Every Great Video we produce has to have a story. My name is Caz. Bielen, Chief Creative Officer of Premiere Media and CazTV. I immigrated to the US when I was 8 years old. I never had a TV in Poland. My first TV was a black and white set, where I learned English watching Magilla Gorilla, The Adventures of Superman, Little Rascals and I Love Lucy reruns There were also the annual viewings of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Wizard of Oz. I did not know it was in color till I was in my late teens. But I loved the stories and the lighting, the effect that made these characters come to life.
After High School I attended Rutgers University in the early 1980’s. I was a part of the starting Knight Time Television, the first Student run TV Channel that also took advantage of Public Access that allowed it to also be seen on Cable TV in nearby homes. We were Cable before Cable was Cool!
After an internship at Cross Country Cable in Somerville, NJ and working there as a freelancer while still at school, I received two ACE Nominations. “Fun Stop”, a Kids Show and a special on “Pediatric Cardiology”. After that I got a full time job at Cross Country Cable, where I remember watching the launch of CNN. I was Producer and Public Access Coordinator, enabling the public to produce their own shows. This is where I met Debbie and Doug Gist, Lou Brogno, Dick Craig and others. Later, the Company became TKR Cable based in Warren, NJ. I was Producer-Director-Editor Internship coordinator and started local commercial production. You may have seen the “REPS” little people ads that ran for about 20 years. I worked with Michael D’Amato and Dave Garb, as well as Lee Beckerman with whom I reconnected with after more than three decades at the 2023 JAG Conference and Awards. It’s poetic that the story of my professional career and joining JAG has brought me back to where I started with people I worked with, and others I helped start on their television path.
Later, I worked at C-TEC Cable, where I produced and hosted Daytime Emmy Awards Specials, and the Pay-Per-View Report. As Media Services Manager at RCN Corporation, I got to be at the start of the Internet Revolution, before that was cool. After the dot com Boom and Bust, I started Premiere Media and CazTV, producing commercials, infomercials and working with Public Schools and Municipalities. I enjoyed creating content that educates, entertains and inspires viewers worldwide, and won 3 Telly Awards for Public Service Videos.
I wish to thank Steve Keiser, Producer of the “On the Loose” TV series. He told me a few years ago to join the Jersey Access Group and continues to be a good friend.
George Fairfield has been so helpful to me in getting to know JAG. I attended the annual Conference and was amazed at the talent and presenters that was there. I made connections and obtained knowledge from providers and facilitators on best practices.
I currently produce “Cazual Conversations” a Video and Audio Podcast, where we talk to people that are important to our world. Contact me if you want to be my guest and share your story. It’s available on various web platforms and via Telvue Connect in New Jersey and on the Media Exchange Nationwide. The program provides me, as an Independent Producer, a more local connection in New Jersey. I wish to thank the Jersey Access Group for the awards I received. I will be providing more programs for the Media Exchange, such as “Studio at the Hill”, a family-friendly program, and “Mr. AutoAds”, on which I show local NJ commercials from the past. To see more of my story, go to https://www.youtube.com/caztv.
by Jesse Lerman, President & CEO, TelVue Corporation
It was great to see everyone at this year’s annual JAG conference in Edison, which felt like a “coming home” of sorts, refocusing the lens back on the core New Jersey station operators and members, the real heart and soul of JAG and where TelVue got its start in community media nearly 20 years ago! The new layout, with vendor exhibit booths inside the large group ballroom, afforded better opportunities to mingle with customers and showcase products during breaks, yet also remain an important presence during the larger panel presentations. It created a very inclusive environment for vendors and customers alike, a welcome return and grateful exit from the social distancing and virtual trade show era.
Kicking off the JAG Conference with the TelVue Users Group and Breakfast
TelVue is always proud to be a Diamond sponsor for JAG, and this year, we presented key updates on a range of products and services including: live, dual language, ultra affordable closed captioning, caption transcript search to make your government meetings fully searchable, automatic social media streaming directly from our new HyperCaster AIO+ line of playout & automation servers, integrated video editing & community bulletin board, time-saving automation rules, and new, built-in analytics & reports for your web, OTT, and mobile viewership.
I enjoyed collaborating with Joe Fernandes, Assistant Manager, Woodbridge Television, and Bob Duthaler on the panel session Is A Cable Channel All You Need? Joe shared successes and tips and tricks about how to expand your reach and audience with social media and social streaming, and I shared additional ways to grow your viewership online, including launching your own branded mobile and OTT apps. All great ways to deliver your programming in full HD, as well as gain insight into your viewers and reach through streaming analytics and reports. It was very cool to hear so many success stories from the audience, including Old Bridge TV, who shared how well-received their mobile and OTT apps are in the community.
I was delighted to chair a new panel on social media engagement in relation to local government with Jean-guy R. Lauture, Sr. IT Director, Bloomfield Township, and Cyd Katz, Founder/CEO of New Jersey Isn’t Boring. It was clearly a “reel” interesting topic, and top of mind for everyone based on the packed crowd, collaborative discussions, and the fact that it ran overtime. Cyd brought so many practical tips on how to leverage short videos to increase engagement, and Jean-guy shared best practices on how to navigate, work within local government, and avoid issues & pitfalls with social media.
Demos and Discussions at the TelVue Booth
The JAG awards honored two long time TelVue clients – Lee Beckerman on his retirement and literally sailing off into the sunset, and Stephanie Gibbons, both of whom have been incredible driving forces behind JAG. Congrats to Lee and Stephanie, and to all of the JAG award nominees and winners! It is no mystery how talented and dedicated the JAG stations and producers are, but what remains a mystery is how does Simon Mandel do that final magic trick?!?!
Honored to receive Certificate of Award for supporting JAG’s new Internet TV channel
The annual JAG conference also affords a unique opportunity for our engineering and product development staff to have face-to-face customer contact as well, and to get direct feedback from important end users. We appreciated the great turn-out and participation at our morning User Group. TelVue remains dedicated to our valued NJ clients by listening and responding to their needs, and we are thrilled to be a part of the robust JAG station and member community. We were honored to be presented during the lunch banquet with a Certificate of Award acknowledging our support of JAG’s new Internet TV channel. JAG is always innovating, and always on the forefront!
by Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director, NATOA
Thank you, Jersey Access Group, for inviting me to participate in the 2023 Conference! On behalf of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), I’ve got to tell you….I had a blast! You’re a dynamic organization with great leadership from folks like Bob Duthaler, Stephanie Gibbons, Dave Garb, Don Smith and, of course, Rich Desimone. To Rich: Thanks for your years of collaboration and teamwork as both NATOA and JAG moved forward in the ever-changing world of cable & broadband.
Thank you to Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler for guiding our conversation with Mike Wassenaar, CEO of the Alliance for Community Media, Robert Boyle, CEO of Planet Networks and Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs for Altice, as we discussed all things related to broadband funding. And, thank you to Valarry Bullard, Director of the newly created Broadband Office in the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) for participating.
I don’t know if folks remember, but Mayor Wahler has a longstanding connection with NATOA going back to 2014, when NATOA conferred our most valued honor, the Jane E. Lawton Commemorative Award on Mayor Wahler for all his good work in New Jersey advocating for local PEG, cable and broadband issues. Named in memory of the Honorable Jane E. Lawton, a past president of NATOA and former Special Assistant to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Carl Albert, for her career-long efforts to promote community interests in communications, the Award recognizes the work of individuals who stand out for their communities on PEG and broadband advocacy. Thank you, Mayor Wahler for your continued good work.
The Jersey Access Group has a great & strong history of activism on PEG, cable and broadband issues and we’re so appreciative of the long-standing partnership with NATOA.
You know, the day before your Conference, the House Energy & Commerce’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a Markup Hearing that was tough to watch and listen to as an advocate for local government on telecom matters and PEG operations, given the rigid party line conduct and anti-localism flavor of attacks. The markup hearing of 19 bills ultimately morphed into a single bill, H.R. 3557, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023. H.R. 3557 passed along party lines and aimed to harm local governments’ public rights-of-way authority and risks the future of cable franchising and PEG operations.
The Subcommittee combined most of the bills that impact local governments into this single measure and was approved by a party line vote. As approved by the Subcommittee, the bill would:
Allow cable franchisees to unilaterally modify the terms/ requirements in franchise agreements
Prohibit state and local governments from revoking cable franchises
Preempt state and local zoning authority over the placement of cell phone towers and equipment
Eliminate state and local government authority to manage public rights-of-way and collect fair market compensation for their use and management
Require local government approval of modifications to existing cell phone towers
Preempt state and local zoning authority over the placement of cable equipment
A week later — and with little notice and with no opportunity for local governments to address the bill before the subcommittee — the Energy & Commerce Committee passed H.R. 3557 along party lines.
In a letter to Committee leadership, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors said:
“As the level of government closest to the people, we oppose heavy-handed federal overreach into local land use, permitting, and franchise negotiation decisions. Many of the bills the Subcommittee will consider during this hearing would preempt or undermine the property rights of local governments and local governments’ police powers to protect and preserve the safety, well-being, and aesthetics of their communities, which Congress and the Constitution have long recognized. Congress has historically recognized these rights in Sections 224, 253 and 332 of the Telecommunications Act.
These authorities are critical to conduct responsible stewardship of public property, protect public safety, and preserve the rights of residents as consumers of broadband services and neighbors to the infrastructure that makes connectivity possible. We fear the unintended consequence of some of these bills will be to impose costs on local governments, burdens on our taxpayers, interference with public safety and otherwise harm local protections that are the heart of localism without substantively improving broadband deployment.”
Congressman Frank Pallone (D NJ-6) and Committee Ranking Member valiantly offered an Amendment to oppose HR 3557 and any action to approve it. Congressman Pallone said:
“To remove arbitrary deadlines and narrow timeframes in this bill that preempt local governments’ authority and ability to make decision that best meet the needs and best interest. That’s why these ‘deemed granted’ provisions that Republicans are rushing through are, I think, a bad process and are troubling to me and to the local elected officials in the towns we represent.
HR 3557 would enact narrow and arbitrary timeframes to approve or deny applications and then ‘deem them granted’ if a decision hasn’t been made by that time. Now to be clear, if a local planning board or town council is reviewing a project and does not approve it be a deadline set by House Republicans, the applicant’s proposal would automatically be considered approved w/o any further input from the community.
I have serious concerns that this approach raises mor Q’s than answers especially when it comes to liability in the case of public safety and accidents. The reality is, no matter where you go in this country, local governments have an important role to play in approving construction projects.
My Republican colleagues like to demonize local governments for not approving projects in the amount of time they would like. But, this bill does nothing to address a major concern that was raised by all the witnesses that was raised at the legislative hearing on this topic. And that is the lack of qualified personnel to process these applications, particularly in smaller towns and counties. Instead, they would wave their wand and approve these applications without further process.
Now, anyone who has served at the local level, and I have – (Long Branch, NJ city council, 1982-88) – there is a lot more to these decisions than simply yes or no. In many cases, there are negotiations between towns and counties with telecommunications provider for access to Rights of Way or other publicly owned areas. In other words, if a municipal planning board or zoning board is reviewing an application and does not issue an approval by a deadline set by House Republicans, the applicant’s proposal would automatically be considered approved w/o any further input from the community.
And, I’m most concerned that this approach raises more questions than answers, especially when it comes to liability in the case of accidents. And, my Republican colleagues like to demonize local governments who are not approving applications as quickly as they would like.
This ‘one size fits all’ mandate to approve a project in 2 months weakens a town’s ability to get the job done right while at the same time ignoring the reality of many local governments’ calendars. People who serve in town and county government are public servants who are accountable to the people who live in those communities. They are responsible for acting in their best interests, especially as it pertains to utilities and service in a county or town.
