TallyVision

[psycuda]

Just that there's already 3 conservative talk stations in the market, if you include the station with O' Reilly and Hannity on it. The market can't handle a 4'th, hence the Air America. Besides, do you think that Clear Channel would put another conservative station up against the guy they're paying 28 million a year for (Rush)?

[Go Gators]

Well, maybe not on Rush, although I much prefer Hannity, O'Reilly, Gibson. I have XM though, and listen to them on that. My presets include XM 121, 166, and 168. But I dont think you can have too many conservative talk shows on the air, its all we have!

[Florida]

we?

[Go Gators]

we?

Conservatives, and Ill add Laura Ingram to that list to, and Ann Coulter, but only when i need a laugh.

[gatoremt]

I was glad to see CC make this move. They needed to get 1270 back to Sports talk only and get the other talk on another station.

Just that there's already 3 conservative talk stations in the market, if you include the station with O' Reilly and Hannity on it. The market can't handle a 4'th, hence the Air America. Besides, do you think that Clear Channel would put another conservative station up against the guy they're paying 28 million a year for (Rush)?

What are the 3 Conservatice talk stations. I only know of 2. 100.7 and 106.1 what is the other.

I was glad to see CC make this move. They needed to make 1270 an all sports talk station and get the other talk shows on another station. IMO

[psycuda]

I was glad to see CC make this move. They needed to get 1270 back to Sports talk only and get the other talk on another station.

What are the 3 Conservatice talk stations. I only know of 2. 100.7 and 106.1 what is the other.

I was glad to see CC make this move. They needed to make 1270 an all sports talk station and get the other talk shows on another station. IMO

1450 runs a mix of stuff, but O'Reilly and Hannity back to back in the afternoon, so I'm grouping it with the 2 FM stations.

[gatoremt]

I see. I have never listen to 1450. Thanks

[ghostOFtheSuwanee]

My biggest beef with local media is the way that the City of Tallahassee hijacked the public access channel for their amateurish PR effort. The City has no business spending tax dollars on pushing their agenda. In many other communities, the public access channel is just that, public access, with lots and lots of homemade video projects being aired. A lot of the stuff on those channels is awful, but some of it is interesting and there is the occasional gem.

With the Film School at FSU, the Journalism School at FAM, and the video production programs at TCC and Lively, we have lots of talented people doing video projects. The public access channel was designed for those folks, not to serve as the house organ for the city bozos.

While most of their effort is boring and a waste of air time, once in awhile, something good gets aired on WCOT. I found the two weeks of repeated screenings on the southside sewage treatment plant to be especially engaging. It's strange that they didn't mention the alarming increase in the level of mercury in surrounding groundwater which some local scientists have linke to the plant, but I guess that's not important for us to know.

I was especially offended by the way the station was such a shill for the coal plant. You can think what you want about it, pro or con, but using the Tallahassee public access station to promote the agenda of the local empire builders is just plain evil.

I know that if the city abandoned their homestead on the cable system, that we'd have lots of religious and political nutcases spewing their nonsense, but god bless them, they deserve a voice too.

[insituphoto]

WCTV-6 Hosts Hurricane Forum At It's Studios

On Saturday, July 15, 2006, WCTV-6 Meteorologists hosted a town-hall meeting regarding hurricane preparedness at their new studios.

Below are a few images I took of the event. Additional images can be seen at:

WCTV-6 Hurricane Forum

Lead WCTV Meteorologist, and Urban Planet member, Mike McCall gives Ben Nelson, State Meteorologist for the Florida Division of Emergency Management a tour of the WCTV weather lab.

WCTV Meteorologist Rob Nucatola hangs out in the studio and waits for the crowd to arrive.

Mike McCall leads the way through "Studio B".

The gorgeous news room at WCTV.

Studio? Office? How about both. Where's all the "cameramen"?

Mike McCall leads the first public tour through the weather center.

Click. Click. Click. See? Isn't this easy!

Rob Nucatola beams proudly after a guest asks about the newborn child of his co-worker and wife Ann Nucatola.

Woah! This is freaky.

Hamming it up with the WCTV weather team. Yours truly on the left (blue).

OK... so I was JUST a little giddy.

[gatoremt]

Hey its Dav and Dav at the news desk.

[Florida]

Great pictures!

[insituphoto]

Hey its Dav and Dav at the news desk.

Ummm... It's "Dave" and Bob...

