Monday, March 7, 2016
Act Now -- Get Free Stuff!
3:42 PM | 
Posted by
Billy Ray |
Glasgow is a
special place. In fact, in Glasgow it is presently possible to get something
for nothing. That’s right, it isn’t a free lunch, but due to Glasgow EPB’s good
fortune in attracting grant funding, 330 homes/small businesses will get a free
WiFi enabled programmable thermostat, or a free WiFi enabled heat pump water
heater, or maybe even an extremely high tech battery system.
If you own your
home/business and get your electricity from Glasgow EPB and have an existing
electric hot water heater, a central HVAC system and have internet service, you
might qualify for getting this technology installed without any cost to you.
The new items are designed to work in concert with signals from Glasgow EPB to
reduce your coincident peak demand during the peak hour of each month. To
summarize, you can get these items installed at no cost, and you get to enjoy
the savings that they may offer as reductions to your monthly power bill.
This is a
rare and fleeting opportunity! If you think you may qualify please go to http://bit.ly/SETProject and fill out the brief survey. We will
get back to you to determine your eligibility quickly!
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Channel Changes Coming February 1
At long last, our conversion of all
analog cable channels to digital transmission is nearly complete. At the first
of January we converted the remaining analog channels and we continue to help
folks adapt to the change and we continue the process of delivering and
installing the DTA boxes necessary to keep older analog televisions working.
As February 1 comes around, we have
another small change that will impact all cable customers. In our negotiation
process with WNKY and WBKO, they have asserted their rights to be the only
source for ABC, NBC, and CBS programming in Barren County. Our agreement with
WNKY also stipulates that their CBS programming will be viewed on channels 10
and 515, and that their NBC programming be on our channels 7 and 514.
In order to comply with their wishes,
our WTVF programming will move to channels 23 and HD 558 on February 1. Our
WSMV programming will move to channels 16 and HD 559 on the same date. Network
programming on WTVF, WSMV, and WHAS will be switched such that it all comes
from the Bowling Green stations mentioned above.
This change will not require you to
reprogram your televisions again. The only hassle will be finding your favorite
local newscasts from WTVF and WSMV. You will have to learn to find them on the
channels listed above. We are sorry for this inconvenience, but the
broadcasters have a very strong hand in these matters and we are complying in
the hope of saving our customers from even higher licensing fees in the future.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
It is the Witching Hour for AMC
As we
suggested in a couple of earlier blog posts, if an agreement isn’t reached by
midnight December 31, AMC may demand that we, along with hundreds of other
cable companies, pull them from the cable lineup. Our programming supplier,
NCTC, has been trying to negotiate a sensible and fair agreement with AMC for
several months, but AMC’s aggressive demands for shocking rate increases, a ten
year contract, and demands for us to add five additional channels that they own
(and pay dearly for those channels too!), simply did not seem fair to NCTC,
EPB, or our customers.
We want to
continue carrying AMC Networks and providing programming like The Walking Dead, but there has to be a
limit to what these networks can demand of you, the customers who ultimately
must pay for the programming. The terms that AMC is demanding would initially
add $2 to everyone’s cable bill (on top of the other increases coming due to
contracts already signed with other programmers) and that cost would increase
sharply every year for the next nine years. Just think about how video
programming is evolving. We surely cannot commit to paying for AMC at a
spiraling rate for the next ten years; especially when so much video programming
is going to streaming services.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Tough Cable Television Discussions Continue Through 2015
While we have
talked a lot lately about progress and issues surrounding our analog-to-digital
channel conversion project, and that conversation will continue; there is
another matter we are battling on your behalf that we have not talked about
lately. This is not a new issue. Rather it is the recurring matter of broadcast
channels, and other cable programming vendors, making outlandish demands for
program access fees, as well as demands that they be the exclusive outlet for
certain programming.
A number of
programming contracts have expired this year, or will expire at the end of the
year. Some of those vendors have settled for reasonable rate increases, but a
couple of them are still hammering away at us with demands for exclusivity and
staggering rate increases. Those vendors are AMC Networks and Max Media
Kentucky (owner of WNKY-CBS and WNKY-NBC in Bowling Green). Shortly after the first of the new year, we will also begin a painful negotiation with Turner Networks.
AMC is riding
the popularity of its Walking Dead series
as it demands huge increases in the fees for AMC channel, as well as demanding
that we add (and ask you to pay for) five more of the channels they own, even
though we do not want them. We, along with over 700 other
small cable operators across the nation, purchase the majority of the
programming you see on TV from National Cable Television Co-op (NCTC), which
gives us better pricing and bargaining leverage. NCTC is in charge of the
negotiations and while we certainly believe an agreement will be reached, there
is also a remote possibility that AMC will walk away from the negotiations and
require all of the cable operators to take AMC off until an agreement is
reached. If you would like to read more about these negotiations, with
continually updated information, you may do so by clicking this link. We
will make every effort to get the best deal possible for our subscribers
working through this co-op.
The situation
with Max Media/WNKY is even worse. They sought, and received, FCC permission to
virtually force WTVF and WSMV off of any cable system serving Barren County. We are in discussions with them and we hope to get them to honor the wishes of the people of Glasgow by allowing us to continue carrying some of the programming on these stations, but the outcome of those talks is still up in the air. They are also demanding very large fee increases for their programming.
Both of these
battles are ongoing, and likely will continue throughout the remainder of 2015.
We will keep you posted on how all of this develops, but a satisfactory outcome
seems unlikely for the people of Glasgow. We are again caught between the dueling issues of dropping programming, or paying a lot more for it.
Friday, December 11, 2015
Can We Talk?
Even though
we use our website, Facebook, Twitter, the RBG blog, Cable 6 and the Weather
Channel scroll, we know that there are still people not getting the important
information about our services that we distribute often. So, we are providing another service that helps fill that gap.
Everbridge is
a service that adds text messages, emails, or voice phone calls to our methods for
giving our customers essential information about their electric power, cable
television programming, and internet service issues. To use this service, customers
must either sign up themselves or give us their information over the phone, or
through a face-to-face visit to our lobby. Participants can receive a text
message, an email or an automated phone call when our Dispatch team has
important information for customers. Messaging can go to more than one person,
more than one way, and customers can receive messages about more than one
address if they choose (on behalf of an elderly parent, for example).
To sign up we
will need a name, street address and the preferred method for the customer to be
contacted (an email address and/or a phone number selecting whether it should
be phone call or text). If customers choose more than one way to be contacted,
they need to be clear on the preferred order. Customers can sign up right now
by clicking this link https://member.everbridge.net/index/892807736723615#/login or by using the links on the main
front page of www.glasgow-ky.com or www.infotricity.org . There is no charge for this service, and customers may update their
information at any time after signing up.
We are trying
very hard to make sure that essential information finds a way to be heard and
understood by all of our customers, and we hope our customers will find this
new free service useful.
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