No one thinks about who’s responsible for ensuring your safety – for example, police or fire or traffic duty– for ensuring the safety of the public and the workers during construction. Or, the complexity of scheduling certain construction projects to avoid road closures or other disruption or delays that often and do occur as a result. It’s the Mayors, and councils and zoning boards who are responsible for these considerations. And, they’re ‘on the hook’ if anything goes wrong or someone gets hurt. And, perhaps, that is why we received a letter today form the Georgia Municipal Association, which represents all 537 municipalities in the bill sponsor’s home state.
They strongly oppose this bill. And, I would ask you now for unanimous consent to submit this letter for the record.
I have great respect for my friend from Georgia. He knows how much I love that state. But I’m struggling to understand how his constituents – and mine – are served well by these proposals because the ‘deemed granted’ proposals aren’t the only areas where this legislation removes critical local authority. At best, these proposals remove local leverage to negotiate the specifics of these projects that can best serve the people of these communities. At worst, they can put people at risk. Those of us who work closely with our mayors and councils – and I think that’s everyone on the dais here – we know that they are the first ones to step up when it comes to deploying communications infrastructure in their towns.
What possible advantage would come from deliberately ignoring or delaying requests to improve work that would improve services for their constituents?
So, last week, I challenged my Republican colleagues to tell their mayors that they voted for this bill the next time they went home and see what they say. So, when I went home this weekend & I asked the mayors and I was glad not to be on the record supporting this bill. I would encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and to go back to the drawing board and work with some Democrats in a productive way to develop some bills that might actually get signed into law. It’s not as though Democrats are not trying to look for ways to enacts permitting reform bills that do not trample on these protections.
But so far, the Republicans have said no. So, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve local authority and vote “Yes” on the amendment.”
Congressman Pallone did a great job advocating for local government and PEG operations. New Jersey and JAG should be very proud of your representation in Congress.
H.R. 3557 is called the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023 but it should really be called the “Great American Give-away” to cable, broadband and wireless operators. The bill suggests it will streamline permitting to increase broadband availability. Instead, it eliminates local and state rights in broadband deployment, wireless sittings and cable franchising to benefit these companies without getting anything for the public in return. There is no ‘quid pro quo’ that the cable, broadband and wireless companies will build out or serve those that need to be served.
H.R. 3557 is bad for local communities and for PEG operations. The bill has moved too quickly through the Committee and will likely soon move through the full House. There is no companion bill in the Senate.
If you can, please communicate to your Members of Congress that: Neither state nor local governments were even provided an opportunity to address these bills, now collapsed into one bill as HR 3557, at the subcommittee level.
During our annual JAG Conference last month, we held a special session that recapped the latest news from Capitol Hill and what it all means to New Jersey municipalities and PEG/Access stations.
Our panelists, myself, Mike Wassenaar, President of the ACM, Alliance for Community Media, and Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director for NATOA, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, mainly focused on one very important subject, the federal Protecting Community Television Acts.
From this forum, it became obvious that our audience was not up to speed on why this legislation needs to be acted upon and what could be the ramifications if they are not. We explained all the details about it during the session, but I would like to once again give the background on what has been going on and why support of these bills is crucial.
From NATOA: On August 2, 2019, the FCC released a Third Report and Order interpreting provisions of the federal Cable Act. This Order allows cable operators to deduct from franchise fees the fair market value of cable franchise requirements, with limited exceptions, and largely preempts states and local governments from regulating the non-cable services and equipment of franchised cable operators, including their Wi-Fi and small cells equipment. This order defines “in-kind, cable-related contributions” to include “any non-monetary contributions related to the provision of cable services provided by cable operators as a condition or requirement of a local franchise, including but not limited to free or discounted cable service to public buildings, costs in support of PEG access other than capital costs, and costs attributable to the construction of I-Nets.
From The ACM: The FCC Franchise Fee Order redefined the federal Cable Act’s 5% franchise fee cap to include the value of most non-monetary franchise obligations as franchise fees. This change allows cable companies to reduce what they pay for the use of public property and rights-of-way. These Protecting Community Television Acts (S 340/HR 907) correct this error by clarifying that franchise fees are only monetary. The Cable Act protects the rights of a local community to charge cable companies a five (5%) percent franchise fee and to meet community needs and interests, such as providing public, educational and governmental channel capacity. Contrary to industry practices that date to the 1980s, the FCC’s actions could result in reducing cable operators’ monetary compensation to towns and municipalities that wish to communicate with residents through community television.
The Identical Protecting Community Television Acts, S 340, authored by Senator Edward Markey (MA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI), and HR 907, authored by Representative Anna Eshoo (CA), were reintroduced in Congress on February 9th of this year. These acts clarify that only monetary payments, not non-monetary franchise obligations, qualify as Cable Act franchise fees and are subject to a fee cap.
Without these acts passed into law, cable operators could create fees to drain away municipal revenues and pressure municipalities to give up or reduce the staff at their PEG channels. It could come down to a choice between franchise fees or communicating with residents through community media that provide Americans with local (transparent) civic, public safety and public health content.
When the Protecting Community Television Acts, were first introduced during the 2021-2022 Congressional Session, Representatives Donald Payne (10th District) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (12th District), led the charge by co-sponsoring it at that time.
This time around, New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Corey Booker learned about our concerns from the FCC’s Order and the detriment it could cause to all of New Jersey’s municipalities. This interest was first sparked by a visit I had, along with Mike Wassenaar, to his Washington DC office this past April.
More recently, this spark was relit when Beatrice Moskowitz, Vice Chair. of the Middlesex County Democrats, working with JAG’s Managing Director, Rich Desimone, made it possible for Senator Booker’s office to take a much closer look into this act, as well as an interest in our conference. So much so, that Senator Booker sent his Press Secretary, Minjae Park, to attend our conference and find out first hand what the issues were, what the act does, and also, what JAG was all about.
I am very happy to announce to our entire JAG community that for the 2023-2024 Congressional Session, Senator Corey Booker has become the first Federal Legislator from New Jersey to co-sponsor the Protecting Community Television Act. Our hope is that we can convey the importance of supporting both of these companion acts to all of our New Jersey members of Congress, so that every community can continue to have their specific and transparent information flow to their residents for their benefit, and for the benefit of all the citizens of our great State.
By Lee Beckerman, Station Manager, Woodbridge Channels
In the mid-1980s, Woodbridge Township was contemplating starting a cable TV channel of its own. They had secured a channel on Suburban, set up a governing board and had purchased a random assortment of equipment. And then…nothing happened. At some point they decided it was time to bring on a person to manage the station and move the project forward. I was fresh out of college with a degree in video production. Doing freelance and having a hard time finding fulltime work in my field, I jumped at the opportunity. It was not my dream job, but I thought it might be an adequate place holder to build my resume, and, lacking other options, I took it. I was eventually shown to a packed projection room/closet, told it was my new office and to have at it. No further instructions were forthcoming. No one had apparently thought past the idea of having a TV station and considered what to do with it. I rightly deduced that the first part of starting a community television station involved getting all the crap out of your new office and finding a desk.
One major advantage was that no one (including me) knew what a municipal cable station was supposed to be. There was a vague feeling that it might be a good addition to a forward-thinking town and should probably include some programs. The rest was up to me. I was trained in video production but I did not know any more than they did about what a municipal TV station should be. I set out to find the answer. What follows are some insights gained along the way.
Networking
You can’t do everything by yourself. With no knowledge of what to do with my channel, I reached out to the two thriving community stations in the area, Piscataway’s PCTC and East Brunswick’s EBTV. Debbe Gist and Cindy O’Connor helped immensely in getting the station up and running and gave me ideas I could build on. They also connected me with the Alliance for Community Media. The Township allowed me to attend their conference in Tampa, Florida. All this gave me a starting point.
It was Debbe who first brought the idea of creating JAG to all of us, probably because she was one of the people all the other stations turned to for ideas. Cindy became our first President and so began one of the most valuable resources for running a local access television station. Woodbridge Television could not have come as far without JAG’s support.
Audience
Access cable audiences are small. If we’re lucky, we get a few hundred to a few thousand viewers for a big event and often less than that. But the numbers are cumulative. The people who are watching the council meeting are not the same people watching your local sports; who are not the same people watching your concert coverage and your parades and business openings and school recitals etc… When added up, you can reach a large, diverse section of your population. For our mayor, announcing local sports is a passion, but for hundreds of kids in our town, and their parents, they know the name of the mayor because he is the local sports announcer.
As a side note, it is the talent that usually gets the direct feedback. The politicians and show hosts certainly knew before we did that we were building an audience. When we started, without access to metrics, this turned out to be a very important point.
Different platforms
In the beginning we had a cable TV channel, and all was good with the world. We put our programs out there and over time, word started leaking out to the powers-that-be that people were watching. (Hey, I saw you on the channel last night and you’re nuts). There were no metrics or any way to measure or define an audience. In came Princeton Server Group (now TelVue) whose file-based server systems completely revolutionized how we worked. Their streaming video service offered us a video-on-demand platform that let us push our shows out in a different way. (An interesting side note. JAG got involved with the Princeton Server group because Steve George’s son played soccer with my son in middle school and we got to talking on the sideline, which led to a tour and a meeting with the president, Jesse Lerman.)
After a while we began to use their metrics, and for the first time, to see the numbers. We next added YouTube and because of the popularity of the platform, once people realized we were there, they started looking for us instead of us seeking them out.
I’m at the tail end of the boomer generation. I’m not going to be the guy to lead the charge on alternate social media platforms. But I know a good thing when I see one. The town had started using Facebook to shout out to residents, so we set up our own page to push out our content. Younger staff began sending out tweets and doing Instagram posts as we set up and shot programs to tease the content. We also started getting conversations going on social media during events like games and concerts, including announcers interacting with fans in real time, creating buzz.
Relationships
Community Television is about…community. Getting to know your community and establishing relationships gains you access. Early on I created a relationship with our local arts center. We began by covering a few of their concerts, but as they came to know and trust us as professionals, that blossomed into several joint grants for documentaries which won many awards and ended up, along with several of our concerts, being featured on Metro-Arts in NYC to audiences of millions. That gets the name of your town out there!
When I first tried covering high school sports it was a bit of a disaster. What I failed to do was get buy-in from the athletic directors and the school administrations. (We have three high schools). It took a long time to build that trust, but it was essential to successfully covering local sports.
Relationships with municipal departments and local non-profits are also important. We’ve put out content for our police department, libraries, youth theater, historical society, and senior services to name a few. But having strong ties with public works and parks and rec is equally critical. I had a day where we were shooting our exercise show in a park. I scouted a perfect location with the Outerbridge Crossing in the background. On shoot day we arrived to set up and someone had parked a giant dumpster in the middle of my shot! However, because I had built relationships within the town, I had phone numbers of people who knew who I was and I had a truck pull out the dumpster within a half an hour.
Quality
Programming quality is essential. If an audience can’t see and hear a program, you have wasted your, and your viewers’ time. Among the first complex programs I started doing were art center concerts. I insisted that they hire a professional audio engineer. I knew I could deliver the video but if the sound wasn’t great, what was the point? Eventually they added an audio engineer to all their concert grants. Video quality is likewise important. Your audience may not know how to create great programming, but they have watched a lot of it, and they understand what it’s supposed to look like. They might forgive quality issues for something they are crazy into, but unless you have a marketing genius on board you cannot build an audience that way.
The look of your shows matter. We try to get very creative with sets and looks on a very limited budget. I designed my own sets, and we were able to find someone in the Parks Department who could build them. With my set design I strove to create sets that shared production elements, maximizing utility and minimizing space constraints. When we were doing Seniorsize, I looked at the township roller rink and realized they already had a great lighting system and I just had to add key lights to make a dynamic show with less set-up time. We also did a season at the Woodbridge Mall (another great partnership) that gave us a cool and dynamic background with minimal additional effort (at least as far as the look was concerned.)
