MetRec board approves moving toward public survey over TV

Continuing with television service getting harder

By Mark Reaman

While acknowledging that the future of over-the-air television in the county could be in peril given economic and technological issues, the Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation District (MetRec) board of directors voted unanimously at its November 20 meeting to send out a comprehensive community survey early next year to take the temperature of the community about its feelings of TV. A survey mailer will likely be sent out in January and the board hopes to have results back and analyzed by the spring of 2025.

At an October 30 public hearing the board presented a bleak future for MetRec TV citing damage with translator sites, land leases for those sites and major issues with broadcast providers like Comcast. A large contingent of public feedback voiced strong support for continuing over-the-air television and the board has repeatedly said they support doing so and have invested heavily in TV operations, but as technology quickly changes, the cost of TV might put the district into a hole.

MetRec conducted public surveys in 2016 and 2020. Both showed that fewer than 400 people responded saying they used the television service. MetRec executive director Derrick Nehrenberg said given the nature of surveys, that was considered to be underrepresented.

“Between 2019 and through 2023, MetRec has spent $1.3 million on TV for operations and capital costs,” he said. “The major improvements have been for the system between Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte.” 

Nehrenberg said several issues recently became apparent that put TV into a different light. He said the Monarch translator site that delivers TV signals to five other translator sites took heavy damage in 2023. He reported that when it went down for approximately six weeks last summer, MetRec only received complaints from five unique individuals. He said Comcast informed MetRec they would have to soon use a fiber line to receive its stations instead of satellite but there has not been much more communication on that front. “We still aren’t getting any clear answers from them about the specification requirements and the terms of service,” he said. 

Add to that that the district lawyers are including some language in its lease renewal to deal with state law from the TABOR Amendment with the owners of Sunlight Ridge that both sides admit is problematic, and TV service was suddenly hitting multiple hurdles.

Given all that, he said a conscious decision was made to put out a blunt public notice indicating the board might consider discontinuing TV. Part of that strategy was to solicit public feedback — which it received at an October 30 public hearing.

“We heard clearly at that meeting that the community cares about TV,” Nehrenberg said. “It was a strong, loud and clear message. The problem is that there are still more questions than answers out there.”

He said under the MetRec operations plan, by entering phase one of the TV Translator operations policy, a community outreach process can be implemented. “The purpose of phase one is to send out a mailer to every address (in the district) and figure out what the numbers are and possibly do a survey.

“I would like to have the time to really make sure we put pen to paper, explore all the opportunities to continue TV and also understand what would be involved in discontinuing TV,” Nehrenberg continued. “We need to gather more information and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars in the process of figuring this out.”

Board member Earl Marshall, who is the longest serving member of the district’s two-person tech committee and is the board member most attuned to television issues, was impressed and influenced by the public feedback received in the last month. “Until October 30 I felt like nobody cared,” he said. “It was important to throw up that blunt notice as a red flag to get people involved. We are still trying to get the lay of the land and there’s a lot of conflicting information in the world about over-the-air television. There’s a little disarray in the region about how this service is delivered.”

He noted that over-the-air television enthusiasts should be paying attention to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the next several months with the new presidential administration. He warned there could be a move to charge fair market value for broadcast frequencies which he made clear MetRec could not afford.

As for the Comcast situation, he said information from the company is sparce but there are potential options on how to continue that service without a fiber line for a year or two. “However, I am convinced that a fiber line is mandatory if the district is going to continue offering TV in the long run beyond a year or two,” he said. “That has to be considered a mandatory cost.”

When asked about the Sunlight Ridge property lease in Mt. Crested Butte that allowed broadcast signals between CB South and Mt. CB, he said he had no further information on that particular situation. He did say his long-term vision was to have the board divest itself of ownership of the site facilities and the leases on private property. “The writing is on the wall about what the state’s TABOR Amendment is doing with these MetRec leases and why landowners don’t want to sign our version of the leases. I wouldn’t either,” he said. “I would look to become tenants of cell phone providers and their towers like we now have on Comstock Mountain. Divesting ownership doesn’t mean ceasing operations. It means finding a partner that is going to build a new cell tower that MetRec can be a tenant on.”

Marshall emphasized that given restrictions on different MetRec funding sources, a limited amount of tax revenue could be spent on TV. “If we are going to operate this TV system beyond a couple of years, we’re looking at deficit spending on the general fund,” he said. “We currently do have some general fund reserves but if we’re collecting the full one mill we’re allowed to by law for the TV system, that will not be enough to cover the capital investments needed no matter how we slice it over the next couple of years.”

Marshall laid out a gloomy future for over-the-air television and its technology indicating there was only so much time left in that realm. Given all that, he said the board would have to take a hard look at the remote translator sites and see how many people actually used them. “It seems at this point the board might be hard pressed to continue operating some of these remote sites and we will without a doubt need to focus our resources on the highest density communities. It is also important to weigh the users who truly have a deep need for this but might not be able to pay for television. I would expect a very tight budget for the district. We need more information to analyze this all.”

Marshall again said it was important for the public to understand the MetRec board has “continuously and unanimously” voted to fund TV like it would be operating the system for decades to come. He then moved that MetRec enter phase one of its operations plan in order to start the process of conducting a comprehensive county survey on its television usage and policies. 

The board unanimously approved that action and indicated given staff restrictions, budget timing and the end of the year holidays, such a survey would not likely go out to the community until January of 2025. The hope is to have survey results to discuss by the upcoming spring.

The next MetRec meeting is set for December 12 and it is expected to be focused on the budget.