Unpublished Letter to Scranton Times

This letter was submitted to the Scranton Times by Karen Bazzarri, Scranton Today President, on June 26th, 2008. It remains unpublished.

Editor,
I would like to correct the misstatements made related to STTV:

STTV presented an analysis with our RFP confirming 38% of our programming was educational, 34% public and 28% governmental--the PERFECT mix required for a PEG channel. It also included a 5 page inventory of all these programs, which included world renown authors like David McCullough and world famous speakers like Hans Blitz and Christiane Amanpour.

Further STTV surveyed and received responses from a number of PEG channels across the country to determine an average number of weekly replays of government programming. The range spanned from once to 11 times a week, with the majority being 5 replays per week. Again STTV was EXACTLY on average with other PEG channels. Yet, if any government entity submitted a request to STTV to reduce the number of replays we would have complied. They had not.

STTV has explained on numerous occasions that our ability to vary programs was an equipment constraint.......which we were working to remedy by purchasing an $18,000 piece of equipment, but City Council continued to refuse our minimal funding request of $20,000. Coincidentally this is the SAME piece of equipment ECTV plans to
purchase.

Our complete RFP remains available on our website at www.scrantontoday.org.

Finally - Scranton Today has NOT run out of tomorrows. Although we are no longer managing the station, we are actively pursuing other avenues of community service.

Respectfully,
Karen Bazzarri
President, STTV.