HCAM’s last Producer’s Meeting

Wednesday, October 21 was a big night at HCAM. It was the end of an era, and the dawn of another. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. (sorry).

As a community TV station, HCAM’s mission is to give voice to the residents and groups of Hopkinton. Over the past 6 years, I feel we have done pretty well. We have 31 Organizational Members, local groups who value HCAM enough to join us. We currently produce 27 original series, with more in pre-production. We produce a series that appears in over 1.8 million households (90% of the Massachusetts audience). Feedback from guests, visitors and local dignitaries is uniformly positive.

And of course, television production is inherently cool (for proof, visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios).

So what’s lacking? A unified community of HCAM volunteers. Everyone who takes the free training and becomes involved here has a lot of fun and provides a valuable community service, but what I have failed to do was give them opportunities to get to know each other. HCAM has been so focused on connecting our community that we have neglected the community of HCAM volunteers.

So I have set out to forge a vibrant access community here. I will be running meetings every other month for our crew-people to connect, share, and get updated on what’s happening. On the alternate months our Production Coordinator will host the “AV Club” where members can get advanced training, tips and techniques to improve their productions. I will also be dedicating time to keeping our members posted on current information on what’s happening in the world of access tv.

Lastly, I have redefined their title; our volunteers will no longer be called Producers, they will be called Crew, because that is the function we usually perform.  A producer is the idea person, which is a role, not a class. Every HCAM member may from time to time perform the role of producer on a show, at which time that’s what they will be called. The rest of us would be crew for that show.

And that is why tonight was the Last Producer’s Meeting. In December we will have our first Crew Meeting. I can’t wait.

Welcome to the new season!

Well, the summer is over, which is traditionally a slow period for access TV, as our volunteer producers take vacations and generally relax. Here at HCAM, we use these couple of months to check and upgrade our equipment, and plan for the fall season.

Last season, the 08-09 one, we started the season with 16 original series. This year, we started the 09-10 season with 25 original series. This is an important metric when looking at the life of a community TV station, and personally, I’m pretty psyched!

My job is to make the studio a welcoming and user-friendly place, and to teach our residents how to make TV shows. A while ago my wife introduced me to one of my favorite sayings, “when all you have is a hammer, all the world is a nail.” I keep that in mind because when I am having a conversation with someone, I often end up saying “That’s pretty interesting, you should have a TV show.”

This season, I’ve had to curb my enthusiasm. We have so much production going on, we are pretty maxed out. Right now is Mike’s busy season (read: fall sports). So what are we doing about that? Please stay tuned for my next blog…

HCAM, new and improved!

Today is the day I finally get to roll out some great new features at hcam.tv and I am very excited! I’ve been working on this for months. Here we go…

First, HCAM is now streaming our channel LIVE on our website. So the next time you are in Bermuda, or Florida (can you tell it’s March here?) and you need your HCAM, you got it! While you can view the stream in Windows Media Player, I highly recommend following the prompt and installing the Silverlight player. It is quick and easy, and the stream plays right on the webpage.

Next, Indexed Media! What is that? Glad you asked. You know all those times the Selectmen or School Committee talked about an issue important to you, but you don’t know where it is, so you had to watch a three hour meeting for your 10 minute segment? No more, because we are now indexing those meetings. That means when you click to play that meeting, you will see the full agenda on the screen. Click on the agenda item you want, and Bam! it starts playing that part.

But wait, there’s more… On the homepage you will find a sign-up for an email list called Everything HCAM. This is a weekly email keeping you posted on what new shows are airing that week, and special announcements concerning Hopkinton’s Television Station. Try it out, I think you will find it useful.

Wowed yet? Hang on, we’re not done yet. You probably noticed the nice photo slideshow on our homepage. We call that The Shoot, and not only do we hope you will enjoy seeing current photos around our community, we hope you will share yours also.

