Losing network stations

In December 2008 I wrote a Letter-to-the-Editor expressing my concern for then new NBC affiliate TV-station, WMBF, being blocked on the Time Warner Cable System in Georgetown County.

In response, I received many accolades and support for my effort.

Since that first letter-to-the-editor, I have contacted all the local state and federal legislators, written to the Chairman, CEOs of the Myrtle Beach TV stations, the Media Companies (Media General & Raycom Media), Time Warner Cable Company as well as the local representatives and the Head of Nielsen Company who defines the Designated Market Area (DMA) that determines what network TV stations are allowed carriage in our area.

 I have also made numerous telephones calls and spoken to many of these individuals personally.

 I have pleaded more than once to The Sun News to do a feature, in-depth investigative report on the issue – but to no avail.  I even got a personal meeting with Mignon Clyburn, one of five FCC Commissioners, thanks to support from Vida Miller, our local SC House Representative for District 108.  

The issue is very simple, the Nielsen Company determines the DMA. The Network affiliate contracts are written such that only one affiliate station per network is permitted carriage (broadcast) in a given DMA.

  That is to say, because Georgetown County is in the Charleston DMA, we are only permitted – by affiliate contract – to receive our network station broadcasts from Charleston (75 miles away) rather than Myrtle Beach (25 miles away) because the Myrtle Beach stations are in the Myrtle Beach/Florence DMA.

EVERYONE agrees that Georgetown County belongs in the Myrtle Beach/Florence DMA.

In fact, even a Nielsen Vice President suggested that change!

But to date, NOBODY has been able to make that happen … and Nielsen is unwilling to make that change themselves.

Moreover, much to my surprise and frustration, nobody – even the FCC – has any influence or power to convince Nielsen to make that change.

So I appeal to you, the citizens of Georgetown County, without your collective and unanimous outcry to this injustice, the situation is only going to get worse.

 I can assure you, the three network stations (WPDE, WBTW and WFXB) that we currently receive from Myrtle Beach are temporary at best.

They too will be eliminated from our Time Warner Cable System in Georgetown County.  It’s not “if,” only “when.”

I can assure you, in the future, we will only get the local news, weather and sports from Charleston.

More important, we will not receive the emergency hurricane or police emergency information from the stations that represent our area, our community of interest.

The Charleston TV stations have proven time and time again, they do not, can not and/or choose not to, service our area with the information we want, need and deserve.

The future of TV broadcast in Georgetown County is in your hands.

I am out of ideas as to whom else to appeal for help.  I can do no more.

Peter Eisenberg

Pawleys Island

Bauer remarks

In a recent speech, Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, argued against the free and reduced-price lunch programs that are given to 58% of the students in South Carolina Schools.

He equated this practice with feeding stray animals.

The problem is “Because they breed.  You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply.  They will reproduce….”

Like the villain of a Charles Dickens novel, Bauer said:  No improvement in test scores, no lunch.  He even argued that free lunches are the very cause of poor school performance.

 I consider Bauer’s remarks to be obscene, contrary to research findings, un-American, and un-Christian.

On scientific grounds, educational research has established a hierarchy of needs:  Human beings do not strive for excellence in educational achievement if they are hungry or undernourished.

My advisor in graduate school was a lead researcher for early Head Start programs.

He found that teaching didn’t work unless basic needs like nutrition and safety were taken care of first.

On moral grounds, America was founded on the principle that all human beings are of equal worth.  

We are a land of level playing fields.

It is not the fault of children that they are born into poverty, that they are ill-fed and have little health care; that they lack books, magazines, and scholarly role models; that they lack experience with Standard English, that — as things stand — they simply can't compete.   

On practical and economic grounds, throwing poor children to the dogs is downright stupid.   

This insures more taxpayer money will be spent later on law enforcement, prisons, mental health, emergency room visits, and drug rehabilitation.

It means a vast loss of human resources and an inability to compete with other nations that have eliminated poverty using the very programs that Andre Bauer rejects.

Children trapped in poverty will not do better in school when we threaten to not feed them.  Many have low IQs because their mothers, while pregnant, had inadequate diets, little prenatal care, and intense stress.

By the fourth grade even the brightest of these kids have given up and fallen into learned helplessness.

Educating South Carolina’s poor requires an enormous amount of resources, patience, and expertise.  

Initial results are often disappointing.  Many programs fail.  So what do we do?  Cut funds?  Give up and call these kids lazy?

 If our nation can put a man on the moon, it can end poverty.  We have always been can-do people.  It’s all a matter of how hard we are willing to try.

On religious grounds, most of the citizens of South Carolina are Christian.

 The single thing that has made Christianity unique among the religious of the world is its emphasis on compassion for unfortunate people; its insistence that the lowliest person is of infinite importance to God; its role model of Jesus, who devoted his life to the special needs of the poor – feeding them, healing them, socializing with them, washing their feet, blessing them, and never judging them.

Early Christians shared everything they had with the poor.

Ronald Reagan created the myth of the welfare queen.

It was a lie that led our nation away from the better angels of our nature.

We can do better.  Poor people are no lazier than rich people.  They are trapped in a vicious cycle.  

If it weren’t for pure luck and fortunate birth, we would be where they are.

Larry Gates

Pawleys Island

Global warming draws heat

Global warming believers took a hit this week with the acknowledgement (and retraction) by the IPCC (the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that a section in its latest 2007 Assessment  Report  (AR4) stating (with a 90% probability) the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 due to global warming was copied from an article in the World Wildlife Fund magazine (no kidding: the IPCC gets its science from environmental magazine articles.)

Turns out the “Report” was made up by a scientist trying to influence public policy (and get grants to study glacier melt) and the scientist in question  worked for a company owned by the chairman of the IPCC which received  “the lion's share of a £2.5m EU ($3.5m) grant” on global warming.

A NASA Web page, which moved the year up to 2030, has also since been retracted.

 Try www.timesonline.co.uk  or Google “Himalayan glacier IPCC” for more information.

Philip Holberton

Litchfield