Recently, we are doing more things with green screen. This offers huge flexibility and is great for many applications. The sets, however, especially for multicamera shoots, do have a very digital look especially at our price point. I’m sure there will be new innovations going forward.
People
You need to hire good people! OK, obvious. Finding good people is hard with our budget limitations, especially in a tight labor market. But people choose jobs for different reasons. I did not intend to stay in my job for more than a few years, but I found I liked the relative freedom, the ability to be creative and I liked building something. In addition to our regular fare of sports and concerts we have made narrative films, documentaries, short comedies with special effects and big location shoots. My staff gets some leeway to create and produce shows on their own for the station. Turned out it was a good gig. I think these are good selling points. I should mention that two out of three of my most recent hires came from JAG stations/ recommendations. When I look at new people, I always hire them as freelancers first so I can get a sense of their work ethic and how they gel with the crew.
Getting creative with staff is also essential to any small operation. Many of the events we cover are at night or on weekends so in order to have staff available we have two members who work 4 days on/4 days off from late morning into the evening. The days are 10-hours so they are available to cover evenings and weekends. We take advantage of interns to help cover larger events and, of course, freelancers for the biggest productions. This is something we had to build up to and we started with volunteers like everyone.
Bosses and Politicians
I had some early run-ins with bosses and politicians. Much of this had to do with my misunderstanding of our relationship. When I was working from the model of public access, I would often fight battles about public access issues. The truth, however, is I work for them in the municipal access model. There are exceptions.
Open meetings rules mean I never edit any public meetings and I have never been asked to or have we in 35 years. We do not allow talk about elections or candidates during election season (outside of debate coverage), and do not endorse any candidates, at any time, on the channel. That aside, the channel has a mandate to be the video face of our town and government, including its leaders, along with highlighting our events civic organizations, nonprofits, schools, citizens and everything our township has to offer.
Reputation
As a municipal department I started to notice different departments have different reputations. This stood out for me when the deputy police chief kept bringing guests by to see the station. I asked him why this was and he said, “I love coming in here because everyone’s always working, all the time.” I liked that. I try to make it a point for people to understand we take the work seriously and are willing to work hard to make it as good as we can. They don’t always understand what we’re doing but if they show up at an event and see our cameras everywhere and everyone humming like a well-oiled machine, it makes an impression. We also do not stand on our laurels but always try to innovate in small ways and push things forward. I find it is easier to ask for things if people believe you are working hard and believe you will put what you ask for to good use. The motto I’ve adopted is to under promise and over deliver.
Equipment
It is essential that you keep current with equipment to the best extent possible. Early on I communicated to my town that I was not trying to build CBS -that the equipment I was buying was appropriate for the application. But I also tried to get the best quality equipment that met our needs. I got push back when we became an early AVID adopter, or when we decided we needed to build a mobile production unit, but I was able to give them detailed and expansive reasons why I wanted them and what I was planning to do with them and how they would benefit the town. When they got tired of listening, they let me have what I need if I would just go away. Well not really. I had some protracted arguments about some of this, but I did have my facts. As I stated before, your audience watches video, they know what to expect and if you are not delivering it, they have another reason to turn away. This was obviously why we fought so hard for an HD channel. When the show looks bad, they assume it’s you and you have given them an excuse not to watch.
Cross Pollination
It’s important to have the people you partner with on shows, guests, talent, performers etc, help push out the content on their own social media accounts. This is something I wish we did more in my time and something I think the new staff will be thinking about. If you do a show with a local organization or business, make sure they get a link and put it on their website, which leads back to your social media which brings in people who may not have been aware of you. We also share our shows and posts to the mayor’s social media which has a much larger footprint than ours.
Local TV
Easy to forget sometimes but we should be the voice of our town. I always felt it was my mandate to emphasize the Township of Woodbridge as much as possible. We take in very few outside shows, mostly things from Middlesex County government and a few other exceptions, but I always try to keep a Woodbridge twist on everything. With the demise of our bulletin board Channel (We had to give it back in exchange for our HD channel) we started to make all the bulletin board notices into PSAs with voice-overs and motion and graphics to replace the old Ad Council PSA’s. Once again, if you turn on Woodbridge TV you should instantly get a dose of Woodbridge, which is what I consider the essence of Municipal Access Television.
In Conclusion
I got lucky in many ways. First, Woodbridge is a large community with a population of over 100,000. I had a few years in the beginning with little scrutiny, in which to build a foundation. When Mayor Joseph DeMarino went on trial for corruption (he was acquitted) we were able to provide the first gavel-to-gavel coverage of a trial in New Jersey. The whole township tuned in, with watch parties at many bars. This raised public awareness of the station and government officials became aware of the potential of the medium.
When new officials were elected, we were already a going concern and the new Mayor, Jim McGreevey, was anxious to use and build on it. The station continued to grow under Mayor Pelzman. But Woodbridge Township Television really blossomed under Mayor McCormac and this current administration who have supported and encouraged us in so many ways. My staff, new station manager Gina Forbes, assistant manager, Joe Fernandes, Emil Brandafi, Samantha Roth, Erin Zirpolo, new producer Valentino Lamotta and Bruno Martins from the Woodbridge Township School District as well as my longtime boss, John Hagerty, have all helped build and support the station. All the great people at JAG including Bob Duthaler and Rich Desimone have had a great impact. I understand my experience may not be your experience and we all have different models and mandates. What we have at The Woodbridge Channels was built very slowly over a long period of time, starting with one person in a basement closet thinking big.
We are only 2 weeks away from the JAG Conference! The conference committee has been working hard to bring an informative, networking, and fun conference to the members and supporters of JAG. Tell all your members to mark down May 18thand we will see you there. For details and to register visit our website www.jagconference.com
Conference Schedule
8:00 am – 8:50 am- TelVue User Group Breakfast – Ultra-affordable All-in-One Playout, Integrated Streaming, Editing, and CBB, Live Caption Translation, New Viewer Analytics, and more!
9:00 am – 11:30 pm- Exhibitors Meet and Greet Visit the Exhibitors supporting JAG
MyCaseBuilder, NJ Film Commission, US Broadcast Distribution
9:00 am – 9:50 am- Varto User Group Breakfast – TriCaster & NDI User Group: NAB Highlights & Interactive Forum
10:00 am – 11:15 am-Workshop: News from Capitol Hill and Around the Country, and What It Means to New Jersey PEG Stations
11:30 am – 1:20 pm- Keynote Lunch Sponsored by Planet Networks
Presentation: Community Recognition Award
The Jersey Access Group is pleased to present the West Milford Town Council, and in particular Mayor Michele Dale and Council liaisons Ada Erik and Marilyn Lichtenberg for their continued support of their municipal channel WM77.
Presentation: Vendor Appreciation Award– Launch- JAG Streaming Channel: Rushworks streaming equipment and TelVue streaming service.
The Jersey Access Group recognizes the support of Rushworks for their donation of the Streamster a hardware/software combination for managing and streaming JAG’s own Internet TV channel.
The Jersey Access Group recognizes the support of TelVue in providing the streaming service that makes it possible for the JAG Internet TV channel to be seen on a number of different social media platforms.
Discussion: Where’s The Money? — From Washington to Trenton, Accessing Broadband Money from the American Infrastructure Bill Over a year ago the federal government approved 65 billion dollars to improve broadband deployment. That money flows from the Federal Government to the states for distribution. Where are we now? How can municipalities have access to funds? What are broadband and cable companies doing to help deployment of broadband? Our panel will talk about this and other issues, plus answer your questions. Panelists: Robert Boyle, CEO Planet Networks, Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Altice, Mike Wassenaar, President & CEO, Alliance for Community Media and Mike Lynch, Legislative Director, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, (NATOA)
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm- Workshop: Is A PEG Cable Channel All You Need?
2:30 pm – 3:15 pm- Workshop: Innovative Technology Tools – Revolutionizing the Broadcast Industry– Sponsored by Varto Technologies
3:30 pm – 4:15 pm- Workshop: DAMN…… I need a little SOMETHING. How to light properly when you have almost NOTHING! Sponsored by DeSisti
4:30 pm – 5:15 pm- Workshop: Using Video to Enhance your Municipality’s Social Media Presence – Sponsored by TelVue
5:30 pm – 6:30 pm- Cocktail Social with Exhibitors– Sponsored by DeSisti
Closing event with networking opportunities and providing time to thank the vendors that have supported the conference.
6:30 pm – 11:00 pm- JAG Banquet – sponsored by Varto Technologies
A celebration of all that JAG has accomplished to advocate, promote, and preserve the right to media production, distribution, civic engagement, and education in support of diverse community voices, through Public, Educational and Government access facilities and other forms of media.
JAG Recognition Awards: Lee Beckerman is one of the founding members of JAG from its first meeting to serving on the executive board for over 18 years. Lee was involved with the writing of JAG’s first mission statement, goals and policies and procedures. Lee served as the 2nd president of JAG and has been on the production committee from the beginning. Lee has dedicated thousands of hours in the last 30+ years, serving to the betterment of this organization and the PEG TV industry. Lee is the Station Manager of the Woodbridge Channels that is one of the first municipal stations in New Jersey.
Entertainment: Entertainment sponsored by Cologna Productions
Simon Mandel returns to JAG’s Banquet. Simon Mandal is one of the most in demand illusionists in the world today. Simon combines incredible feats of skill with hilarious interactive routines that bring the house down, and make the volunteers he brings on stage look like and feel like stars.
JAG Awards: The JAG Awards are annual awards, facilitated by the Jersey Access Group, that honor excellence in local & regional Public Education Government (PEG) programming. Categories cover a variety of programming including, among others, community events, documentaries, talk shows, sports, and entertainment. The Jersey Access Group is very proud of the programming all PEG Stations produce and is honored to host the JAG Awards each year.President’s Ovation Awards: Bob Duthaler, the President of The Jersey Access Group will present the President’s Ovation Award to a member and/or board member of JAG in acknowledgement of their unrelenting commitment to the members of the Jersey Access Group, and the operation of public, education, and government communication facilities.
Warning, it is all around you! There is nowhere to hide from it! And it is on its way to the 2023 JAG Conference.
It’s the B-word! BROADBAND!!!
Yes, It Is Everywhere, Be Prepared! or Be Left Out!
In 2021, the federal government passed the American Infrastructure Act which approved billions of dollars to improve broadband deployment throughout the country. That money will flow from the Federal Government and be distributed by each state in a major goal to build-out broadband everywhere, including in the rural areas.
On May 18th, during the JAG Conference Keynote Luncheon, we explore the ways all municipalities can access the money, and what to do with it once it arrives at the local level. Our panel of experts, Robert Boyle, CEO Planet Networks; , Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Altice Mike Wassenaar, President of the ACM; and Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director for NATOA, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, will guide you on a successful path to help you acquire a piece of this funding for your community.
For any of you who are thinking about what chance your municipality has at obtaining some of this funding, your chances are pretty good. Congress has made broadband a major priority and wants everybody in the US to have it. To make this agenda come to fruition, the House’s Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing this past April 19th, entitled “Breaking Barriers: Streamlining Permitting to Expedite Broadband Deployment.”
According to the Committee’s Majority Staff Memo, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20230419/115750/HHRG-118-IF16-20230419-SD094.pdf the hearing took up more than 30 additional bills aimed at what are described as the ‘Federal Barriers’, ’State and Local Government Obstacles’, as well as, ‘Pole Attachments (Access to Poles)’ to help streamline these regulations. This is essential in order to encourage and expedite the broadband infrastructure deployment throughout the United States.
A set of questions was posed for these hearings included:
Is attaching telecommunications equipment on municipally or cooperatively owned poles more difficult or expensive than on other poles?
What challenges exist at the federal, state, and local levels that delay or burden broadband deployment?
