ADRIAN — The city of Adrian filed a complaint Sept. 20 with the Michigan Public Service Commission against cable provider Comcast, city officials said.

City administrator Dane Nelson said the city is asking Comcast to pay its franchise fee — which is 5 percent of its fee from subscribers — and an appropriate fee for the public, education and government access channel. The city is also asking for Comcast to pay all appropriate fines, penalties, costs and attorney fees associated with the case.

 Read full article: 'City files complaint against Comcast' (277 more words)

Comments? | Print this story | E-mail this to a friend | IRC Chat about this

Detroit Public Radio WDET-FM (101.9) has chosen Tim Hygh as its new station manager, according to interim general manager Allen Mazurek.

 Read full article: 'WDET-FM names new station manager' (174 more words)

Comments? | Print this story | E-mail this to a friend | IRC Chat about this

The Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy (GRIID) has just completed a 6-month study of all news stories in the Grand Rapids Press that deal with Latin America. The study found that the Press used almost exclusively Associated Press (AP) stories and most of the AP stories used by the GR Press had portions of the original stories omitted.

 Read full article: 'New Study on Press Coverage of Latin America' (193 more words)

Comments? | Print this story | E-mail this to a friend | IRC Chat about this

WASHINGTON -- WNMU-TV, Northern Michigan University's Public Broadcasting Service affiliate, has received a grant of $1,004,083 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to complete the television station's transition to digital television. U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, heralded the grant, saying it would allow WNMU-TV to improve broadcasting services for much of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

 Read full article: 'WNMU-TV receives grant to complete conversion to digital broadcasting' (130 more words)

Comments? | Print this story | E-mail this to a friend | IRC Chat about this

LANSING — A dispute between the city of Detroit and Comcast Corp. is driving legislation that would strengthen cities' ability to require certain fees from providers of cable TV and similar video services.

At issue in Detroit and in Senate and House bills is a fee to support public, education and government, or PEG, access channels. Michigan's December 2006 video-franchise law provided for PEG fees of up to 2 percent of gross revenue and a separate annual franchise fee of up to 5 percent of revenue, as part of a new franchising system for telecommunications companies like AT&T Inc. and cable providers like Comcast.

But the way the law is written allows companies with franchise agreements existing at the law's January inception to avoid, in new agreements that they sign, paying the 2 percent PEG fee if they weren't paying it previously. That's become an issue in Detroit where Comcast, which previously paid no Detroit PEG fee, balked when the city tried to assess the 2 percent fee in its new agreement.

 Read full article: 'Detroit, Comcast spar over fee' (412 more words)

Comments? | Print this story | E-mail this to a friend | IRC Chat about this