PCTV Gets Closed Captioning on Cable After Issuing Complaint

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
11:11AM / Monday, November 06, 2023Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — After some advocacy from local and federal entities, Pittsfield Community Television has added closed captioning for cable viewers.

The organization implemented closed captioning for certain programs about a year ago but came to a roadblock when the captioning was coming through on streaming but not through cable boxes. It was restored after a complaint reached the hands of the Federal Communications Commission.

Members of the Cable Advisory Committee agreed that this is a "great thing" as it provides better access to people who are hard of hearing and people who prefer to have the sound off.

PCTV's Executive Director Shawn Serre explained that the captions, which only showed up on streamed programming, have been active since December 2022.

In January, the Commission on Disabilities provided $1,850 of its parking violation funds to support 500 hours of closed captioning when Serre communicated the issue. The panel agreed to draft a letter to Charter Spectrum and with help from the Alliance for Community Media a complaint was sent.

It was mailed by the commission in July and Serre did not hear much back until a couple of weeks ago when he realized there was some back-and-forth communication between the FCC and Spectrum.

"So someone in one of their departments, whether it was their legal department or their technical department or both, was now aware that there was a problem and in the last two weeks, we've had some developments," he said.

The cable company's technicians began to contact PCTV to give assistance and on Thursday, the same day as the cable committee's meeting, Serre was notified that the problem was fixed.

He said the documents between Spectrum and the FCC showed that Spectrum seemed to push back on the issue until it couldn't anymore. He speculated that it was possibly more of a corporate decision than a technical issue, though he doesn't know for a fact.

"Now we finally can see closed captioning on the programs of PCTV and again, not all programs are captioned so if someone is turning on their caption setting on their cable box and they see nothing, that might be normal because not all programs are captioned," Serre explained.

"As I mentioned, we're trying to prioritize the most important governmental and educational programs that we can. Maybe if we can get more funding in the future, we'll be able to capture even more of the programming but it does come down to the fact that there is a lot of programming on PCTV, a lot of original programming, and that does have a cost per minute of getting captions on here so it's our intent to do more but right now we're trying to get to the most important ones."

He explained that the closed captioning service uses AI to translate the speech and is a smart system that can have vocabulary added to it.

"Closed captioning has been around for 30 or 35 years, maybe more but it was always very expensive because it required our live person sitting there, listening to the meeting, and typing along to it and that's just not necessary anymore," he added.

Sara Hathaway said this is a big victory for the Commission of Disabilities and that this service is also for everyone.

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Lanesborough Looks to Dissolve Baker Hill Road District

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
06:00PM / Friday, November 13, 2026

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Select Board is looking to move forward with dissolving the Baker Hill Road District, which is hindering the Berkshire Mall sale.

On Friday, the Select Board heard from Vice Chair Juli Baker and Chair Deborah Maynard on how Tuesday negotiations went with Cypress Equities, JMJ Holdings, town counsel, the town administrator, and state Rep. John Barrett III.

Baker said that during Tuesday's meeting, everyone agreed the goal was to have a successful sale of the mall for redevelopment as it’s in the best interest of the town.

Baker said Barrett assured them the state is willing to take the Connector Road and that the state is willing to provide grants to the town to renovate the water and sewer infrastructure, with an estimated total of $4.5 million, to facilitate the property's redevelopment.

"We have received assurances from Representative Barrett that the Commonwealth will provide the monies and will take the Connector," Baker said.

While buyer Cypress Equities saw some benefit in keeping the district, it now doesn't since the state is willing to provide the funds and renovate the infrastructure, according to Baker.

Baker said that in the meeting, Cypress Equities prefers to enter into a tax increment financing (TIF) and will add to the agreement an amount of funding for public safety services, which would have come from the district. She said Cypress said it would rather enter into one agreement with the town than two agreements with the town and the district.

Mall owner JMJ Holdings is willing to pay $350,000 to the town upon closing, Baker said.

The meeting Friday was to consider moving forward with a dissolution of the district.

"But the decision that it hinges on tonight is whether to move forward to the dissolution of the Baker Hill Road District in some manner," she said.

Baker said she has worked long and hard to see if there was another alternative to this, working closely with the district which has been "very cooperative and very helpful" in making changes.

The district had agreed to make changes to its governance and taxation; agreeing to have a cap for Cypress as well as agreeing to work to have the state take over the road, sending letters of support.

"What changed this for me is that I've always said it's important to have the special district because we get the public safety funding, and it's also important for the economic district to bring the features that an economic district brings because of what we're up against with the infrastructure problems, and the change at this point is that we have a buyer who is willing to supply that public safety money and commit to it over time, along with the TIF that the town would do, which is essential," she said.

"At this point, I feel like it's in the best interest of the town and protects the town the best in terms of a future where we can develop a mall and bring that economic benefit in. You definitely need to reduce taxes, and you cannot do that without a fully developed retail operation right there. So it's been, you know, deeply difficult decision making," Baker said.

Board members Jason Breault and Jeffery Walters agreed it was the best decision to move forward.

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