Towns Take Different Approaches To Government TV

by Tim Wood

            Seated in front of a bank of television monitors in a basement room at the Chatham Town Offices, Danni Krash manipulates a joystick that controls a ceiling-mounted camera in the adjacent meeting room.  He jabs a button that switches the master shot to a different camera, all the while calling out instructions to his assistant, Bill Darmon.

            “OK, lose the date,” Krash says as Darmon, sitting at a nearby computer, hits a few keystrokes that fades out the date displayed beneath the picture.  “Let’s get ready with Riley.”  He hits the console button again and the shot switches to another camera showing a local attorney beginning a presentation to the zoning board of appeals.

            Cut to a similar scene, several miles away, as Harwich High School students crowd around a similar console in a room at the community center preparing for their weekly newscast.  Channel 18 Station Manager Jill Mason oversees several students seated in front of the monitors, VCRs and audio and video mixers, dispensing tips and asking questions to see how prepared they are for the show.  Kids come and go, working participation in the school’s TV club with other activities.

            “Sometimes we’re stretched thin,” said senior Patrick Blute, who also does a cooking show on Channel 18.  “It gets kind of hectic around here when that happens.”

            Two towns, two different approaches to government cable access television.

            Under each town’s contract with ComCast, the cable company is required to provide a government access channel which only subscribers in that town can receive.  Money that covers the cost of government access operations in both communities also comes from ComCast, funded through a small fee levied on each subscriber’s monthly bill. 

            How the channels operate is left up to each town, which must decide the extent to which the service will be utilized and what sort of programming will be shown.  Some towns simply run a bulletin board of events; others provide hours of original programs.

            Chatham and Harwich both fully utilize government access resources, but in very different ways.  While Chatham is strictly a government channel, Harwich works more like a community access outlet.  Both approaches have their strengths and drawbacks and both serve the community in different ways.

            “Some towns [use government access] as a local CSPAN,” Mason said.  “We do a lot more product work than just meetings.”

            “If someone wants to do a cooking show or a show for the elderly, there are plenty of other venues for it,” Krash said, noting that the Cape Cod Community Media Center, which runs Channel 17, provides a regional access service. Chatham High School also has its own access channel, Channel 22.

            What the two have in common is community events bulletins which run between programs, and the regular broadcast of meetings of government bodies.  Harwich’s meeting schedule is limited to the board of selectmen, planning board and recently added school committee, along with town meeting.  Only town meetings are shown live, however, because currently the ComCast “live drop,” as it is called, is at the high school.

            “We’re working on upgrading so we can go live at town hall, too,” Mason said during a recent interview in her office at the community center.  Other meetings are usually shown twice a week.

            In Chatham, the meetings of six boards are shown live from the town offices: selectmen, planning board, zoning board of appeals, historic business district commission, waterways committee and the comprehensive wastewater management plan citizens advisory committee.  Town meeting is taped using a mobile studio and shown later, though often the same evening or next morning, Krash said.

            Beyond the details, the two departments operate with different philosophies.  Krash, who has a  background in the video, music and television industries, works to make the presentation as professional looking as possible despite limited resources.  He also covers various town events, from First Night to the Fourth of July parade, which show in rotation between meetings.  Viewers see Krash’s background in music videos show through his use of graphics, cutting and even the music he chooses to play over each meeting’s “roll in” and “roll out.”

            He also worked to raise the quality of both the picture and sound.  Before selectmen’s meetings were broadcast on a regular basis, board members had reservations about being on TV, based on what they’d seen on other government access channels.  Garbled sound and washed out visuals would not advance the board’s goal of make their meetings more accessible.

            Krash agreed, and he personally tweaked the equipment to boost the signal, forcing the inexpensive security cameras to produce a picture that  looks better than many high-end video cameras.  Everything is controlled by computers, and programs are transferred to DVD, copies of which are available at the Eldredge Library.  For less than $30,000, he got the studio up and running with a quality that pleased town officials.

            “My philosophy is, if you give me a dollar, I’ll give you $10 on the screen,” Krash said.  “If you do something like this, you need to make it watchable and listenable.  Most government channels don’t do that. They’re unwatchable with a lousy picture.  That’s not providing a service to the community.”

            That approach has made the programs more compelling, he argued, and helps keep the attention of viewers.  “People on the screen develop characters.”

            Harwich’s channel has its origins way back in 1993, when Mason started the TV club at the high school.  This was all new to Cape towns back then. “I don’t think all of the towns realized they had the opportunity to access the channels,” she said. She became a town employee in 1999, working out of the high school until moving across the street to the community center, where the channel has a studio, control room and office.  At first, she used much of her own equipment, including a Commodore computer that still hosts the channel’s calendar.  When the town began taking advantage of the access fee allowed under the cable contract, she was able to outfit a studio and expand the programs, but as in Chatham, officials were at first reluctant to see their faces on the small screen.

            “At first they didn’t want to put town meeting on the air, they didn’t want to put the selectmen on the air,” she said.  “When they realized the power of it, they said this is a good thing.”

            That extends beyond just showing meetings, which she acknowledges are “pretty boring.” She also produces informational shows, such as recent presentations on the proposal for a new police station and a property tax information.  Members of the council on aging host a weekly “Community Journal” program, “Harwich Then” looks at the town’s history, and “Profiles” highlights notable folks in town.  The high school news program also remains one of the channels most popular offerings.

            “People have really gotten used to watching it,” Mason said of the channel.  “Far more people in town watch it than don’t.”

            Mason has also served as a mentor for residents like Betty Pina, who volunteers on the crew and has worked on the COA program since 1996. 

            “This may sound corny, but we’re a bit like a family here,” Pina said.  She credits Mason with being the “cement” that holds the operation together, along with providing the inspiration that helps make the programs so watchable.

            “If you are an interested town resident, this channel is very vibrant,” said Pina.

            Mason, the channel’s only paid employee, runs the operation on a budget of about $70,000 per year, and hopes to get additional funding so that meetings held at the town hall can be shown live.

            Chatham’s government channel works under the auspices of the town’s information technologies department, with a budget of about $150,000, including $30,000 in capital expenditures.  Krash and the recently hired Darmon both work fulltime.

            With the additional staff, Krash hopes to expand coverage, but it won’t include what he considers “vanity programs” like those found on cable access television.  “We have enough programs, enough live shows, there would be no time, unless they want to hire a bigger staff,” he said.

            Both communities now provide live streaming of the channels via the town websites, and Chatham programs are archives so they are available for viewing on demand.  That makes the programs available beyond the borders of the town, a welcome development for summer residents.

            “I’ve had people call me and say, ‘I’m in Germany and I’m watching this,’” Krash commented.

            “I want to give the people of Chatham a channel they can really be proud of, more than just a standard government channel. We’re constantly raising the bar here,” said Krash.

3/1/07