How can Congress help expedite or streamline the process for broadband deployment?
Permitting Reform: To ensure our infrastructure, especially broadband, is ahead of the ever-evolving technological landscape.
Interagency Coordination: The Government Accountability Office noted that 15 federal agencies collectively administer over 100 programs to expand access to broadband. Congress should focus on effectively implementing existing federal broadband programs and ensuring taxpayer dollars are utilized wisely.
Affordable Connectivity Program Funding: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act established the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) to provide a monthly benefit to low-income Americans. However, the IIJA only provided a temporary amount of funding for the ACP, which is expected to run out in 2024. Congress must act and provide sufficient appropriations to provide certainty for program beneficiaries and participating internet service providers.
Prevent Overregulation: Congress must ensure that all federal broadband programs avoid ancillary and harmful public policies such as preferences for unions, costly Buy America mandates, and patchwork networks.
If this wasn’t a lot to digest, *The Community Broadband Act of 2023* was reintroduced on both sides of the Capital. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker sponsored S.1197, while Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) sponsored H.R.2552.
This legislation will empower local governments to ensure their residents have equitable broadband access by removing roadblocks for public-private partnerships and locally-owned broadband providers. It will also improve internet and broadband access across the country by removing roadblocks prohibiting local communities from building their own broadband networks.
These Acts have been endorsed by NATOA.
Confusing? Maybe a little. But, as you have read, Congress is investing heavily in order to bring broadband to all Americans. It’s just a matter of how to go about it correctly and spend the money wisely. Please join us on May 18th, at the Crowne Plaza in Edison, NJ, www.jagconference.com. Find out where you can secure the funds to 100% connect your community and prepare everyone for the future of Broadband.
By now you already know that Thursday, May 18th is the date you should put all things aside and make plans to be at the JAG’s annual conference and vendor day. If you haven’t done so already, register now at www.jagconference.com . This is a must attend event if you are a member of JAG, support the organization or utilize any of its benefits.
Did you know that as part of JAG’s conference, the organization recognizes members for their extraordinary workfor either the PEG community or the JAG organization. This year is no exception. Throughout the day, JAG will recognize some of its members, community leaders and others in their efforts to support PEG. It is important that we all gather on that day as both an organization and community to support those who helped support us. Register now to be part of this at www.jagconference.com.
Join us on Thursday, May 18th at the Crowne Plaza in Edison, NJ and be present at our keynote lunch which will take place in the exhibit hall area, at which we will award our Community Recognition Award. This goes to a member of a local Municipality/County (Elected or Employed by) that has helped JAG and its mission to support PEG access. We will recognize some of the local politicians from the Township of New Milford and their efforts to grow their local television station WM77. We ask that you be on hand as well to congratulate them. Register now at www.jagconference.com.
There are many organizational members that go above and beyond in their support of JAG and the JAG community. As part of our Keynote Lunch on Thursday, May 18th we will recognize them. I will have the honor of presenting the Vendor Appreciation Award during the luncheon. I urge you to be present at this event and show your appreciation to those who gave back to our organization. Please join me in thanking them by registering for our conference and being present during our keynote lunch at www.jagconference.com.
Be part of the evening’s activities when JAG continues to recognize the great works of its members during our banquet. There will be several opportunities for the organization to accomplish this. We will begin the evening with the JAG Member Recognition Award. Each year we present it to a member that has contributed to the success of JAG. I am pleased to announce that this year’s recipient is one of JAG’s founding members, its second president and a board member from the beginning up through 2023. I ask you to join me to honor Lee Beckerman of the Woodbridge Channels. To do so, make sure you register now at www.jagconference.com.
The fun will continue when we announce the winners of this year’s JAG Awards. The awards ceremony will take place during the JAG banquet. It is truly a great event as we watch clips of the great work our member stations have done during the year, present several stations with the JAG Excellence Award and honor all those that were nominated. Finally, before the evenings over, as the current President of JAG it will be my honor to present President’s Ovation Awards to a member and/or board member of JAG in acknowledgement of their unrelenting commitment to the members of the Jersey Access Group and the operation of public, education, and government communication facilities. The only way you can participate in the day’s activities, celebrations and learning experience is to register now for this year’s JAG Conference and Vendor Exhibition – www.jagconference.com. See you there!
And So It Began… WBMA-TV (Channel 35) in Bloomfield, NJ has been in operation for over 45 years, making it one of the oldest municipal channels on Comcast. Its purpose was and still is to inform the Bloomfield Community of events happening throughout the township, while supporting open government through the playback of meetings on the cable channel. It started out like many stations across the state have, in a small space, a bunch of VHS players and a graphics system. Over the years the space in which the station operated grew larger, but much of the equipment stayed the same. VHS players, mixed with SVHS with shows being recorded on mini-dv, were the flavor through the early 2000s. Unfortunately, due to the death of the station manager, and a couple of short-term interim managers, the station was starting to fall by the wayside. Thankfully, a new board member who was experienced professionally in the industry, kept the station on life support, convincing the Township of Bloomfield and the Cable Advisory Board that the station needed to change both the way it operated and the technology at hand.
Timing Is Everything… Just like the timing was right for the station to change, so would the timing for its current Executive Director, Bob Duthaler to step in. Brought in by the Cable Advisory Council liaison and Board President in 2007, Duthaler hit the ground running. Fortunately, he had the support of the Township Council and Cable Advisory Board behind him. The station quickly converted from analog playout to a Telvue digital broadcast server and bulletin board system. Doing away with the racks of SVHS and VHS players, the station started down a new road. New edit systems, new studio cameras and file-based recorders all became the new norm for WBMA-TV. Within the next few years more township events were being covered, in addition to council, board of ed, planning and zoning meetings. The station soon began its own series of shows including Bloomfield Buzz TV, Saturday Night at the Movies, To Your Health Bloomfield and WBMA-TV Sports Coverage. Within a few short years, the station now had an operational studio, ENG cameras for remote events and the ability to do live events. They even pulled off an 8-hour live Harvest Fest Coverage with an outside studio for interviews, live music coverage and remote live “man on the street” interviews using microwave transmission. Duthaler will be quick to tell you that coverage of this event was possible due to all the Cable Advisory Board members pitching in as volunteers, along with several JAG members who also volunteered to help him as well.
Leap Forward… Skip ahead ten plus years and WBMA-TV remained strong in its operation, covering more township events than ever. There is a regular programming schedule, and the station continues to be a community fixture. WBMA-TV now includes an online presence with live streaming of the station on the township website, its own video on demand player with access to years of programming, along with now operating two channels on Comcast and three on Verizon. Operationally, WBMA-TV adapted to the changes over the years. “As volunteers started to become far and few between, we needed to start hiring freelancers to keep up with the coverage of events for which we were requested” said Duthaler. He continued to say, “The industry is always changing, and we learned to keep up with and adapt as necessary to that change. This is what has helped us remain a successful station. JAG has also played an important role in that as well, giving us access to vendors, equipment and conference workshops that teach us and help us grow.”
Who Knew It Was Coming… Then in 2018, WBMA-TV had developed a strong relationship with the Township’s IT Director along with continued support from the Mayor and Council and would begin to start its next phase of growth and expansion. The station took over the operation of the educational channel as well on both Comcast and Verizon. Soon, both Comcast and Verizon would run new fiber to the WBMA-TV studios in addition to placing digital encoders to receive the stations broadcast signal. WBMA-TV finally removed the last remaining analog component to its operation and became all digital in its broadcast. It would also be through the local franchise negotiations with Comcast, that Bloomfield had put in place for its future the running of fiber between the municipal building and the civic center, in which WBMA-TV was located. The plan was now to setup PTZ cameras and Dante Audio systems at the municipalities’ Council Chambers to send them back to the station control room via a network connection to produce meetings from the WBMA-TV studios. In addition to that project getting underway, the station also purchased a used video production truck from the negotiated franchise funds and was starting to create its own mobile production vehicle. Things were about to get underway with both projects, then the calendar read March 2020!
Lockdown, reinvention, LIVE… It all changed that second week in March, when we all got the word that everything was shutting down because of COVID-19. Fortunately for WBMA-TV, we had everything in place for operating the station remotely. Thankfully because of vendors associated with JAG like Telvue and Varto Technologies, we could already operate the station remotely, handling station programming, bulletin board updates, program insertion and more from remote locations. What WBMA-TV was now being challenged to do, how do we cover all meetings from remote locations, some in a hybrid situation and broadcast them live and on-air and social media. Thankfully, through the support of LiveU and their PEG bundling equipment and pricing we found that solution. So, with lots of COVID testing, masks, social distancing, a large monitor with Zoom, and our camera equipped with a LiveU 300 unit, we started out in uncharted waters of live, remote tv coverage from Conference Rooms at town hall, Media Centers at the HS Library or in large rooms with everyone spread out, we embarked on a new adventure that has changed our operations even today. We were now the Live Channel! We also ran daily live press conferences from the governor, health updates from township officials and regular updates from the mayor as well.
It Took Longer, but it’s here… COVID brought about changes in both the truck project and remote meeting coverage system. A new Tricaster TC-2 Elite was purchased during covid to replace the TC-1 in which we were about to install in the studio control room. The new unit allowed us to incorporate Zoom meeting directly into the switcher allowing for individuals to brought up on air as single shot. The TC-1 which was slated for the studio, now was put in to the truck, which started a yearlong build out of the vehicle (COVID and Supply Chain- not a winning combination). In addition, we continued the long road of battling COVID, lockdowns and mask wearing to build out the council chambers with PTZ cameras, incorporating Dante for audio and sending it across a fiber network from town hall to the studio control room about a mile away (as the fiber goes). It wasn’t long before we started doing all Zoom meetings in our control room, which allowed us better broadcasting quality, individual shot selections, presentation pull-ups and more, while broadcasting live on-air, streaming on the website and social media. We eventually came back in person for council and a zoom portion for public input. Hybrid meeting coverage was well underway. We also were rolling out OTT capabilities during this period. We launched our own Apple TV, ROKU, and Amazon Fire Channels. This now allowed cord cutters to be kept in the loop as well during the pandemic. Change was coming hard and fast (as fast as you can go during a pandemic) and the station was once again evolving. The Mayor, Council and Community all put their trust in the station to keep the community informed and involved during the pandemic, and WBMA-TV came through with flying colors.
New Era Underway… July 4th, 2022, WBMA-TV began its first remote production with its new vehicle. Coverage of Bloomfield’s annual July 4th Concert and Fireworks kicked off a new chapter for WBMA-TV. The new production truck would continue to cover summer concerts, parades and more, both live and live to tape (or hard drive). The Studio control room is fully operational for remote, live meeting coverage – in which live is the new norm now. The video production truck now has a replay system installed for future sports coverage and is working on getting its own power source for locations where two 30amp circuits are not setup to accommodate the vehicle. WBMA-TV also added its first high-definition channel on cable, with the new Verizon 2137 Channel. WBMA-TV is also working on creating an iOS and Android app, to make the station available on phones, computers, and tablets. The next phase in the evolution of the once Channel 35 is underway, again! Feel free to reach out to Bob Duthaler at WBMA-TV and have a look at the station’s operations, studio and production truck. Fun Fact: Channel 35 as it was known for years, as being on channel location 35 on Comcast, is called WBMA-TV. What does WBMA-TV mean? Watch Bloomfield Municipal Access TV. You can see the station’s website at www.wbmatv.com
News & Events
Posted: June 20, 2023 by Doug Seidel
Building a TV Series and Finding JAG
by Caz. Bielen, Premiere Media
Every Great Video we produce has to have a story. My name is Caz. Bielen, Chief Creative Officer of Premiere Media and CazTV. I immigrated to the US when I was 8 years old. I never had a TV in Poland. My first TV was a black and white set, where I learned English watching Magilla Gorilla, The Adventures of Superman, Little Rascals and I Love Lucy reruns There were also the annual viewings of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Wizard of Oz. I did not know it was in color till I was in my late teens. But I loved the stories and the lighting, the effect that made these characters come to life.
