For the first time ever, Lexington is using taxpayer dollars to keep LexMedia on the air, after years of cord-cutting drained the cable fees that have funded the community station for decades.

The town committed $100,000 in FY2025 and $200,000 in FY2026 from its general fund — a brand-new budget line for a nonprofit that's historically run entirely on franchise fees paid by Comcast, Verizon and Astound.

Why the old funding model stopped working.

LexMedia's most recent tax filing showed $654,000 in revenue against $692,000 in expenses — a $38,000 gap that mirrors a statewide trend. Massachusetts community access stations have seen income drop 20% over the past decade as cable subscriptions statewide fell 48% since 2013. The problem: franchise fees, which make up about 90% of a typical station's budget, only apply to cable revenue — not streaming.

"The infrastructure is still the same. Comcast and Verizon use the exact same infrastructure for both cable and streaming services," said David Gauthier, executive director of Winchester's community access station, WinCAM. "But [community access stations do] not receive any income from the streaming side."

It could get worse before it gets better.

The FCC is pursuing elimination of franchise fee regulations altogether. Two Massachusetts bills would push back by expanding fee calculations to include streaming revenue, and had around 80 cosponsors as of May — but no vote is scheduled on either yet.

What LexMedia actually does for the town.

The station runs three channels covering public access, education and government, broadcasting gavel-to-gavel Town Meeting coverage, hyperlocal news and Patriots' Day programming. Residents can watch on Comcast channels 8, 9 and 99, or stream at LexMedia.org.