Old Bridge officials are continuing to work toward a new franchise agreement with Cablevision.
Mayor Patrick Gillespie said the township is considering a five-, 10- or 15-year contract with Cablevision, the current cable service provider for Old Bridge.
With the advent of satellite and Internet television, as well as Verizon FiOS coming to parts of town, Gillespie said the environment for cable negotiations has changed since the renewal and agreement process began over 30 years ago.
“They are not the only game in town anymore,” he said.
However, because the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities controls the franchise renewal process and must approve cable agreements, Gillespie said the township is limited in negotiations. “There’s not a whole lot we can demand that they do,” Gillespie said. “We can’t control programming … there’s just lots of things in this we can’t control.”
Compensation in a cable television agreement is based on two sources of revenue, Gillespie said. The first is the franchise fee, which depends on the length of the contract. The longer the franchise, the more the township is paid upfront and on an ongoing basis, he said.
This is really the only revenue source that can be negotiated, Gillespie said.
The second is a fee based on the number of subscribers and hookups to the basic cable service. But with so many different options available these days, Gillespie said this revenue source has remained stagnant or has slightly declined.
Gillespie said that because of the nature of the cable business, there are no real cable competitors for the franchise in the area. “The idea that someone is going to come out and compete with the Cablevision franchise is just not going to happen,” he said.
Gillespie said one of the main priorities is maintaining the township’s two public access channels, which provide programming for municipal government meetings, local news and other issues of community interest.
“We obviously want to make sure we protect them,” he said.
Gillespie said he is unsure if township officials will be ready to present a proposed cable agreement at the next Township Council meeting, but it will come about in the near future.
“I expect that we will come back to the council shortly with some kind of a package of some things that we’ll ask for,” Gillespie said.
The council held a hearing on cable franchise renewal in May, during which residents expressed concerns over the service and costs.
Republican Councilman Rich Greene said he is concerned by Cablevision’s response at the meeting to the governing body’s resolution calling for a discount, break or refund after residents lost access to Fox5 and My9 during Cablevision’s dispute with News Corp. last fall.
According to Greene, the Cablevision representative said he did not receive the resolution, an answer he felt was a bit disconcerting.
“I found it very strange,” he said. “If they made a decision and said, ‘Well, financially it doesn’t make any sense,’ well, at least tell us that. But don’t tell me that you didn’t receive the resolution.”
Greene said the township should adopt a five-year franchise with Cablevision that will “hold themaccountable.” Councilwoman Lucille Panos, a Republican, agreed, noting that residents’complaints and the many new technological options make a shorter-term contract a better option for the township.
“Ten years is too long,” she said.