After High School I attended Rutgers University in the early 1980’s. I was a part of the starting Knight Time Television, the first Student run TV Channel that also took advantage of Public Access that allowed it to also be seen on Cable TV in nearby homes. We were Cable before Cable was Cool!
After an internship at Cross Country Cable in Somerville, NJ and working there as a freelancer while still at school, I received two ACE Nominations. “Fun Stop”, a Kids Show and a special on “Pediatric Cardiology”. After that I got a full time job at Cross Country Cable, where I remember watching the launch of CNN. I was Producer and Public Access Coordinator, enabling the public to produce their own shows. This is where I met Debbie and Doug Gist, Lou Brogno, Dick Craig and others. Later, the Company became TKR Cable based in Warren, NJ. I was Producer-Director-Editor Internship coordinator and started local commercial production. You may have seen the “REPS” little people ads that ran for about 20 years. I worked with Michael D’Amato and Dave Garb, as well as Lee Beckerman with whom I reconnected with after more than three decades at the 2023 JAG Conference and Awards. It’s poetic that the story of my professional career and joining JAG has brought me back to where I started with people I worked with, and others I helped start on their television path.
Later, I worked at C-TEC Cable, where I produced and hosted Daytime Emmy Awards Specials, and the Pay-Per-View Report. As Media Services Manager at RCN Corporation, I got to be at the start of the Internet Revolution, before that was cool. After the dot com Boom and Bust, I started Premiere Media and CazTV, producing commercials, infomercials and working with Public Schools and Municipalities. I enjoyed creating content that educates, entertains and inspires viewers worldwide, and won 3 Telly Awards for Public Service Videos.
I wish to thank Steve Keiser, Producer of the “On the Loose” TV series. He told me a few years ago to join the Jersey Access Group and continues to be a good friend.
George Fairfield has been so helpful to me in getting to know JAG. I attended the annual Conference and was amazed at the talent and presenters that was there. I made connections and obtained knowledge from providers and facilitators on best practices.
I currently produce “Cazual Conversations” a Video and Audio Podcast, where we talk to people that are important to our world. Contact me if you want to be my guest and share your story. It’s available on various web platforms and via Telvue Connect in New Jersey and on the Media Exchange Nationwide. The program provides me, as an Independent Producer, a more local connection in New Jersey. I wish to thank the Jersey Access Group for the awards I received. I will be providing more programs for the Media Exchange, such as “Studio at the Hill”, a family-friendly program, and “Mr. AutoAds”, on which I show local NJ commercials from the past. To see more of my story, go to https://www.youtube.com/caztv.
Posted: June 20, 2023 by Doug Seidel
JAG Award Winners
2023
CONGRATULATIONS!
Documentary
NEWTV, The 55th Anniversary of the Newark Rebellion 1st
APTV, Sir, I Exist: A Life of Stephen Crane 2nd
WBTV35, Meet the Artist on Main: Joe Messick 3rd
Instructional & Training
WBTV35, Charge Point Charging Station 1st
WBMATV, Bloomfield Fire Department Safety Tips 2nd
PREMEIRE, Police Records at Hillsborough New Jersey 3rd
News Magazine
APTV, The Jersey Storm: Sandy in Monmouth County 1st
PCTV, Eye on Piscataway – July 2nd
EBTV, East Brunswick Stories 3rd
Talk Show
MOTL, Growing Green – Down the Shore 1st
EBTV, Sports Talk: Fall Season in Review 2nd
WBTV35, Greenable Woodbridge: Gallery on Main 3rd
PSA
WBMATV, Fiesta Latina PSAs (English and Spanish) 1st
PREMEIRE, Hillsborough Parks & Rec. Scavenger Hunt 1st
APTV, Be Kind PSA 2022 2nd
NEWTV, Reading Under the Stars PSA 3rd
Sports Programming/Multi-Camera
CRAN, Cranford Football-Military Appreciation Night 1st
WBTV35, Football: Woodbridge vs. Colonia 2nd
PCTV, PHS Football 3rd
Public Meetings/Single Camera
WM77, West Milford Town Council Meeting 1st
C-NET, Centre County Board of Commissioners Meeting, November 29, 2022 2nd
Public Meeting/Multi-Camera
OPTV, Mayor & Council Meeting: New Police Officer 1st
SPTV, Scotch Plains Candidates Night 2022 2nd
WBMATV, Bloomfield Township Council Meeting – Hybrid 3rd
Public Ceremony/ Single Camera
APTV, Bans Off Our Bodies Rally Highlights 1st
WBMATV, Texas Shooting Vigil 2nd
APTV, Universal African Festival 2022 Highlights 3rd
Public Ceremony/Multi-Camera
NEWTV, SOTC Part 2: Newark and Proud of It 1st
SPTV, Pride in the Park 2nd
EBTV, Memorial Day Observance 2nd
C-NET, 2022 Bellefonte Area High School Graduation 3rd
Public Parade/Single Camera
OAKTV, Oakland Volunteer Fire Dept. Santa Detail 2022 1st
Public Parade/Multi-Camera
LHTV, Long Hill Memorial Day Parade 1st
SPTV, Memorial Day Service and Parade 2nd
WBMATV, Bloomfield Memorial Day Parade 3rd
Concert/Multi-Camera
LHTV, We May Be Right: Billy Joel Tribute Band 1st
SPTV, Memorial Day Concert 2022 2nd
JCETV, Kennedy Dancers Holiday Showcase 23 3rd
Community Holiday Event
APTV, AP Juneteenth Day 2022 Highlights 1st
SPTV, Scotch Plains 4th of July Celebration 2022 2nd
EBTV, East Brunswick Interfaith Thanksgiving Service 3rd
WBTV35, MLK Virtual Ceremony 3rd
Community Development Event
SPTV, Dogust 2022 1st
PCTV, Sharpe Football Camp 2nd
NEWTV, Shop with A Hero 2nd
EBTV, Around East Brunswick: Redevelopment Update 3rd
WBMATV, Mayor’s Turkey Give-a-way 2022 3rd
Community Ground Breaking/Ribbon Cutting/Dedication
NEWTV, Ironbound Community Skate Rink Ribbon Cutting 1st
APTV, Asbury Park 150th Anniversary Time Capsule 2nd
CTV36, White Diamond Celebrates 75 Years! 3rd
Community Festival/Fair Event
NEWTV, Halsey Street Festival 1st
C-NET, 2022 Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts 2nd
ROSTV, Roselle Winter Wonderland 3rd
FANTV, Christmas Tree Lighting 3rd
Community Award Presentation JCETV, JCPS Teacher of the Year
Posted: June 20, 2023 by Doug Seidel
JAG 2023 Conference Recap – Engaging the Community
by Jesse Lerman, President & CEO, TelVue Corporation
It was great to see everyone at this year’s annual JAG conference in Edison, which felt like a “coming home” of sorts, refocusing the lens back on the core New Jersey station operators and members, the real heart and soul of JAG and where TelVue got its start in community media nearly 20 years ago! The new layout, with vendor exhibit booths inside the large group ballroom, afforded better opportunities to mingle with customers and showcase products during breaks, yet also remain an important presence during the larger panel presentations. It created a very inclusive environment for vendors and customers alike, a welcome return and grateful exit from the social distancing and virtual trade show era.
TelVue is always proud to be a Diamond sponsor for JAG, and this year, we presented key updates on a range of products and services including: live, dual language, ultra affordable closed captioning, caption transcript search to make your government meetings fully searchable, automatic social media streaming directly from our new HyperCaster AIO+ line of playout & automation servers, integrated video editing & community bulletin board, time-saving automation rules, and new, built-in analytics & reports for your web, OTT, and mobile viewership.
I enjoyed collaborating with Joe Fernandes, Assistant Manager, Woodbridge Television, and Bob Duthaler on the panel session Is A Cable Channel All You Need? Joe shared successes and tips and tricks about how to expand your reach and audience with social media and social streaming, and I shared additional ways to grow your viewership online, including launching your own branded mobile and OTT apps. All great ways to deliver your programming in full HD, as well as gain insight into your viewers and reach through streaming analytics and reports. It was very cool to hear so many success stories from the audience, including Old Bridge TV, who shared how well-received their mobile and OTT apps are in the community.
I was delighted to chair a new panel on social media engagement in relation to local government with Jean-guy R. Lauture, Sr. IT Director, Bloomfield Township, and Cyd Katz, Founder/CEO of New Jersey Isn’t Boring. It was clearly a “reel” interesting topic, and top of mind for everyone based on the packed crowd, collaborative discussions, and the fact that it ran overtime. Cyd brought so many practical tips on how to leverage short videos to increase engagement, and Jean-guy shared best practices on how to navigate, work within local government, and avoid issues & pitfalls with social media.
Demos and Discussions at the TelVue Booth
The JAG awards honored two long time TelVue clients – Lee Beckerman on his retirement and literally sailing off into the sunset, and Stephanie Gibbons, both of whom have been incredible driving forces behind JAG. Congrats to Lee and Stephanie, and to all of the JAG award nominees and winners! It is no mystery how talented and dedicated the JAG stations and producers are, but what remains a mystery is how does Simon Mandel do that final magic trick?!?!
The annual JAG conference also affords a unique opportunity for our engineering and product development staff to have face-to-face customer contact as well, and to get direct feedback from important end users. We appreciated the great turn-out and participation at our morning User Group. TelVue remains dedicated to our valued NJ clients by listening and responding to their needs, and we are thrilled to be a part of the robust JAG station and member community. We were honored to be presented during the lunch banquet with a Certificate of Award acknowledging our support of JAG’s new Internet TV channel. JAG is always innovating, and always on the forefront!
Posted: June 20, 2023 by Doug Seidel
NATOA Contributes to the Success of JAG Conference
by Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director, NATOA
Thank you, Jersey Access Group, for inviting me to participate in the 2023 Conference! On behalf of the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), I’ve got to tell you….I had a blast! You’re a dynamic organization with great leadership from folks like Bob Duthaler, Stephanie Gibbons, Dave Garb, Don Smith and, of course, Rich Desimone. To Rich: Thanks for your years of collaboration and teamwork as both NATOA and JAG moved forward in the ever-changing world of cable & broadband.
Thank you to Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler for guiding our conversation with Mike Wassenaar, CEO of the Alliance for Community Media, Robert Boyle, CEO of Planet Networks and Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs for Altice, as we discussed all things related to broadband funding. And, thank you to Valarry Bullard, Director of the newly created Broadband Office in the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) for participating.
I don’t know if folks remember, but Mayor Wahler has a longstanding connection with NATOA going back to 2014, when NATOA conferred our most valued honor, the Jane E. Lawton Commemorative Award on Mayor Wahler for all his good work in New Jersey advocating for local PEG, cable and broadband issues. Named in memory of the Honorable Jane E. Lawton, a past president of NATOA and former Special Assistant to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Carl Albert, for her career-long efforts to promote community interests in communications, the Award recognizes the work of individuals who stand out for their communities on PEG and broadband advocacy. Thank you, Mayor Wahler for your continued good work.
The Jersey Access Group has a great & strong history of activism on PEG, cable and broadband issues and we’re so appreciative of the long-standing partnership with NATOA.
You know, the day before your Conference, the House Energy & Commerce’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee held a Markup Hearing that was tough to watch and listen to as an advocate for local government on telecom matters and PEG operations, given the rigid party line conduct and anti-localism flavor of attacks. The markup hearing of 19 bills ultimately morphed into a single bill, H.R. 3557, the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023. H.R. 3557 passed along party lines and aimed to harm local governments’ public rights-of-way authority and risks the future of cable franchising and PEG operations.
