Verizon has arrived, but without local public access channels

July 25, 2008
by Christine Yeres

After recently winning the New York State Public Service Commision’s approval to offer Verizon television service in New Castle, Verizon has begun marketing its product in Chappaqua and Millwood under red tents with free gas cards as a signing bonus. In her supervisor’s report last Tuesday, Town Supervisor Barbara Gerrard cautioned residents about some differences they might want to keep in mind between the Cablevision service, long the only game in town, and the new Verizon service.

The new cable provider in town has not yet found a way to provide public, education and government channels, which include, respectively, NCCTV’s channels 75, 77 and 78. However, NCCTV’s award-winning web site, http://www.ncctv.org/, does provide an alternative way to view many government meetings and video productions presented on those three channels through its “video-on-demand” program.
News Channel 12 will not appear in the Verizon channel lineup, since it is a production of Cablevision. Likewise, Madison Square Garden channel (MSG) is owned by Cablevision, so it isn’t part of the Verizon package. And because of an exclusive contract with Cablevision in the New York area, MSNBC is unavailable as well.