New Public Access Cable Channel Will Feature Live Coverage of Local Government Meetings; Launch of Channel 98 Expected in June

At last night’s Big Bear Lake City Council meeting, City Manager Jeff Mathieu announced, “We’re stepping into the 21st century!” This will be achieved when, come June 1st, there will be a new, Big Bear-specific television station on Charter’s cable channel 98. The new Public, Educational and Government access, or PEG, channel will feature live coverage of public meetings conducted in the Big Bear Lake Civic Center’s Hofert Hall. As the city’s Information Technology Manager Ken Watts tells it, “What this means to the public is that they’ll be able to watch City Council meetings, Planning Commission meetings, and any other meetings in Hofert Hall.” Technology upgrades to the city’s existing system will be implemented using a franchise fee payment of 1% of gross revenues by Charter Communications; city staff anticipates that the implementation of new, digital broadcast equipment will cost just under $64,000, with a recurring annual maintenance cost of $8,000. Once channel 98 is established for our community, public meetings once aired on channel 6 will migrate to the new PEG, which will also feature public service announcements and the possibility of external content provided by the Steven G. Mihaylo Foundation, San Bernardino Valley College and Cal State University San Bernardino. For those households without basic cable, the City of Big Bear Lake also plans to implement live, streaming video of the channel 98 content on the city’s website, CityBigBearLake.com. Once implemented, City Manager Mathieu added, “Ultimately we could pick up football games, volleyball games, and other activities that unify this community—and, again, public participation will be real big.”