The Subcommittee combined most of the bills that impact local governments into this single measure and was approved by a party line vote. As approved by the Subcommittee, the bill would:
A week later — and with little notice and with no opportunity for local governments to address the bill before the subcommittee — the Energy & Commerce Committee passed H.R. 3557 along party lines.
In a letter to Committee leadership, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors said:
“As the level of government closest to the people, we oppose heavy-handed federal overreach into local land use, permitting, and franchise negotiation decisions. Many of the bills the Subcommittee will consider during this hearing would preempt or undermine the property rights of local governments and local governments’ police powers to protect and preserve the safety, well-being, and aesthetics of their communities, which Congress and the Constitution have long recognized. Congress has historically recognized these rights in Sections 224, 253 and 332 of the Telecommunications Act.
These authorities are critical to conduct responsible stewardship of public property, protect public safety, and preserve the rights of residents as consumers of broadband services and neighbors to the infrastructure that makes connectivity possible. We fear the unintended consequence of some of these bills will be to impose costs on local governments, burdens on our taxpayers, interference with public safety and otherwise harm local protections that are the heart of localism without substantively improving broadband deployment.”
(See https://www.natoa.org/news/joint-letter-on-breaking-barriers–streamlining-permitting-to-expedite-broadband-deployment- )
Congressman Frank Pallone (D NJ-6) and Committee Ranking Member valiantly offered an Amendment to oppose HR 3557 and any action to approve it. Congressman Pallone said:
“To remove arbitrary deadlines and narrow timeframes in this bill that preempt local governments’ authority and ability to make decision that best meet the needs and best interest. That’s why these ‘deemed granted’ provisions that Republicans are rushing through are, I think, a bad process and are troubling to me and to the local elected officials in the towns we represent.
HR 3557 would enact narrow and arbitrary timeframes to approve or deny applications and then ‘deem them granted’ if a decision hasn’t been made by that time. Now to be clear, if a local planning board or town council is reviewing a project and does not approve it be a deadline set by House Republicans, the applicant’s proposal would automatically be considered approved w/o any further input from the community.
I have serious concerns that this approach raises mor Q’s than answers especially when it comes to liability in the case of public safety and accidents. The reality is, no matter where you go in this country, local governments have an important role to play in approving construction projects.
My Republican colleagues like to demonize local governments for not approving projects in the amount of time they would like. But, this bill does nothing to address a major concern that was raised by all the witnesses that was raised at the legislative hearing on this topic. And that is the lack of qualified personnel to process these applications, particularly in smaller towns and counties. Instead, they would wave their wand and approve these applications without further process.
Now, anyone who has served at the local level, and I have – (Long Branch, NJ city council, 1982-88) – there is a lot more to these decisions than simply yes or no. In many cases, there are negotiations between towns and counties with telecommunications provider for access to Rights of Way or other publicly owned areas. In other words, if a municipal planning board or zoning board is reviewing an application and does not issue an approval by a deadline set by House Republicans, the applicant’s proposal would automatically be considered approved w/o any further input from the community.
And, I’m most concerned that this approach raises more questions than answers, especially when it comes to liability in the case of accidents. And, my Republican colleagues like to demonize local governments who are not approving applications as quickly as they would like.
This ‘one size fits all’ mandate to approve a project in 2 months weakens a town’s ability to get the job done right while at the same time ignoring the reality of many local governments’ calendars. People who serve in town and county government are public servants who are accountable to the people who live in those communities. They are responsible for acting in their best interests, especially as it pertains to utilities and service in a county or town.
No one thinks about who’s responsible for ensuring your safety – for example, police or fire or traffic duty– for ensuring the safety of the public and the workers during construction. Or, the complexity of scheduling certain construction projects to avoid road closures or other disruption or delays that often and do occur as a result. It’s the Mayors, and councils and zoning boards who are responsible for these considerations. And, they’re ‘on the hook’ if anything goes wrong or someone gets hurt. And, perhaps, that is why we received a letter today form the Georgia Municipal Association, which represents all 537 municipalities in the bill sponsor’s home state.
They strongly oppose this bill. And, I would ask you now for unanimous consent to submit this letter for the record.
I have great respect for my friend from Georgia. He knows how much I love that state. But I’m struggling to understand how his constituents – and mine – are served well by these proposals because the ‘deemed granted’ proposals aren’t the only areas where this legislation removes critical local authority. At best, these proposals remove local leverage to negotiate the specifics of these projects that can best serve the people of these communities. At worst, they can put people at risk. Those of us who work closely with our mayors and councils – and I think that’s everyone on the dais here – we know that they are the first ones to step up when it comes to deploying communications infrastructure in their towns.
What possible advantage would come from deliberately ignoring or delaying requests to improve work that would improve services for their constituents?
So, last week, I challenged my Republican colleagues to tell their mayors that they voted for this bill the next time they went home and see what they say. So, when I went home this weekend & I asked the mayors and I was glad not to be on the record supporting this bill. I would encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and to go back to the drawing board and work with some Democrats in a productive way to develop some bills that might actually get signed into law. It’s not as though Democrats are not trying to look for ways to enacts permitting reform bills that do not trample on these protections.
But so far, the Republicans have said no. So, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve local authority and vote “Yes” on the amendment.”
You’ll find HR 3557 and the amendments discussed about 2:30 pm – 4 ½ hours into the hearing: https://energycommerce.house.gov/events/full-committee-markup-of-19-bills-2
Congressman Pallone did a great job advocating for local government and PEG operations. New Jersey and JAG should be very proud of your representation in Congress.
H.R. 3557 is called the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023 but it should really be called the “Great American Give-away” to cable, broadband and wireless operators. The bill suggests it will streamline permitting to increase broadband availability. Instead, it eliminates local and state rights in broadband deployment, wireless sittings and cable franchising to benefit these companies without getting anything for the public in return. There is no ‘quid pro quo’ that the cable, broadband and wireless companies will build out or serve those that need to be served.
H.R. 3557 is bad for local communities and for PEG operations. The bill has moved too quickly through the Committee and will likely soon move through the full House. There is no companion bill in the Senate.
If you can, please communicate to your Members of Congress that: Neither state nor local governments were even provided an opportunity to address these bills, now collapsed into one bill as HR 3557, at the subcommittee level.
Best to all!
MLynch@NATOA.org
703-519-8035 x 202 (w)
617-327-8066 (c)
National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA)https://www.linkedin.com/in/local-gov-natoa
Posted: June 20, 2023 by Doug Seidel
2023 JAG Conference Legislative Session Recap & the Protecting Community Television Act
by Dave Garb, Legislative Committee Chair
During our annual JAG Conference last month, we held a special session that recapped the latest news from Capitol Hill and what it all means to New Jersey municipalities and PEG/Access stations.
Our panelists, myself, Mike Wassenaar, President of the ACM, Alliance for Community Media, and Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director for NATOA, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, mainly focused on one very important subject, the federal Protecting Community Television Acts.
From this forum, it became obvious that our audience was not up to speed on why this legislation needs to be acted upon and what could be the ramifications if they are not. We explained all the details about it during the session, but I would like to once again give the background on what has been going on and why support of these bills is crucial.
From NATOA: On August 2, 2019, the FCC released a Third Report and Order interpreting provisions of the federal Cable Act. This Order allows cable operators to deduct from franchise fees the fair market value of cable franchise requirements, with limited exceptions, and largely preempts states and local governments from regulating the non-cable services and equipment of franchised cable operators, including their Wi-Fi and small cells equipment. This order defines “in-kind, cable-related contributions” to include “any non-monetary contributions related to the provision of cable services provided by cable operators as a condition or requirement of a local franchise, including but not limited to free or discounted cable service to public buildings, costs in support of PEG access other than capital costs, and costs attributable to the construction of I-Nets.
From The ACM: The FCC Franchise Fee Order redefined the federal Cable Act’s 5% franchise fee cap to include the value of most non-monetary franchise obligations as franchise fees. This change allows cable companies to reduce what they pay for the use of public property and rights-of-way. These Protecting Community Television Acts (S 340/HR 907) correct this error by clarifying that franchise fees are only monetary. The Cable Act protects the rights of a local community to charge cable companies a five (5%) percent franchise fee and to meet community needs and interests, such as providing public, educational and governmental channel capacity. Contrary to industry practices that date to the 1980s, the FCC’s actions could result in reducing cable operators’ monetary compensation to towns and municipalities that wish to communicate with residents through community television.
The Identical Protecting Community Television Acts, S 340, authored by Senator Edward Markey (MA) and Tammy Baldwin (WI), and HR 907, authored by Representative Anna Eshoo (CA), were reintroduced in Congress on February 9th of this year. These acts clarify that only monetary payments, not non-monetary franchise obligations, qualify as Cable Act franchise fees and are subject to a fee cap.
Without these acts passed into law, cable operators could create fees to drain away municipal revenues and pressure municipalities to give up or reduce the staff at their PEG channels. It could come down to a choice between franchise fees or communicating with residents through community media that provide Americans with local (transparent) civic, public safety and public health content.
When the Protecting Community Television Acts, were first introduced during the 2021-2022 Congressional Session, Representatives Donald Payne (10th District) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (12th District), led the charge by co-sponsoring it at that time.
This time around, New Jersey’s U.S. Senator Corey Booker learned about our concerns from the FCC’s Order and the detriment it could cause to all of New Jersey’s municipalities. This interest was first sparked by a visit I had, along with Mike Wassenaar, to his Washington DC office this past April.
More recently, this spark was relit when Beatrice Moskowitz, Vice Chair. of the Middlesex County Democrats, working with JAG’s Managing Director, Rich Desimone, made it possible for Senator Booker’s office to take a much closer look into this act, as well as an interest in our conference. So much so, that Senator Booker sent his Press Secretary, Minjae Park, to attend our conference and find out first hand what the issues were, what the act does, and also, what JAG was all about.
I am very happy to announce to our entire JAG community that for the 2023-2024 Congressional Session, Senator Corey Booker has become the first Federal Legislator from New Jersey to co-sponsor the Protecting Community Television Act. Our hope is that we can convey the importance of supporting both of these companion acts to all of our New Jersey members of Congress, so that every community can continue to have their specific and transparent information flow to their residents for their benefit, and for the benefit of all the citizens of our great State.
Posted: May 9, 2023 by Doug Seidel
Spotlight Woodbridge: Building and Managing a Municipal Access Cable Station
By Lee Beckerman, Station Manager, Woodbridge Channels
In the mid-1980s, Woodbridge Township was contemplating starting a cable TV channel of its own. They had secured a channel on Suburban, set up a governing board and had purchased a random assortment of equipment. And then…nothing happened. At some point they decided it was time to bring on a person to manage the station and move the project forward. I was fresh out of college with a degree in video production. Doing freelance and having a hard time finding fulltime work in my field, I jumped at the opportunity. It was not my dream job, but I thought it might be an adequate place holder to build my resume, and, lacking other options, I took it. I was eventually shown to a packed projection room/closet, told it was my new office and to have at it. No further instructions were forthcoming. No one had apparently thought past the idea of having a TV station and considered what to do with it. I rightly deduced that the first part of starting a community television station involved getting all the crap out of your new office and finding a desk.
One major advantage was that no one (including me) knew what a municipal cable station was supposed to be. There was a vague feeling that it might be a good addition to a forward-thinking town and should probably include some programs. The rest was up to me. I was trained in video production but I did not know any more than they did about what a municipal TV station should be. I set out to find the answer. What follows are some insights gained along the way.
Networking
You can’t do everything by yourself. With no knowledge of what to do with my channel, I reached out to the two thriving community stations in the area, Piscataway’s PCTC and East Brunswick’s EBTV. Debbe Gist and Cindy O’Connor helped immensely in getting the station up and running and gave me ideas I could build on. They also connected me with the Alliance for Community Media. The Township allowed me to attend their conference in Tampa, Florida. All this gave me a starting point.
