Stoughton and Oregon cable channels are down again

Spectrum’s complaint line is (833) 267-6094

Editors note: Charter reports that both channels were restored on the evening of July 11.

Charter Spectrum cable TV customers started calling the City of Stoughton and the City of Oregon last Thursday to complain that their local “PEG” (Public/Education/Government) cable TV channels were down.  Six days later, both cities are still wondering when the channels will be repaired.

WSTO is the city’s PEG access channel.

Derek Westby, Senior Network Administrator with the City of Stoughton IT/Media Services Department which manages WSTO, said he received the first call around 10 am on Thursday from a resident and immediately emailed Mike Hill, Government Affairs Manager for Charter Spectrum.  The response he received was surprising --  an automatic email informing Westby that Hill had retired as of June 30.  “Mike Hill has been the primary contact for Wisconsin municipalities with PEG channels for as long as I can remember,” said Westby.  “We did not receive any notice that he was going to be retiring.”  The automatic email suggested two other contacts to try:  Teri Hatchell, Director of State Government Affairs and Adam Raschka, Senior Director of State Government Affairs.  Westby sent another email to Hatchell. 

On Friday morning, Paul Zwicker, Executive Director of OCA Media, followed up Westby’s email with another one to both contacts.  At the end of the day, Raschka responded that Hatchell had “routed the issue to the team Mike would normally interact with.” 

As of today, Tuesday, July 11, Stoughton’s cable channels 980 and 981 and Oregon’s cable channels 983 and 984 are still down.  Zwicker emailed the company again today.  “I told them that we are receiving complaints from their customers.”

Unfortunately, Westby and Zwicker have experienced PEG channel outages before.  “Both of our signals travel to a common hub before being inserted into the Charter Spectrum cable system, so when both channels go down, we know that the problem lies with their hub site,” said Westby. 

Charter Spectrum has not upgraded how they carry these PEG channels even though the world has moved on to HD, 4K and even higher standards.  To be compatible with the Charter system, both communities are required to use old analog modulators that could break at any time.

Viewers of cable television in Oregon and Stoughton are relied upon to let their cities know about Charter Spectrum outages.  Since video service providers charge municipalities for service, subscribing to more than one provider would be cost prohibitive.  Both municipalities subscribe to TDS, which carries the PEG channels in HD.

If you are a frustrated viewer, let the State of Wisconsin know. Go to WCM’s cable complaint page and click on the link to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection complaint form page. Help Stoughton and Oregon get faster action! And help us make state government aware of these ongoing problems.

Stoughton WSTO starts streaming on Roku and Apple TV

Like a lot of other community media centers before it, Stoughton’s WSTO TV recently launched two Over-The-Top (OTT) channels.  Working with TelVue Corporation, WSTO TV began putting its programming on both Roku and AppleTV in early October and has plans to add FireTV, Android and iOS applications.  Derek Westby, Senior Network Administrator for the City of Stoughton said, "We're very excited about serving new audiences with these apps.  It will enable all Smart TV viewers to receive WSTO TV." 

These additional OTT viewing options have come on the heels of TDS cable television adding WSTO TV in HD.  "We are very excited about being carried in HD on TDS cable on channel 1012 (SD is on channel 12).    Westby notes that even though Charter Spectrum viewers cannot view WSTO TV in HD, they can now switch over to one of the OTT channels like Roku, to see local programming like city meetings and high school sports in HD.    "These apps also allow for video-on-demand viewing, which makes it so much easier to watch our programming and most importantly, boosts the transparency of Stoughton city government.  We will be making available the last several months-worth of meeting coverage as well as adding new shows all the time to these apps."

Many other WCM member media centers also use commercial streaming services to distribute their local programming in HD.  For example, Marshfield Broadcasting, Rice Lake Television,  Columbus Cable and Wausau Area Access Media (WAAM) are all on Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire.   To find Columbus Cable and WAAM, go to the Cablecast TV Channel on these apps.  WSCS Sheboygan and Madison City Channel are on Roku and Apple TV.

Luckily, Stoughton had an old modulator tucked away and WSTO was back on the air the same day

By Derek Westby, Senior Network Administrator, City of Stoughton

In March of this year a Stoughton WSTO TV staffer walked into the studio and was alarmed to see that the decades-old analog modulator had stopped working.  For those of you not familiar with how local PEG (public education, and government) programming gets onto a video service provider’s cable system, just know that if this equipment breaks, the local PEG channel is off the air. For those of you who manage PEG media centers, you well know this was catastrophically bad news because these extremely antiquated devices are the only way we can provide a signal to Charter Spectrum (Charter).  And you can’t buy them anymore.

Just how obsolete are these modulators?  Consider this.  WSTO uses a full HD digital broadcast server to store and output the programming it produces.  In order to be compatible with Charter’s method of carrying the PEG channel, however, the City of Stoughton had to purchase a server with a special output that reduces the quality of the video signal by converting the digital HD signal to an analog SD signal acceptable to the antiquated analog modulator that was discontinued at least decade ago but Charter insists we must continue to use. 

On that scary day, once the WSTO staffer noticed that the signal was no longer outputting from the modulator it was all hands on deck.  We began a search of our shelves to find the city’s final backup modulator to get the channel back on the air.  Within a short time we had found it, connected it up and we were back on the air! 

The City of Stoughton was lucky to have had a spare.  It had once been needed to go live from another city building, but with digital upgrades completed by the city several years back, it was no longer needed.  A digital network is in place that uses higher quality RTMP streaming to carry the signal back to the WSTO studio. 

So although this was a short-lived outage, it could have ended disastrously.  If either of the modulators for the City of Stoughton’s two PEG channels go off the air again, we do not have another spare and we can’t purchase one because this product is no longer sold. 

WSTO started working with Charter to identify how to upgrade the equipment to modern encoders similar to what TDS is already using to carry PEG channels in HD and the company quoted me a price of just over $10,000.  I did some comparison shopping and found that another brand with the same specifications could be purchased for just over $4,000.  But Charter does not want to use that brand.

But the price of the new equipment is not the only stumbling block.  Several cities have been waiting well over a year for Charter to install the equipment they have agreed to purchase and Charter keeps pushing delivery back. 

This spring the reason became clear when one media center was told by Charter that if it wanted its programs carried in HD, it would need to pay for transmission and quoted the city $780 per month or nearly $10,000 per year.  Never mind that state law requires video service providers to transmit PEG programming at no cost to cities.  But apparently Charter is only willing to do that if cities continue using obsolete analog modulators that will soon break, forcing PEG channels off its systems.