The Mayor’s Office of Cable Communications was established in July of 1980 and given the task of researching and planning the development of Boston’s cable television and communication system. The idea of cable television for the City of Boston was first explored in 1973, but was abandoned because the City found that it would have to bear an unfair financial burden. Mayor Kevin White re-visited the cable issue in 1979 and it was decided that the City would move forward with a franchise system. The Office of Cable Communications was the sole office within the City government that dealt exclusively and specifically with the cable franchising process in Boston; and as such, the office served an important policy-making function as the principle advisor to the Mayor on the cable franchise issue. The Mayor had the exclusive power to award the cable franchise license.
The Office of Cable Communications, in its roles as head of cable development and advisor to the Mayor undertook the following activities:
Presently the Office of Cable Communications still handles all cable related business for the City. The Office is located in the Mayor’s cabinet under the Chief Information Officer. Its current roles and responsibilities include:
In addition to the above listed activities, the Office of Cable Communications, as it has done since the granting of the first cable license in December of 1982, holds an annual public hearing to review the past year’s performance of Boston’s cable franchisee(s).
This collection consists of the copies of records filed in the Office of the City Clerk by the Mayor’s Office of Cable Communications for public inspection pursuant to 207 CMR (Code of Massachusetts Regulations) 3.00. These records span the dates 1980 – 2003, with bulk dates of 1980 – 1984 and 1996 - 2003. Present within these records are proposals/applications, reports, correspondence, documents pertaining to public hearings, plans and maps, contracts, and cable licenses. There is also an application, dated January 19, 1981, by the City of Boston for a planning grant from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program.
Many companies and corporations originally applied for the single cable license for the City of Boston in the Fall of 1980. Represented here are Cablevision of Boston, The New York Times Company, Abetta Corp., American Cablevision of Boston, Times Mirror Cable Television of Boston, Tribune Cable of Boston, Boston Cablevision Services, Inc., Rollins Cablevision of Boston Inc., and Warner Amex Cable Communications. The Office of Cable Communications selected only Cablevision of Boston (Cablevision) and Warner Amex Cable Communications (Warner Amex) for further review after the first round of applications. Therefore, material from these two companies accounts for the majority of documents within this collection. Mayor Kevin White awarded the Final License to Cablevision of Boston in December of 1982. Hence, there is a greater amount of material from Cablevision than Warner Amex present in the majority of documents just mentioned.
A company by the name of Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation originally applied for the license that Cablevision of Boston was awarded. These two companies, if not the same company, are very closely related, i.e. Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation is one of the parent companies of Cablevision of Boston. Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation applied for the license in the Fall of 1980. On April 1, 1981 Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation, Charles F. Dolan, and Cablevision Systems Development Company entered into an agreement and formed Cablevision of Boston. In March of 1982 Mayor White awarded a Provisional Cable License to Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation. In December of 1982 Cablevision Systems Boston Corporation applied to, and was granted permission to transfer this Provisional Cable License to Cablevision of Boston. Later that same month Mayor White awarded the Final Cable License to Cablevision of Boston. Records within this collection document these agreements, transfers, and awards.
In 1996, a company by the name of Metrtopolitan Fiber Systems/McCourt, Inc. (MFS/M, Inc.) became involved in a dispute with Cablevision of Boston as to whether or not MFS/M, Inc. was providing an illegal cable service to parts of the City of Boston and the surrounding areas. Cablevision's complaint resulted in an extended back-and-forth of "Petitions" and "Replies," among other formal communications, between both companies and the Federal Communications Commission. Many of these documents were filed with the City Clerks office and are present in this collection in the Federal Communications Commission series.
All documents within this series were separated by company or creator and then ordered chronologically. Incoming and outgoing correspondence were interfiled in chronological order. Two letters, one from the Attorney General of the State of Ohio and the other from the Cable Communications Office of the City of Columbus, Ohio, were filed with the Warner Amex correspondence since both letters dealt with Warner Amex’s cable services.
One letter to Mayor Thomas Menino with regards to RCN-BecoCom's Amended Proposal to the City of Boston Issuing Authority Reports. The letter is the only document present, there are no copies of the Amended Proposal mentioned inthe letter.
The terms "Proposals" and "Applications" refer to the same type of document. The application process for the cable license involved not only a formal application but also a proposal outlining the system and stating how the applicant planned on meeting all the requirements in the Request for Proposal. Two terms are used here because some companies referred to their application packages as “applications” and others used the term “proposal.” While strictly speaking the two terms may have different definitions, here they refer to the same type of document. All documents have been separated by company name and the companies have been arranged alphabetically.
Since Cablevision and Warner Amex were the two companies chosen to move forward in the application process of 1980-1981, a Final/Amended Proposal appears for both in addition to the proposals originally submitted by each company. The date of the final proposal for Cablevision is April 22, 1981; the date of the Warner Amex's final proposal is April 23, 1981. The proposals from the City of Boston are for a federal grant from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program to help the city with the cost of planning the new cable system. There is also a copy of the original proposal dated January 19, 1981 as well as a copy of the request to reactivate the grant application dated May 7, 1982.
RCN-BecoCom, L.L.C. also filed an application for a cable television license in and for the City of Boston in 1997.
This series contains transcripts of hearings, procedural rules for hearings, public notices of hearings, as well as exhibits. There is also some correspondence present within this series. Separation by company was not possible with these documents since often times a single item dealt with more than one company. All documents pertaining to a certain hearing were kept together and the hearings have been ordered chronologically.
This series contains reports and papers about cable and its various uses within the City of Boston, demographic analysis, analysis of different cable proposals, and also the Issuing Authority Report (i.e. Request for Proposal) from 1981. Included with the Analysis of Cablevision's and Warner Amex's Final Applications/Proposals is the Malarkey Taylor Report, "Analysis of Cable Television License Proposals" from June 30, 1981. Separation by company was not an option within this series since many of the documents present did not deal with a specific company or dealt with more than one. In this series, reports of the same type (e.g. Site Visit Reports) have been filed together in chronological order; otherwise all reports were filed alphabetically.
This series contains documents which pertain only to the actual cable license and/or the transfer of that license, not the application process. All documents in this series have been filed in chronological order.
Between Cablevision of Boston, Inc. and the City of Boston.
Between Comcast of Boston, Inc. and the City of Boston.
This series contains contractual documents between Cablevision of Boston and The Boston Community Access and Programming Foundation, Inc. All documents in this series have been filed in chronological order.
This Series contains documents which have been either received from or submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Specific documents include those concerning Cablevision of Boston's (Cablevision) dispute with Metropolitan Fiber Systems/McCourt, Inc. (MFS/M, Inc.) over the legality of MFS/M, Inc.'s open video system. These documents span the dates 1996-1997. Also included are documents regarding the subsequent dispute between Cablevision and the City of Boston over whether or not Cablevision should be subject to rate regulation based on the amount and type of competition present in the Boston cable market. This dispute took place between 1997 and 1998. A number of documents also pertain to Residential Communications Network (RCN), their affiliates (including MFS/M, Inc.), and their dealings with the FCC concerning their open video systems. These documents span the dates 1997-1998.
This series contains miscellaneous documents that do not belong to any of the other series present. Items include advertising pamphlets, copies of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, and references for information for Boston’s cable system.
This series contains maps and plans depicting Cablevision of Boston’s work and progress on the City of Boston’s cable system. In addition there are maps of various zones within the City of Boston that show various stages of construction. These maps may or may not represent the work of Cablevision. They have been separated and filed according to the geographic location they depict. Additional maps/plans may also be found throughout other parts of this collection; they were left in their original locations in order to avoid breaking their context.