Somerville City Cable BOA Broadcasting Facilities Update - Responding to Board Order #203944 — File 204136

TO: Honorable Members of the Board of Aldermen FROM: Denise Taylor, Director of Communications and Community Engagement DATE: August 24, 2017 RE: Somerville City Cable BOA Broadcasting Facilities Update – Responding to Board Order #203994 As requested, this update is to provide you with information pertaining to technical difficulties involving the live broadcast of Board of Aldermen meetings from the Chambers and efforts to address their cause. As you are aware, we have occasionally encountered technical difficulties with the live broadcast from the chambers. The cause for these issues has varied, and in each instance, every measure has been taken first to rapidly address the immediate issue as well as to review and evaluate the incident afterward and make every effort to prevent a reoccurrence or an issue of similar nature. The City Cable Television team and I consider the live broadcasts from the chambers to be our top production priority above all other produced programming, and I want to be clear that we take any technical difficulties with the livestreaming and recording of Chamber proceedings very seriously and make every effort to provide the best possible service. The nature of maintaining sensitive and somewhat delicate electronic equipment as well as keeping it up to date and compatible with changing broadcast standards and technology, requires constant vigilance and I assure you that vigilance is what this team offers. This, however, does not guarantee that no technical difficulties will arise. What it does mean is that we do everything we can to first prevent, and then to quickly address any issues. We do this in a number of ways: Prevention – Repairs, maintenance & upgrades: To maintain reliability and quality, we keep equipment repaired, maintained, and updated. This includes everything from ongoing spot repairs (such as a microphone replacement) to our complete overhaul of the BOA control room and broadcasting equipment in FY16/17. The control room upgrade involved updating not just the control equipment, but all of our fiber connections, our software systems, and conversion of our entire system to HD. During the FY18 summer break, we also completely replaced the back-end audio system, and new microphones (which are on back order) will be installed once they arrive this fall. Upgrades can however first cause initial errors. During the HD transition, for example, we experienced difficulties a number of times as staff learned the system and as the inevitable technical hiccups that arise from such an extensive conversion were worked out. We make every effort to test new systems repeatedly and train staff appropriately before use, but some technical difficulties do not always arise during testing and unfortunately have occurred during broadcast. For example, recently an HD converter that is less than a year old (and should have lasted for a number of years) failed just before a broadcast. This type of failure is unavoidable—and unpredictable. Even professional stations with far greater resources sometime experience such issues.

Frequent scheduled testing: To reduce the impact of such “surprise” issues, we have a system testing schedule in place that is designed to allow us more opportunity to catch issues in advance of live broadcast hours. • All systems are checked by in-house staff three times before use: o three days out, o early on the day of (between 8:30 a.m. and noon), o 1 hour prior to broadcast. • The freelance control room operator arrives to set up all systems 1 hour in advance as well to ensure sufficient time to discover any issues. (Last fall, this was changed from 30 minutes to 1 hour to provide more time.) This has caught some difficulties with enough advance to allow them to be addressed before broadcast. However, occasionally, just as with a car repair, we are able to identify needs in advance but need to wait for parts or outside service and are unable to make the repair before it has an impact. As noted, we do everything we can to prevent this, but in some cases, it’s unavoidable. On-call technical consultants: We maintain a contract with an exceptionally qualified vendor to assist in all repairs in a timely manner. We are in discussions with the vendor to ensure we are given priority for emergency repairs. If there is any concern that a technical difficulty could occur during broadcast (such as if we made a repair that day), we request that our vendor also be on hand or available during broadcast hours to provide immediate assistance. Recently, we discovered a technical difficulty during our early morning check, but the tech consultant was not able to arrive to make the repair until 6 p.m. causing the first half-hour of live streaming to be interrupted. To avoid this happening again, in addition to requesting an agreement for priority service from our main vendor, we are looking to set up a second agreement with a backup consultant for time- sensitive repairs. Staff reporting, training and oversight: We are fortunate to have dedicated and reliable in-house and freelance staff, all who have been with the department for a number of years. To ensure they are skilled in all procedures and that protocols are clear: • We have intensified training when new equipment is upgraded.

• Last fall, all procedures were written down and a check-list was created for control room operators to follow and refer to. Updates are made as necessary. • In-house staff are always available during broadcasts by phone and, if needed, Skype, to remotely assist control room operators with any issues. • When new equipment has been installed, for the first taping immediately afterward, an in- house staff person assists with the freelancer’s first live use of the system (as will happen on 8/24, for example, due to the audio upgrade). • All freelancers are trained to report any issues encountered with equipment to staff so that they can be addressed. Many issues do not rise to a level that others will notice or that will interrupt broadcast, but they still need to be addressed. Ensuring responsiveness to feedback: We welcome all feedback and aim to address all issues as swiftly and effectively as possible. We especially thank the Board for sharing any requests or concerns with our team.