News Update on Community Media State Funding

Good news out of Massachusetts this past week – S 41, the bill to modernize funding for community media channels and centers, passed favorably in our committee in the Senate.  

According to Mike Wassenaar, President of the Alliance for Community Media, the bill establishes a board to set fees for streaming services to pay to support community media centers in the State and lays out a schedule for fee distribution.  The companion bill in the House – H 106 – is yet to be approved in committee. Great work by all the MA organizations that have been pushing for this important bill!

Digging deeper, Charles Douglas (NCTV Station Manager) asked David Gauthier, President of MassAccess, for his comments. In summary:

An Act to Modernize Funding for Community Media (now renumbered as S.2556), which had its hearing on July 10 with the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity, has been reported favorably by committee! It now heads to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, and we are further awaiting a referral out of the companion legislation in the House.

We are confident that legislators understand that we need to update the law in order to keep pace with updates in technology in order to preserve the important work of community media in the Commonwealth, and we encourage our members to keep writing to State Senator Cyr & Representative Moakley (whom are both co-sponsors) to keep pushing this legislation through to a final floor vote in both chambers.

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Big thank you to the Nantucket Community for having our backs on this!