[thetoolman]

My biggest beef with local media is the way that the City of Tallahassee hijacked the public access channel for their amateurish PR effort. The City has no business spending tax dollars on pushing their agenda. In many other communities, the public access channel is just that, public access, with lots and lots of homemade video projects being aired. A lot of the stuff on those channels is awful, but some of it is interesting and there is the occasional gem.

The channel you are talking about, WCOT (Ch 13 on Comcast) is actually a city run TV station, designed for communicating with the citizens.

Each of the major universities/colleges have their own channels as well.

Excerpt from Comcast Channel Lineup

4 Educ. Access FSU

13 WCOT

20 ED ACCESS - FAMU

21 Leased Access

22 ED ACCESS - TCC

23 LEON CO. EDUC. ACCESS

I think channel 21 is the actual public access channel that you are thinking of. I have not watched it recently though.

The city administrators certainly use WCOT for advocacy occasionally, but I like the fact that I can watch commission meetings, see coverage of events (like Springtime), and learn more about the city services (utilities). I don't watch Ch 13 nearly as much as that sentence makes it seem like I do..

[Florida]

^toolman, I think you watch the channel Don't be ashamed, I'm with you there bud!

[gatoremt]

Ummm... It's "Dave" and Bob...

I thought his name was David also? To many new members for me to rember

[Florida]

There has been a flood lately! I'm lovin it!

[ghostOFtheSuwanee]

The channel you are talking about, WCOT (Ch 13 on Comcast) is actually a city run TV station, designed for communicating with the citizens.

Each of the major universities/colleges have their own channels as well.

Excerpt from Comcast Channel Lineup

4 Educ. Access FSU

13 WCOT

20 ED ACCESS - FAMU

21 Leased Access

22 ED ACCESS - TCC

23 LEON CO. EDUC. ACCESS

I think channel 21 is the actual public access channel that you are thinking of. I have not watched it recently though.

The city administrators certainly use WCOT for advocacy occasionally, but I like the fact that I can watch commission meetings, see coverage of events (like Springtime), and learn more about the city services (utilities). I don't watch Ch 13 nearly as much as that sentence makes it seem like I do..

Channel 21 is what it says it is; space for rent. The rest of the channels you list are PEGs.

WCOT is a PEG provider (47.USC 531). Under the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, 3% of the revenue from a cable provider goes back to the government franchising it. It also provides that the local government can negotiate a few things before granting the provider a charter. For example, for those of us who live in the county and are under the county charter, it sets the standards for exactly when Comcast has to extend it's service and provide a node for new customers. Those standards are not easy to find but if you live in the unicorporated county, have been told you can't get cable, and you want it, they are worth a read.

But I digress. For this discussion, the imporant thing is that all governments that issue franchises to cable providers can include requirements for programming access by the public, local educational institutiions and the government (that is the PEG of which they speak). Both the city and county have done a good job of including access for some of our educational institutions (not including the charter schools or private schools), and to some extent, government, but have totally ignored the whole concept of public access.

Hundreds of cities have a public access channel on their cable system. A few examples are Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Fairfax, Hartford, Oakland, and my very favorite midwestern city, Grand Rapids. The way it works is that anyone can submit a video to the public access channel, and, assuming it's locally produced and meets some minimum standards for legality, is played in the order in which it was received.

In some cases, the public access channel includes a studio for citizens to use. When Comcast first came to town, they built such a studio. These days, cheap DV cameas and iMovie have pretty much made public access studios a thing of the past.

So much for the background.

I'm totally in agreement that the city (and county) should broadcast their meetings on the cable system. I'd like them to broadcast meetings on the internet too. Heck, I'm in favor of them broadcasting lots of public meetings; not just the commissions. Once the equipment is purchased, it costs almost nothing to boradcast the international relations committee, for example.

Watching the circus at the Leon County Commission is a major entertainment event at my house. So far we have resisted the temptation to install some chain link fence in front of the TV to block damage from throwen beer bottles. We're way too classy for that.

Having WCOT do local "meet your government" features is wasteful. If the stories are important, the local media will cover them. If they aren't, get a DV camera and an iMac, and do your own program. Just don't ask the taxpayers to fund it.

I know that WCOT has a staff that includes production people, writers and talent. I realize that except for the production people, the other staff members have additional, non-WCOT duties. Still, I expect that there are at least 5 full time equivalents on that staff. Between the high paid middle manager and the low paid production people, I expect that is costing the city at least $250K a year. Add to that the operations budget; office space, utilities, equipment depreciation, etc. I'm sure that they have at least one vehicle that is purchased, fuled, maintained, and insured. I'm guessing that the tax payers are funding that activity, including staff, bennifits and operations, for somewhere in the $500K a year range and I'm probably being conservative. Think about it. Would you rather have some really boring discussions of sewage treatment or animal control repeated over and over and over and over and over, or would you rather see some stuff produced by your friends and neighbors (as wacky as it may be)?

