Cable Television Committee
The Committee provides citizens with television coverage of civic and public events, including Town Council meetings, Planning Board meetings, Zoning Board meetings, School Board meetings, various school activities and programs, and other special programming. All of this is provided over the Town's local access television channel and on the web.
Committee members are: Chair Kathleen Parr, John Kraljic, Jane Manheimer , Bonita Marchetti, James Demer, and Steve Tietjen.
2009 Accomplishments
1. Broadcast and recorded over 215 meetings and presentations (Town Council, Planning Board, School Board, Zoning Board, Debate Night, Assessment
Hearings, training and special meetings).
2. Created a TV Broadcast Checklist for training additional people to broadcast meetings. It gives step by step instructions on how to set up, broadcast, and break down after broadcasting a meeting.
3. Trained an assistant to broadcast and index the meetings .
4. Set up 24/7 web streaming of Channel 2 and Web viewing (On-Demand) of meetings and other special programming on our website. (Viewership has increase 20% each month since we began with the service in April of 2009. Currently about 2000 viewers a month use the service.
5. Produced, shot and edited over 4 hours of special programs:
- Unified Criminal Docket – Police Dept. (30 min.)
- Marine Unit Video – Police Dept.(2 min.)
- K9 Video - Police Dept. (9 min.)
- Community Facilities Video (9 min.)
- Community Facilities Event on March 12th, 2009 (63 min.)
- Metro Commercials (4 spots) 15 sec. each.
- Falmouth Shopping Center Video (9 min.)
- Falmouth Shopping Center Event on November 14th, 2009 (2.5 hours)
- Over 1/2 hour of aerial HD footage of the Town of Falmouth, Maine.
6. The High School is now connected directly to the Town Hall with Fiber. We can now broadcast taped and live meetings from the High School Auditorium. Currently we are broadcasting the High School news broadcast each morning at 8am, and replaying it at 3pm and 6:55pm.
7. Created a YouTube site for The Town of Falmouth, Maine.
8. Started negotiations with Time Warner on a new Cable TV Franchise Agreement with the Town of Falmouth, Maine.
Summary of Ongoing Duties
- Update the T.V. schedule weekly.
- Update the T.V. Bulletin Board daily.
- Web support and updating is done daily.
- Basic IT support and change out of back up tapes.
- Live TV Broadcast and 24/7 web streaming of all Council, Planning Board, School Board, Zoning Board and special meetings and programming. All meetings are indexed and uploaded to the web for ON-Demand viewing within 48 hours. Viewers can go directly to any agenda item within a meeting.
- Maintain and operate all equipment in the cable TV control room.
- Produce, shoot and edit programs as needed.
2010 Goals
- Finalize a new cable TV franchise agreement with Time Warner.
- Receive additional training on IT and web support.
- Maintaining and updating the website.
- Complete several videos for web and cable TV distribution.
- Find possible revenue sources within the cable TV department.
Budget Request
We are requesting $3000 to cover operating budget for training, supplies, and programming development.
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