In response to Mr. Kouros’ article comparing Harvard and Groton cable [Press, Feb. 5], perhaps someone should be fact-checking at the Press. Groton has almost twice the population of Harvard, and Groton has always included cable in their budget. This past year, it was $107,000, funded totally from Groton residents and subscriber fees; no funding is received from Charter. Harvard’s cable receipts are $23,000, with no money raised through Harvard’s town budget. If townspeople want their fees and taxes raised to match Groton’s budget, I invite them to write to Tim Clark to endorse.
Quoting his primary source, Mr. Kouros states that no one on the Cable Committee has relevant television or film experience. We do and if he had taken notes during his video class he would have remembered that the instructor (and cable board member) does have a master’s degree and 15 years of relevant professional experience, including credits with PBS and other broadcast outlets.
Mr. Kouros spent a lot of time in his article berating the instructor of the course, but it appears that his only real issue is that he didn’t have enough classes and the equipment that he wanted to learn was outdated and too complicated. We now have a new editing system, with updated software and iMovie, as promised. This will make editing an easier task for townspeople. As far as the meeting rooms and the special effects, everyone on the Cable Committee, except one, can operate the equipment in both Volunteers Hall and Town Hall. Operating the equipment is not difficult to learn and it’s a great way to capture those fitness classes or other activities of interest.
The assertion that Harvard Cable is prohibiting local content is absurd. Groton’s programming comes from unpaid resident producers. This is what our program is based on, empowering the residents to create their own content. Original content creation, like Mr. Kouros’ proposed cooking show, takes many hours to produce, too many for paid or unpaid staff. We can help and we encourage anyone with an interest to step up and produce. Perhaps Mr. Kouros could partner with Mr. Turner to do his show?
Jonathan Williams
Whitman Road