Amen brother! Continue to broadcast Commission meetings, and turn on the feed for other public meetings conducted in the commission chambers too. It doesn't take a production veteran to do the little bit of switching that the system requires. A 1/2 FTE person of the "just graduated from the Lively TV production program" level could do it for small money.

Heck, it would be a great starter job for a young person. I'd put the whole opperation under the same department as the one that provides AV equipment for public events. Now that is a city department that the citizens of Tallahasse can be proud of. (If you ever are looking for a city employee of the year, voting for Lee Cardise would not be inapprpriate.)

But I digress again. This station, paid for by you taxpayers, is wasteful, expensive and doesn't do anyone a bit of good except for the lbureaucrats who run the WCOT empire.

So, let's make a stand for ending waste. Call that commissioner that you gave a nice campaign contribution to last time, and tell her/him that it's time to let the WCOT staff move on to working in the private sector, and turning the channel over to the citizens.

You can learn much more about public access television by clicking The Public Access Awareness Association

I appologize for rambling but apparently, the WCOT thing struck a nerve.

Sometimes old TV sets had a problem called "ghosting".

[psycuda]

Channel 21 is what it says it is; space for rent. The rest of the channels you list are PEGs.

WCOT is a PEG provider (47.USC 531). Under the 1984 Cable Franchise Policy and Communications Act, 3% of the revenue from a cable provider goes back to the government franchising it. It also provides that the local government can negotiate a few things before granting the provider a charter. For example, for those of us who live in the county and are under the county charter, it sets the standards for exactly when Comcast has to extend it's service and provide a node for new customers. Those standards are not easy to find but if you live in the unicorporated county, have been told you can't get cable, and you want it, they are worth a read.

But I digress. For this discussion, the imporant thing is that all governments that issue franchises to cable providers can include requirements for programming access by the public, local educational institutiions and the government (that is the PEG of which they speak). Both the city and county have done a good job of including access for some of our educational institutions (not including the charter schools or private schools), and to some extent, government, but have totally ignored the whole concept of public access.

Hundreds of cities have a public access channel on their cable system. A few examples are Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Fairfax, Hartford, Oakland, and my very favorite midwestern city, Grand Rapids. The way it works is that anyone can submit a video to the public access channel, and, assuming it's locally produced and meets some minimum standards for legality, is played in the order in which it was received.

In some cases, the public access channel includes a studio for citizens to use. When Comcast first came to town, they built such a studio. These days, cheap DV cameas and iMovie have pretty much made public access studios a thing of the past.

So much for the background.

I'm totally in agreement that the city (and county) should broadcast their meetings on the cable system. I'd like them to broadcast meetings on the internet too. Heck, I'm in favor of them broadcasting lots of public meetings; not just the commissions. Once the equipment is purchased, it costs almost nothing to boradcast the international relations committee, for example.

Watching the circus at the Leon County Commission is a major entertainment event at my house. So far we have resisted the temptation to install some chain link fence in front of the TV to block damage from throwen beer bottles. We're way too classy for that.

Having WCOT do local "meet your government" features is wasteful. If the stories are important, the local media will cover them. If they aren't, get a DV camera and an iMac, and do your own program. Just don't ask the taxpayers to fund it.

I know that WCOT has a staff that includes production people, writers and talent. I realize that except for the production people, the other staff members have additional, non-WCOT duties. Still, I expect that there are at least 5 full time equivalents on that staff. Between the high paid middle manager and the low paid production people, I expect that is costing the city at least $250K a year. Add to that the operations budget; office space, utilities, equipment depreciation, etc. I'm sure that they have at least one vehicle that is purchased, fuled, maintained, and insured. I'm guessing that the tax payers are funding that activity, including staff, bennifits and operations, for somewhere in the $500K a year range and I'm probably being conservative. Think about it. Would you rather have some really boring discussions of sewage treatment or animal control repeated over and over and over and over and over, or would you rather see some stuff produced by your friends and neighbors (as wacky as it may be)?

Amen brother! Continue to broadcast Commission meetings, and turn on the feed for other public meetings conducted in the commission chambers too. It doesn't take a production veteran to do the little bit of switching that the system requires. A 1/2 FTE person of the "just graduated from the Lively TV production program" level could do it for small money.

