Susquehanna Communications

York Community Access Television (YCAT) was a Public-access television cable TV station in York, Pennsylvania.

The current cable system in the City of York began operations soon after the city and York Cable Co. reached agreement on the city’s first cable television franchise in 1964. The York Cable Co. later became Cable TV of York, then was known as Susquehanna Communications or Suscom. The company is now owned by Comcast Cable company.

Cable television systems were developed in the 1960s with little government oversight or regulation. Companies wanting to expand their services had to use the public right-of-way to string their cables into a community. The City of York was among the first communities both in the Commonwealth and the United States to grant a franchise for operation and development of a cable television system. That agreement stipulated general standards for customer service by the cable television company. The York City Council approved that agreement by ordinance in 1964 — two years before the Federal Communications Commission established rules for all cable television systems.

The City of York renewed the agreement in 1974 with little change. That year, York Community Access Television (YCAT) was founded, establishing the second community access television station within the United States and giving York residents their first opportunity to make television. (The first cable access television station had begun in New York City.)

YCAT began with limited broadcast time on a channel shared with other programming. A third renewal occurred in 1984 which included the first and, until the latest effort, the only review of the cable television service and operations within the City of York.

That study and report recommended a dedicated public access channel, specific channels geared toward serving Spanish-speaking residents, channels geared toward actions of Congress and efforts at interactive television. Those changes led to many improvements in cable service, including addition of C-SPAN, an addition of a Spanish channel, and limited mandatory hours of community access programming. The City of York remains the only municipality in York County that mandates within its franchise agreement community access and other local origination programming. Springettsbury Township, however, has recently mandated governmental access within its franchise agreement.

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