We have some new bloggers at HCAM: Casey Pulnik, who is now full-time and doing a great expanding the content here at HCAM, and Michelle Murdock, who will be writing stories of local interest for us. Keep tuned for lots of new content coming, All Hopkinton, All the Time!

We have underwriters! I have been very grateful to the support the non-profit and community-group sector has given to HCAM. We have over 25 groups who value us enough to join as organizational members. These are people who volunteer their time, energy and resources, and I am grateful for their support. Now I am seeking to expand support for HCAM into the business community. Yes, I am aware that this is a rough time to be rolling this out, but things are moving here, and I have been very encouraged by the response so far.

Time for one more, Mike is all about social networking, and he has finally convinced me to let him create an HCAM fan page on facebook (It might have been when he showed me that channel 7 has one, and we didn’t). Well, now we do. It is a good start, and I hope you check it out if you facebook, and help us make it the best it can be.

Last, but not least, thank you for reading these words, watching our programming, working on shows, being a part of connecting our community. We’ve great things afoot!

Welcome 2009

Hello everyone. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and I wish you success in 2009. I know America has a difficult stretch before it, something I am keeping in mind as I run Hopkinton’s Television Station.

For this blog, I would like to direct your attention to a Nielsen article titled Americans Can’t Get Enough Of Their Screen Time. I would encourage you to read it (it’s not too long), but I will also share a few thoughts from my perspective.

The one number I want to quote from the article is: “As of third quarter 2008, the average person in the U.S. watched approximately 142 hours of TV in one month.” That is an increase; we are spending more time in front of our television sets.

Some of you may assume that I am happy to hear that. However, I know we need more exercise and fresh air, and commercial television is throwing ever increasing amounts of sex and violence at us, so it is not all good. However, logic would dictate that as general TV watching rises, so does the audience for HCAM, and that is good news.

I watch very little TV, in fact my wife wishes we watched more, so that we could stop and recapture that time. But Community Television is more than just another station on the box. We are a vibrant part of the Hopkinton community, a place to meet friends and neighbors and have fun while performing a critical community service.

We train anyone who wants to learn, and we include them in our activities here. I admit we do have a couch, but nobody sits on it to watch the tube. Instead our volunteer producers are creating the programming you see on HCAM. They are bringing you Hopkinton.

The hits just keep coming

Hello my faithful readers, thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I am currently waiting for some shows to upload to the website and thought I would take a moment to write.

I can’t reveal everything yet, but there are some very cool things in the pipeline. As I am sure you already know, we recently rolled out the Hopkinton Planner, and I am really excited about the potential for HCAM to connect our community with our volunteer organizations. I see this is as a logical extension of our vision to inform, educate and entertain our Town. Early in 2009 I have plans for even more new features and opportunities, so please keep watching!

Starting in November we have a new series: Sunday Sermon Series from Woodville Baptist Church. Since we stopped recieving DVD’s from another local Church, we’ve had a bit of a hole in our schedule, and it’s nice to see this aspect of Hopkinton return to HCAM.

Another under-served population has been the middle-school crowd, and they are finally getting their share with Sasha and the Dashing Disciples. I also have several middle and high school students currently becoming trained on our equipment, so we’re all looking for fun and exciting programming that brings HCAM into their generation.

Now we have shows geared to everyone from our youngest citizens all the way to our most mature, and many stages in between!

I have also had contacts from both the Hopkinton Crier and the Boston Globe about writing articles about our new programming and offering reporters to contribute to our shows. I know, how cool is that? I see some powerful collaborations in the near future.

Whether you volunteer here or are one of our viewers, I hope you are enjoying your television station, and I am very much looking forward to expanding our offerings for you.

Now wasn’t that fun?

Okay, we’ve been through a bit of a transition here, and I’m sorry about the broken bits along the way, but I hope you will see it was all worth it!