It was Debbe who first brought the idea of creating JAG to all of us, probably because she was one of the people all the other stations turned to for ideas. Cindy became our first President and so began one of the most valuable resources for running a local access television station. Woodbridge Television could not have come as far without JAG’s support.
Audience
Access cable audiences are small. If we’re lucky, we get a few hundred to a few thousand viewers for a big event and often less than that. But the numbers are cumulative. The people who are watching the council meeting are not the same people watching your local sports; who are not the same people watching your concert coverage and your parades and business openings and school recitals etc… When added up, you can reach a large, diverse section of your population. For our mayor, announcing local sports is a passion, but for hundreds of kids in our town, and their parents, they know the name of the mayor because he is the local sports announcer.
As a side note, it is the talent that usually gets the direct feedback. The politicians and show hosts certainly knew before we did that we were building an audience. When we started, without access to metrics, this turned out to be a very important point.
Different platforms
In the beginning we had a cable TV channel, and all was good with the world. We put our programs out there and over time, word started leaking out to the powers-that-be that people were watching. (Hey, I saw you on the channel last night and you’re nuts). There were no metrics or any way to measure or define an audience. In came Princeton Server Group (now TelVue) whose file-based server systems completely revolutionized how we worked. Their streaming video service offered us a video-on-demand platform that let us push our shows out in a different way. (An interesting side note. JAG got involved with the Princeton Server group because Steve George’s son played soccer with my son in middle school and we got to talking on the sideline, which led to a tour and a meeting with the president, Jesse Lerman.)
After a while we began to use their metrics, and for the first time, to see the numbers. We next added YouTube and because of the popularity of the platform, once people realized we were there, they started looking for us instead of us seeking them out.
I’m at the tail end of the boomer generation. I’m not going to be the guy to lead the charge on alternate social media platforms. But I know a good thing when I see one. The town had started using Facebook to shout out to residents, so we set up our own page to push out our content. Younger staff began sending out tweets and doing Instagram posts as we set up and shot programs to tease the content. We also started getting conversations going on social media during events like games and concerts, including announcers interacting with fans in real time, creating buzz.
Relationships
Community Television is about…community. Getting to know your community and establishing relationships gains you access. Early on I created a relationship with our local arts center. We began by covering a few of their concerts, but as they came to know and trust us as professionals, that blossomed into several joint grants for documentaries which won many awards and ended up, along with several of our concerts, being featured on Metro-Arts in NYC to audiences of millions. That gets the name of your town out there!
When I first tried covering high school sports it was a bit of a disaster. What I failed to do was get buy-in from the athletic directors and the school administrations. (We have three high schools). It took a long time to build that trust, but it was essential to successfully covering local sports.
Relationships with municipal departments and local non-profits are also important. We’ve put out content for our police department, libraries, youth theater, historical society, and senior services to name a few. But having strong ties with public works and parks and rec is equally critical. I had a day where we were shooting our exercise show in a park. I scouted a perfect location with the Outerbridge Crossing in the background. On shoot day we arrived to set up and someone had parked a giant dumpster in the middle of my shot! However, because I had built relationships within the town, I had phone numbers of people who knew who I was and I had a truck pull out the dumpster within a half an hour.
Quality
Programming quality is essential. If an audience can’t see and hear a program, you have wasted your, and your viewers’ time. Among the first complex programs I started doing were art center concerts. I insisted that they hire a professional audio engineer. I knew I could deliver the video but if the sound wasn’t great, what was the point? Eventually they added an audio engineer to all their concert grants. Video quality is likewise important. Your audience may not know how to create great programming, but they have watched a lot of it, and they understand what it’s supposed to look like. They might forgive quality issues for something they are crazy into, but unless you have a marketing genius on board you cannot build an audience that way.
The look of your shows matter. We try to get very creative with sets and looks on a very limited budget. I designed my own sets, and we were able to find someone in the Parks Department who could build them. With my set design I strove to create sets that shared production elements, maximizing utility and minimizing space constraints. When we were doing Seniorsize, I looked at the township roller rink and realized they already had a great lighting system and I just had to add key lights to make a dynamic show with less set-up time. We also did a season at the Woodbridge Mall (another great partnership) that gave us a cool and dynamic background with minimal additional effort (at least as far as the look was concerned.)
Recently, we are doing more things with green screen. This offers huge flexibility and is great for many applications. The sets, however, especially for multicamera shoots, do have a very digital look especially at our price point. I’m sure there will be new innovations going forward.
People
You need to hire good people! OK, obvious. Finding good people is hard with our budget limitations, especially in a tight labor market. But people choose jobs for different reasons. I did not intend to stay in my job for more than a few years, but I found I liked the relative freedom, the ability to be creative and I liked building something. In addition to our regular fare of sports and concerts we have made narrative films, documentaries, short comedies with special effects and big location shoots. My staff gets some leeway to create and produce shows on their own for the station. Turned out it was a good gig. I think these are good selling points. I should mention that two out of three of my most recent hires came from JAG stations/ recommendations. When I look at new people, I always hire them as freelancers first so I can get a sense of their work ethic and how they gel with the crew.
Getting creative with staff is also essential to any small operation. Many of the events we cover are at night or on weekends so in order to have staff available we have two members who work 4 days on/4 days off from late morning into the evening. The days are 10-hours so they are available to cover evenings and weekends. We take advantage of interns to help cover larger events and, of course, freelancers for the biggest productions. This is something we had to build up to and we started with volunteers like everyone.
Bosses and Politicians
I had some early run-ins with bosses and politicians. Much of this had to do with my misunderstanding of our relationship. When I was working from the model of public access, I would often fight battles about public access issues. The truth, however, is I work for them in the municipal access model. There are exceptions.
Open meetings rules mean I never edit any public meetings and I have never been asked to or have we in 35 years. We do not allow talk about elections or candidates during election season (outside of debate coverage), and do not endorse any candidates, at any time, on the channel. That aside, the channel has a mandate to be the video face of our town and government, including its leaders, along with highlighting our events civic organizations, nonprofits, schools, citizens and everything our township has to offer.
Reputation
As a municipal department I started to notice different departments have different reputations. This stood out for me when the deputy police chief kept bringing guests by to see the station. I asked him why this was and he said, “I love coming in here because everyone’s always working, all the time.” I liked that. I try to make it a point for people to understand we take the work seriously and are willing to work hard to make it as good as we can. They don’t always understand what we’re doing but if they show up at an event and see our cameras everywhere and everyone humming like a well-oiled machine, it makes an impression. We also do not stand on our laurels but always try to innovate in small ways and push things forward. I find it is easier to ask for things if people believe you are working hard and believe you will put what you ask for to good use. The motto I’ve adopted is to under promise and over deliver.
Equipment
It is essential that you keep current with equipment to the best extent possible. Early on I communicated to my town that I was not trying to build CBS -that the equipment I was buying was appropriate for the application. But I also tried to get the best quality equipment that met our needs. I got push back when we became an early AVID adopter, or when we decided we needed to build a mobile production unit, but I was able to give them detailed and expansive reasons why I wanted them and what I was planning to do with them and how they would benefit the town. When they got tired of listening, they let me have what I need if I would just go away. Well not really. I had some protracted arguments about some of this, but I did have my facts. As I stated before, your audience watches video, they know what to expect and if you are not delivering it, they have another reason to turn away. This was obviously why we fought so hard for an HD channel. When the show looks bad, they assume it’s you and you have given them an excuse not to watch.
Cross Pollination
It’s important to have the people you partner with on shows, guests, talent, performers etc, help push out the content on their own social media accounts. This is something I wish we did more in my time and something I think the new staff will be thinking about. If you do a show with a local organization or business, make sure they get a link and put it on their website, which leads back to your social media which brings in people who may not have been aware of you. We also share our shows and posts to the mayor’s social media which has a much larger footprint than ours.
Local TV
Easy to forget sometimes but we should be the voice of our town. I always felt it was my mandate to emphasize the Township of Woodbridge as much as possible. We take in very few outside shows, mostly things from Middlesex County government and a few other exceptions, but I always try to keep a Woodbridge twist on everything. With the demise of our bulletin board Channel (We had to give it back in exchange for our HD channel) we started to make all the bulletin board notices into PSAs with voice-overs and motion and graphics to replace the old Ad Council PSA’s. Once again, if you turn on Woodbridge TV you should instantly get a dose of Woodbridge, which is what I consider the essence of Municipal Access Television.
In Conclusion
I got lucky in many ways. First, Woodbridge is a large community with a population of over 100,000. I had a few years in the beginning with little scrutiny, in which to build a foundation. When Mayor Joseph DeMarino went on trial for corruption (he was acquitted) we were able to provide the first gavel-to-gavel coverage of a trial in New Jersey. The whole township tuned in, with watch parties at many bars. This raised public awareness of the station and government officials became aware of the potential of the medium.
When new officials were elected, we were already a going concern and the new Mayor, Jim McGreevey, was anxious to use and build on it. The station continued to grow under Mayor Pelzman. But Woodbridge Township Television really blossomed under Mayor McCormac and this current administration who have supported and encouraged us in so many ways. My staff, new station manager Gina Forbes, assistant manager, Joe Fernandes, Emil Brandafi, Samantha Roth, Erin Zirpolo, new producer Valentino Lamotta and Bruno Martins from the Woodbridge Township School District as well as my longtime boss, John Hagerty, have all helped build and support the station. All the great people at JAG including Bob Duthaler and Rich Desimone have had a great impact. I understand my experience may not be your experience and we all have different models and mandates. What we have at The Woodbridge Channels was built very slowly over a long period of time, starting with one person in a basement closet thinking big.
Posted: May 9, 2023 by Doug Seidel
The Conference is Waiting for You
By Don Smith, Vice Chair, Conference Committee
We are only 2 weeks away from the JAG Conference! The conference committee has been working hard to bring an informative, networking, and fun conference to the members and supporters of JAG. Tell all your members to mark down May 18th and we will see you there. For details and to register visit our website www.jagconference.com
Conference Schedule
TelVue/ Varto Technologies/ Cologna Productions/ DeSisti Lighting/ de Wolfe Music/ NewTek/ LiveU
MyCaseBuilder, NJ Film Commission, US Broadcast Distribution
Presentation: Community Recognition Award
The Jersey Access Group is pleased to present the West Milford Town Council, and in particular Mayor Michele Dale and Council liaisons Ada Erik and Marilyn Lichtenberg for their continued support of their municipal channel WM77.
Presentation: Vendor Appreciation Award– Launch- JAG Streaming Channel: Rushworks streaming equipment and TelVue streaming service.
The Jersey Access Group recognizes the support of Rushworks for their donation of the Streamster a hardware/software combination for managing and streaming JAG’s own Internet TV channel.
The Jersey Access Group recognizes the support of TelVue in providing the streaming service that makes it possible for the JAG Internet TV channel to be seen on a number of different social media platforms.
Discussion: Where’s The Money? — From Washington to Trenton, Accessing Broadband Money from the American Infrastructure Bill Over a year ago the federal government approved 65 billion dollars to improve broadband deployment. That money flows from the Federal Government to the states for distribution. Where are we now? How can municipalities have access to funds? What are broadband and cable companies doing to help deployment of broadband? Our panel will talk about this and other issues, plus answer your questions. Panelists: Robert Boyle, CEO Planet Networks, Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Altice, Mike Wassenaar, President & CEO, Alliance for Community Media and Mike Lynch, Legislative Director, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, (NATOA)
Closing event with networking opportunities and providing time to thank the vendors that have supported the conference.
