the cable headeands. I'm not sure if it was the Scala Players or the hosting company. I'm leaning toward the players.
Anyway, we showed up at the court house about 4 hours ahead of broadcast for set up. We had the following equipment:
Videonics Video Mixer
Audio Mixing Board
2-laptop computers....one was for palyback of sponsorship commercials and the other was to monitor the scala players at the headends (this was very important).
3 cameras
Mics
router
Desktop computer for sending the Windows Media Encoder feed to the hosting company.
All in all it went pretty smooth. Our small community has never had anything like this done live before. We received loads of complements and 25 paying sponsors. We made the splash I wanted to make with this Live Election Returns on TV Camden.
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