After upgrading the website over the summer and exploring some new and very cool features, I made the decision to move our site from a general server to a Private Server (PS). Being on a PS will protect our memory resources and give our viewers a faster, more stable visit to HCAM.TV

In fact, I actually signed on for two two PS’s, because really, who can have too many? Actually, I do have an actual reason: The first one runs our website and the second one runs all our active elements, things such as this blog and our online Producer’s Calendar.

This is really important because we are beginning to run a lot of video on the site, and there is a super-cool new feature coming out that you don’t even know about yet, so stay tuned to this blog for all developments as they are rolled out.

So, as fate would have it, at EXACTLY the same time as I am doing this move, our webhost informs me that they are migrating to new machines that use less power and have great features, etc., etc. Eventually everyone will be moved over…but…if we volunteer to be among the first, they will upgrade out account to, are you ready: UNLIMITED disc space and bandwidth, FOREVER.

How could resist that? I have such big plans for our website that I simply had to jump aboard! Imagine all our shows streaming online, interactive elements and some new and currently secret things all over the place, and never a worry about bandwidth! Wow, who could say no to that?

Most everything went just fine, except our form mail script. That’s just a little thing that runs our contact form, bulletin board form, workshop registration and our Crew Call.  Just a couple of little things, really. I won’t bore you with the details but let’s just say it took several days conferring with the developer of the script and our webhost to actually kick start it.

But hey, that’s all behind us now. Everything is up and running and ready to go. Enjoy the forms!

They said WHAT…?

For the past year I have been having a conversation with one of our producers concerning her show and offensive material.

We produce Wake Up and Smell the Poetry here, and we send it out to Fargo, North Dakota. As I always say, we are a family channel, and our content is nothing to worry about. Well, last year, Fargo TV sent me an email reminding me of what I had said, and pointing out one of our episodes contained the word “whore”.

That typically is not a word I use, but in the context of a poetry reading, I did not find it objectionable. However, since it had been brought to my attention, I needed to consider how to handle our content.

I found a tv ratings website, which I think we are all aware how those work, and I began adding a rating to the show. The producer and I have maintained an on-going discourse about the pull between artistic expression and offensive content. We talked about whether this show would attract a young audience. My last email on the included these thoughts:

This show is probably not attractive to young children, but that is not the point. The point to worry about is CAN kids be exposed to this content. If a family is sitting on the couch, channel surfing, pause on this show, and hear something offensive, will they be upset that their kids were “exposed” to this content. Will they blame their TV station for playing that show during what is called Family Viewing Time.

A show can avoid that by being played later in the evening (after 10 pm) but that impacts the audience.

The happy medium (if there is one) is to tread that line carefully between artistic expression and offensiveness. Part of that is being very upfront about what your show may or may not contain. The definition of the TV PG rating is this:

Parental Guidance Suggested
This program contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children. Many parents may want to watch it with their younger children. The theme itself may call for parental guidance and/or the program may contain one or more of the following: some suggestive dialogue (D), infrequent coarse language (L), some sexual situations (S), or moderate violence (V).

I think that is a pretty good level for this show. Additionally, taking the time to make note of potential red flags (a note to the station) will be seen as a proactive step, and giving them the control over scheduling it where they feel comfortable. I would never want to be in a position where they said “if you had told us it contained that word, we would have done something different”.

Are they responsible for what they air? Yes. Would I rather do this extra work and not risk having them feel this show is a burden to them? Yes.

I see more program ratings in HCAM’s future. Is that a good thing? Do you find it a valuable tool for your family’s viewing habits or a useless graphic in the corner of the screen?

Yes, we are a TV Station!

Remember I was writing the other day about the MetroWest Daily News story about me in Disney World? As I was telling the reporter how we have debuted new series in September, I referred to our new “season”. He asked me if it was usual for Access TV to begin a new fall season.

That made me think, and you know what? In my experience that is not usual. What typically happens is that someone says “hey, I have an idea!” and we buzz around to make the show and then throw it on the air with little regard for season or promotion.