A celebration of all that JAG has accomplished to advocate, promote, and preserve the right to media production, distribution, civic engagement, and education in support of diverse community voices, through Public, Educational and Government access facilities and other forms of media.
JAG Recognition Awards: Lee Beckerman is one of the founding members of JAG from its first meeting to serving on the executive board for over 18 years. Lee was involved with the writing of JAG’s first mission statement, goals and policies and procedures. Lee served as the 2nd president of JAG and has been on the production committee from the beginning. Lee has dedicated thousands of hours in the last 30+ years, serving to the betterment of this organization and the PEG TV industry. Lee is the Station Manager of the Woodbridge Channels that is one of the first municipal stations in New Jersey.
Entertainment: Entertainment sponsored by Cologna Productions
Simon Mandel returns to JAG’s Banquet. Simon Mandal is one of the most in demand illusionists in the world today. Simon combines incredible feats of skill with hilarious interactive routines that bring the house down, and make the volunteers he brings on stage look like and feel like stars.
JAG Awards: The JAG Awards are annual awards, facilitated by the Jersey Access Group, that honor excellence in local & regional Public Education Government (PEG) programming. Categories cover a variety of programming including, among others, community events, documentaries, talk shows, sports, and entertainment. The Jersey Access Group is very proud of the programming all PEG Stations produce and is honored to host the JAG Awards each year.President’s Ovation Awards: Bob Duthaler, the President of The Jersey Access Group will present the President’s Ovation Award to a member and/or board member of JAG in acknowledgement of their unrelenting commitment to the members of the Jersey Access Group, and the operation of public, education, and government communication facilities.
Posted: May 9, 2023 by Doug Seidel
Increasing Broadband Service in Your Community
by Dave Garb, Legislative Committee Chair
Warning, it is all around you! There is nowhere to hide from it! And it is on its way to the 2023 JAG Conference.
It’s the B-word! BROADBAND!!!
Yes, It Is Everywhere, Be Prepared! or Be Left Out!
In 2021, the federal government passed the American Infrastructure Act which approved billions of dollars to improve broadband deployment throughout the country. That money will flow from the Federal Government and be distributed by each state in a major goal to build-out broadband everywhere, including in the rural areas.
On May 18th, during the JAG Conference Keynote Luncheon, we explore the ways all municipalities can access the money, and what to do with it once it arrives at the local level. Our panel of experts, Robert Boyle, CEO Planet Networks; , Marilyn Davis, Senior Director of Government Affairs, Altice Mike Wassenaar, President of the ACM; and Mike Lynch, Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Director for NATOA, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, will guide you on a successful path to help you acquire a piece of this funding for your community.
For any of you who are thinking about what chance your municipality has at obtaining some of this funding, your chances are pretty good. Congress has made broadband a major priority and wants everybody in the US to have it. To make this agenda come to fruition, the House’s Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing this past April 19th, entitled “Breaking Barriers: Streamlining Permitting to Expedite Broadband Deployment.”
According to the Committee’s Majority Staff Memo, https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20230419/115750/HHRG-118-IF16-20230419-SD094.pdf the hearing took up more than 30 additional bills aimed at what are described as the ‘Federal Barriers’, ’State and Local Government Obstacles’, as well as, ‘Pole Attachments (Access to Poles)’ to help streamline these regulations. This is essential in order to encourage and expedite the broadband infrastructure deployment throughout the United States.
A set of questions was posed for these hearings included:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce even wrote an article highlighting what Congress must do to take action in order to accelerate the process for ensuring all Americas have access to the latest innovations in connectivity. https://www.uschamber.com/technology/broadband/4-actions-congress-must-take-to-accelerate-access-and-adoption-of-smart-broadband-programs.
These 4 Actions are:
If this wasn’t a lot to digest, *The Community Broadband Act of 2023* was reintroduced on both sides of the Capital. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker sponsored S.1197, while Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA) sponsored H.R.2552.
This legislation will empower local governments to ensure their residents have equitable broadband access by removing roadblocks for public-private partnerships and locally-owned broadband providers. It will also improve internet and broadband access across the country by removing roadblocks prohibiting local communities from building their own broadband networks.
These Acts have been endorsed by NATOA.
Confusing? Maybe a little. But, as you have read, Congress is investing heavily in order to bring broadband to all Americans. It’s just
amatter of how to go about it correctly and spend the money wisely. Please join us on May 18th, at the Crowne Plaza in Edison, NJ, www.jagconference.com. Find out where you can secure the funds to 100% connect your community and prepare everyone for the future of Broadband.Posted: April 26, 2023 by Doug Seidel
Spotlight Bloomfield:Rebuilding For Now and The Future But Recognizing The Past
By Bob Duthaler, Station Manager, Bloomfield
And So It Began… WBMA-TV (Channel 35) in Bloomfield, NJ has been in operation for over 45 years, making it one of the oldest municipal channels on Comcast. Its purpose was and still is to inform the Bloomfield Community of events happening throughout the township, while supporting open government through the playback of meetings on the cable channel. It started out like many stations across the state have, in a small space, a bunch of VHS players and a graphics system. Over the years the space in which the station operated grew larger, but much of the equipment stayed the same. VHS players, mixed with SVHS with shows being recorded on mini-dv, were the flavor through the early 2000s. Unfortunately, due to the death of the station manager, and a couple of short-term interim managers, the station was starting to fall by the wayside. Thankfully, a new board member who was experienced professionally in the industry, kept the station on life support, convincing the Township of Bloomfield and the Cable Advisory Board that the station needed to change both the way it operated and the technology at hand.
Timing Is Everything… Just like the timing was right for the station to change, so would the timing for its current Executive Director, Bob Duthaler to step in. Brought in by the Cable Advisory Council liaison and Board President in 2007, Duthaler hit the ground running. Fortunately, he had the support of the Township Council and Cable Advisory Board behind him. The station quickly converted from analog playout to a Telvue digital broadcast server and bulletin board system. Doing away with the racks of SVHS and VHS players, the station started down a new road. New edit systems, new studio cameras and file-based recorders all became the new norm for WBMA-TV. Within the next few years more township events were being covered, in addition to council, board of ed, planning and zoning meetings. The station soon began its own series of shows including Bloomfield Buzz TV, Saturday Night at the Movies, To Your Health Bloomfield and WBMA-TV Sports Coverage. Within a few short years, the station now had an operational studio, ENG cameras for remote events and the ability to do live events. They even pulled off an 8-hour live Harvest Fest Coverage with an outside studio for interviews, live music coverage and remote live “man on the street” interviews using microwave transmission. Duthaler will be quick to tell you that coverage of this event was possible due to all the Cable Advisory Board members pitching in as volunteers, along with several JAG members who also volunteered to help him as well.
Leap Forward… Skip ahead ten plus years and WBMA-TV remained strong in its operation, covering more township events than ever. There is a regular programming schedule, and the station continues to be a community fixture. WBMA-TV now includes an online presence with live streaming of the station on the township website, its own video on demand player with access to years of programming, along with now operating two channels on Comcast and three on Verizon. Operationally, WBMA-TV adapted to the changes over the years. “As volunteers started to become far and few between, we needed to start hiring freelancers to keep up with the coverage of events for which we were requested” said Duthaler. He continued to say, “The industry is always changing, and we learned to keep up with and adapt as necessary to that change. This is what has helped us remain a successful station. JAG has also played an important role in that as well, giving us access to vendors, equipment and conference workshops that teach us and help us grow.”
Who Knew It Was Coming… Then in 2018, WBMA-TV had developed a strong relationship with the Township’s IT Director along with continued support from the Mayor and Council and would begin to start its next phase of growth and expansion. The station took over the operation of the educational channel as well on both Comcast and Verizon. Soon, both Comcast and Verizon would run new fiber to the WBMA-TV studios in addition to placing digital encoders to receive the stations broadcast signal. WBMA-TV finally removed the last remaining analog component to its operation and became all digital in its broadcast. It would also be through the local franchise negotiations with Comcast, that Bloomfield had put in place for its future the running of fiber between the municipal building and the civic center, in which WBMA-TV was located. The plan was now to setup PTZ cameras and Dante Audio systems at the municipalities’ Council Chambers to send them back to the station control room via a network connection to produce meetings from the WBMA-TV studios. In addition to that project getting underway, the station also purchased a used video production truck from the negotiated franchise funds and was starting to create its own mobile production vehicle. Things were about to get underway with both projects, then the calendar read March 2020!
Lockdown, reinvention, LIVE… It all changed that second week in March, when we all got the word that everything was shutting down because of COVID-19. Fortunately for WBMA-TV, we had everything in place for operating the station remotely. Thankfully because of vendors associated with JAG like Telvue and Varto Technologies, we could already operate the station remotely, handling station programming, bulletin board updates, program insertion and more from remote locations. What WBMA-TV was now being challenged to do, how do we cover all meetings from remote locations, some in a hybrid situation and broadcast them live and on-air and social media. Thankfully, through the support of LiveU and their PEG bundling equipment and pricing we found that solution. So, with lots of COVID testing, masks, social distancing, a large monitor with Zoom, and our camera equipped with a LiveU 300 unit, we started out in uncharted waters of live, remote tv coverage from Conference Rooms at town hall, Media Centers at the HS Library or in large rooms with everyone spread out, we embarked on a new adventure that has changed our operations even today. We were now the Live Channel! We also ran daily live press conferences from the governor, health updates from township officials and regular updates from the mayor as well.
It Took Longer, but it’s here… COVID brought about changes in both the truck project and remote meeting coverage system. A new Tricaster TC-2 Elite was purchased during covid to replace the TC-1 in which we were about to install in the studio control room. The new unit allowed us to incorporate Zoom meeting directly into the switcher allowing for individuals to brought up on air as single shot. The TC-1 which was slated for the studio, now was put in to the truck, which started a yearlong build out of the vehicle (COVID and Supply Chain- not a winning combination). In addition, we continued the long road of battling COVID, lockdowns and mask wearing to build out the council chambers with PTZ cameras, incorporating Dante for audio and sending it across a fiber network from town hall to the studio control room about a mile away (as the fiber goes). It wasn’t long before we started doing all Zoom meetings in our control room, which allowed us better broadcasting quality, individual shot selections, presentation pull-ups and more, while broadcasting live on-air, streaming on the website and social media. We eventually came back in person for council and a zoom portion for public input. Hybrid meeting coverage was well underway. We also were rolling out OTT capabilities during this period. We launched our own Apple TV, ROKU, and Amazon Fire Channels. This now allowed cord cutters to be kept in the loop as well during the pandemic. Change was coming hard and fast (as fast as you can go during a pandemic) and the station was once again evolving. The Mayor, Council and Community all put their trust in the station to keep the community informed and involved during the pandemic, and WBMA-TV came through with flying colors.
New Era Underway… July 4th, 2022, WBMA-TV began its first remote production with its new vehicle. Coverage of Bloomfield’s annual July 4th Concert and Fireworks kicked off a new chapter for WBMA-TV. The new production truck would continue to cover summer concerts, parades and more, both live and live to tape (or hard drive). The Studio control room is fully operational for remote, live meeting coverage – in which live is the new norm now. The video production truck now has a replay system installed for future sports coverage and is working on getting its own power source for locations where two 30amp circuits are not setup to accommodate the vehicle. WBMA-TV also added its first high-definition channel on cable, with the new Verizon 2137 Channel. WBMA-TV is also working on creating an iOS and Android app, to make the station available on phones, computers, and tablets. The next phase in the evolution of the once Channel 35 is underway, again! Feel free to reach out to Bob Duthaler at WBMA-TV and have a look at the station’s operations, studio and production truck. Fun Fact: Channel 35 as it was known for years, as being on channel location 35 on Comcast, is called WBMA-TV. What does WBMA-TV mean? Watch Bloomfield Municipal Access TV. You can see the station’s website at www.wbmatv.com