Heck, it would be a great starter job for a young person. I'd put the whole opperation under the same department as the one that provides AV equipment for public events. Now that is a city department that the citizens of Tallahasse can be proud of. (If you ever are looking for a city employee of the year, voting for Lee Cardise would not be inapprpriate.)

But I digress again. This station, paid for by you taxpayers, is wasteful, expensive and doesn't do anyone a bit of good except for the lbureaucrats who run the WCOT empire.

So, let's make a stand for ending waste. Call that commissioner that you gave a nice campaign contribution to last time, and tell her/him that it's time to let the WCOT staff move on to working in the private sector, and turning the channel over to the citizens.

You can learn much more about public access television by clicking The Public Access Awareness Association

I appologize for rambling but apparently, the WCOT thing struck a nerve.

Sometimes old TV sets had a problem called "ghosting".

I grew up in the Ithaca NY area, where a studio was provided for the multiple channels of public access available. The issue that comes up is that if you did not negotiate for a public access network back in the day it is almost impossible to get one, since the cable companies have been doing everything in their power to strip public access stations from their systems in favor of another home shopping channel, or the Lifetime Cancer Movie Channel. I agree that it is something that is needed in the area, but how do you restrict the product to locally produced materials, since in some areas, "Democracy Now", the ultra liberal national news show, is shown on public access?

[ghostOFtheSuwanee]

I grew up in the Ithaca NY area, where a studio was provided for the multiple channels of public access available. The issue that comes up is that if you did not negotiate for a public access network back in the day it is almost impossible to get one, since the cable companies have been doing everything in their power to strip public access stations from their systems in favor of another home shopping channel, or the Lifetime Cancer Movie Channel. I agree that it is something that is needed in the area, but how do you restrict the product to locally produced materials, since in some areas, "Democracy Now", the ultra liberal national news show, is shown on public access?

You keep Democracy Now off the public access channel the same way that you keep the prepackaged religious wakcos off. You require local production. This doesn't mean that you're not going to have people on that you don't agree with. It's just that they're going to be your neighbors instead of someone from California or Texas promoting their agenda.

If we had a commission that really cared about the quality of life in Tallahassee, we could easily restructure the existing PEG bandwith to allow room for public access. Just getting rid of that boring programming that the city repeats over and over etc. would be a good start. Let the government have the bandwidth during prime time to broadcast meetings and further the "government in the sunshine" that we're so proud of. Just turn the overnight into public access. That wouldn't require a change to the charters, and would be a great first step.

I'm sorry that you're opposed to Democracy Now. I listen to it online sometimes and find it more depressing than "ultra liberal", whatever that means. Words like "liberal" and "neo-nazi" are just ways of trivializing people who don't agree with you. Let's retire those words and instead talk about ways to make our community better for all of us.

[psycuda]

You keep Democracy Now off the public access channel the same way that you keep the prepackaged religious wakcos off. You require local production. This doesn't mean that you're not going to have people on that you don't agree with. It's just that they're going to be your neighbors instead of someone from California or Texas promoting their agenda.

If we had a commission that really cared about the quality of life in Tallahassee, we could easily restructure the existing PEG bandwith to allow room for public access. Just getting rid of that boring programming that the city repeats over and over etc. would be a good start. Let the government have the bandwidth during prime time to broadcast meetings and further the "government in the sunshine" that we're so proud of. Just turn the overnight into public access. That wouldn't require a change to the charters, and would be a great first step.

I'm sorry that you're opposed to Democracy Now. I listen to it online sometimes and find it more depressing than "ultra liberal", whatever that means. Words like "liberal" and "neo-nazi" are just ways of trivializing people who don't agree with you. Let's retire those words and instead talk about ways to make our community better for all of us.

Thankfully the religious types have about 5 channels of their own in basic cable that I can avoid, so the chances of seeing Kirk Cameron on a public access channel are minimal

[thetoolman]

For this discussion, the imporant thing is that all governments that issue franchises to cable providers can include requirements for programming access by the public, local educational institutiions and the government (that is the PEG of which they speak). Both the city and county have done a good job of including access for some of our educational institutions (not including the charter schools or private schools), and to some extent, government, but have totally ignored the whole concept of public access.

Hundreds of cities have a public access channel on their cable system. A few examples are Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Fairfax, Hartford, Oakland, and my very favorite midwestern city, Grand Rapids. The way it works is that anyone can submit a video to the public access channel, and, assuming it's locally produced and meets some minimum standards for legality, is played in the order in which it was received.