This past year at HCAM was different. We have had so much production that we needed to slow down over the summer and prepare for all the new stuff. Just like the big broadcast stations do, now how cool is that?

How busy have we been? Well here is a quick chart to show you our production of first run programming per month in 2008.

As you can see, we’re heading to 70 hours of original content per month during the regular season! No wonder everyone needs a break in the summer.

As HCAM grows, it is taking on characteristics of regular television stations. I typically try to model our station on two networks, PBS and the Disney channel. I feel our mission closely aligns with PBS, just on a smaller scale. And I like the way Disney cross-promotes on their channel (no commercials, just like us!).

Promoting ourselves is a whole other topic, one that we are really just beginning to explore. Stay tuned!

I wonder how that’ll work

Checking the news this morning, I came across this story in the MetroWest Daily News. Well, I am not the cable chairman or the town cable access manager, and I would have used different words to describe the new shows, but I do hope the article raises awareness of HCAM without seeming frivolous.

Years ago my wife introduced me to one of my favorite sayings, “if all you have is a hammer, all the world is a nail”. Sometimes I observe that in others, but I am also keenly aware of the same tendencies in myself. Anytime I am at a social event or a meeting, I always hear myself saying “You know, that would be a good show…”.

I try not to, but if there is a problem, people should hear about it. If I meet someone with a strong passion for their hobby, I want them to share what they know with us. I feel like a broken record, but I can’t help it. I love Access TV and I think everyone else should too.

Although I love speaking to anyone at all about Access TV, I always hate reading an article from my words. I worry about being misunderstood or turning someone off. When I was talking with Micheal Morton last Friday, I was trying to put into words what a revelation it was to me when I was visiting Disney Studios and saw how they promoted Production as being really cool. They had studio lights strewn about the walkways and all the characters with clapboards and cameras. Traditionally I would promote our training workshops as connecting you to our community and providing a valuable public service and, oh yeah, it’s fun too.

But seeing Disney really had me understanding that I was taking a lot for granted. What we do here is way cool. Look at this story and watch the video. We were taping an important show about hunger in our state, and the video is titled “Behind the scenes”. It is all about the production.

Perhaps I’m a bit slow, but I am getting it now. When I talk about HCAM these days, I say that we have a really cool television station, and you want a piece of the action!

And we’re off…

Welcome to fall. My kids started school today, so I am currently in back-to-the-grind mode. This summer has been filled with special projects and large tasks (can anyone say “new website”?). Mike has detailed a lot of what has happened in his blog so I won’t go into great detail here.

In addition to the rewiring, soldering and design work, I have thought a lot about why I do what I do, and what I hope to see here at HCAM. I am looking forward to sharing that in these pages.

During the summer I attended a meeting of local Community TV centers. I actually belong to two of these groups, and this particular group likes to schedule a special speaker for their meetings. This time, it was a producer/host of a political talk show made in Washington.

So we all sat around, enraptured as only TV geeks can be by this guy describing what he does in the world of “real TV”. It was interesting, but what stuck with me was how this guy kept repeating “If access TV could only come up with one thing; one show that made it in regular television, then I think you would get recognition for your cause.” (this is my best memory of what he said, it is not verbatim).

After several statements like that, one of the Access Station Executive Directors said “Racheal Ray”. This guy looked up and hesitated, then said “Yes, that’s a very good example.”

I immediately wanted to ask “So now we got one, what now…?” But I didn’t, and not just because I’m shy, but because to me the whole concept was off. What do I care if Commercial TV recognizes Access TV as being ‘worthy’? We are so unlike them. They create programming to make money. But we do not. It is like trying to value a dog the way you would a cat. They both have four legs and a tail, but there the similarity ends.

After college, I could have pursued a career in Commercial TV, but I found my passion in giving voice to my community. I don’t do what I do for any reasons that make ‘real TV’ work, and I don’t look at us they way I look at them.