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Council renews Comcast cable franchise; updates PEG fee to track gross revenue
Summary
Boulder renewed a 10-year cable franchise with Comcast and modified how Public, Education and Government (PEG) fees are calculated, shifting the fee from a per-subscriber charge to a percentage of Comcast's cable gross revenue to stabilize revenue for local government channel funding.
Boulder City Council voted Feb. 6 to renew the city's cable franchise with Comcast of Colorado IX LLC for a 10-year term running March 1, 2025, through Feb. 29, 2035, and to update how PEG fees are calculated for publicly supported cable channels.
The renewal preserves standard customer-service and technical obligations allowed by federal law and keeps the maximum franchise fee at 5% of gross cable revenues. City staff said Boulder received $865,000 in franchise-fee revenue in 2023 under the existing agreement.
The notable change in the renewed agreement moves the PEG fee away from a per-subscriber flat charge to a fee tied to cable gross revenue (0.48% of Comcasts cable gross revenue), a modification city staff said is aimed at stabilizing capital funding for Boulder Channel 8 and the education channel as traditional cable subscription counts decline.
"We're talking about multiple channels of video content through a cable network using public right of way," Carl Castillo, the city's chief policy adviser, said in his presentation. Castillo told council the city negotiated language used by other Colorado jurisdictions and worked with legal counsel to preserve consumer protections while modernizing fee calculations.
Andy Davis, Comcast's director of regulatory and government affairs, confirmed in the hearing that the company will restore disturbed rights-of-way and comply with permitting and inspection requirements. Planning staff and Comcast representatives told council the company will follow city permitting and restoration requirements and that the PEG fee change would have produced higher PEG revenue in 2023.
City staff noted that the shift to a revenue-tied PEG fee would have yielded about $80,000 for PEG capital in 2023 compared with about $50,000 under the flat-subscriber approach. The council adopted Ordinance 86 81 on second reading by roll-call vote.
Ordinance and vote: Council adopted Ordinance 86 81 renewing the cable franchise agreement with Comcast for March 1, 2025Feb. 29, 2035. Motion to adopt was made by Councilmember Nicole Speer; second not specified in the record. Roll-call vote recorded adoption as unanimous.