In some cases, the public access channel includes a studio for citizens to use. When Comcast first came to town, they built such a studio. These days, cheap DV cameras and iMovie have pretty much made public access studios a thing of the past.

I actually was a (volunteer) producer for the public access studio/channel in Knoxville, TN about 12 years ago. They had two 3-camera studios with switched live broadcasting, a/b roll, character generators, and two 3/4" editing suites. I can imagine that that was some overhead!

In my opinion, the internet has become the de facto public access tool in the last few years. It does a significantly better job getting citizen groups in touch with each other than public access tv ever could, with much lower barriers to entry. Producing a TV show, even for the relatively low standards for public access, is hard. It requires a lot of time, energy, and resources. Even if you are producing it with DV/iMovie solution.

If you are a concerned citizen interested in broadcasting your views, YouTube, Google Video, MySpace and other tools give anyone in the world the chance to upload and share video content.

The missing link is the fact that 50,000 local citizens don't have the channel cablecast into their living rooms, but I would counter that:

1. Public Access channels probably have the lowest ratings of any on the cable system (admittedly unresearched)
   
2. The internet provides a much broader audience
   
3. Local communities on the internet are evolving very quickly
   

Also, there are lots of people without internet access, but those are likely many of the same people that don't have cable.

Ghost - why would you argue that Public Access TV as it existed years ago (when it was unique in its ability to communicate) is still relevant given the communications environment we see today?

[ghostOFtheSuwanee]

Ghost - why would you argue that Public Access TV as it existed years ago (when it was unique in its ability to communicate) is still relevant given the communications environment we see today?

For those who don't have a clue what toolman and I are talking about, go rent a copy of Wayne's World, which was a (pretty close to the truth) parody of Public Access Television.

It has to do with bandwidth. You're right that the internet is a new way of distributing videos. I totally dig some of the new media stuff that is available online. The student film folks released a delightful French short this morning called "The Empty Suit".

The "public access studio" model is gone. The NewTek stuff that came out in the 80's (Whatever happened to Kiki Stockhammer?) took care of that. Now anyone with an iMac has an editing suite that's way more powerful than anything you grew up with in Ithaca.

So it's not about studios. It's about access to the cable bandwidth. Sure you can put up a short video on YouTube, or do a video podcast, or whatever. I applaud the folks who are doing that stuff and hope that more people produce and consume internet video. Right now it's a pretty open system, but of course, that's about to change as the big telco's and cableco's work to get control of the internet.

Public access to cable bandwidth is our way of getting something back that provides value to our community from the cable companies in return for that exclusive bandwidth charter that we give them. The majority of the rest of the stuff that Comcast provides is the same tired stuff from the same tired networks. Don't get me started on the TV news. Public access is a way of providing alternative viewpoints. It was a good idea back when cable charters first evolved and it's a good idea now.

Market share really isn't an issue here. The days of "broad" casting are drawing to a close. These days it's all about "narrow" casting. Getting a message to a small but focused group of viewers/listeners/readers is much more effective then trying to appeal to the unwashed masses.

Anyway, I've run my mouth long enough on this issue. If you city taxpayers want to fund WCOT and get your three times daily fix of City Law, City Justice, it's fine with me.

[thetoolman]

For those who don't have a clue what toolman and I are talking about, go rent a copy of Wayne's World, which was a (pretty close to the truth) parody of Public Access Television.

It has to do with bandwidth. You're right that the internet is a new way of distributing videos. I totally dig some of the new media stuff that is available online. The student film folks released a delightful French short this morning called "The Empty Suit".

The "public access studio" model is gone. The NewTek stuff that came out in the 80's (Whatever happened to Kiki Stockhammer?) took care of that. Now anyone with an iMac has an editing suite that's way more powerful than anything you grew up with in Ithaca.

I bought my first car with money made using my Toaster. Those were the days.

[ghostOFtheSuwanee]

I bought my first car with money made using my Toaster. Those were the days.

Did you ever meet Kiki Stockhammer? She was the PR person for NewTek for their salad years and was way fun to chat with. Thinking about the Toaster made me think of her. I found her through wikipedia. These day's she's a member of a StarTrek themed band called Warp 11.

[thetoolman]

Did you ever meet Kiki Stockhammer? She was the PR person for NewTek for their salad years and was way fun to chat with. Thinking about the Toaster made me think of her. I found her through wikipedia. These day's she's a member of a StarTrek themed band called Warp 11.

I just remember that she was in some of the crazier toaster effects, and on the box. I never actually wen to NAB or CES during the years that they were there.