Franklin Matters: Franklin TV: Spreadsheets

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Franklin TV: Spreadsheets

Math is Mathin’ – Totally.

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 01/25/2026

In days of yore, when someone’s stated claims just didn’t make sense we used to say, “ Wait. That just doesn’t add up.”

Today, the street says, “ Yo, that math ain’t mathin’.”

Franklin TV: Spreadsheets

Enter the spreadsheets. I love Excel. That sounds so – nerdishly geeky. But, it’s true. Why? Because math is truth. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. In a time when our cable funding is slowly shriveling up from cord-cutting, we all need to work and ‘math’ our budgets with sharper pencils. (Sharper – mouse-clicks?)

As Public Access TV folks, we strive to do more with less. Is what we do ‘enough’? The best way to answer that is, “What would our services cost – if we didn’t exist?” Although our media services are free, what’s the fair market rate for what we do?”

So, every year I recreate a standard media services ‘Line Card’. It’s a breakdown of all the gear and labor that goes into a media project – from first idea to final release. I develop a detailed reference ‘Line Card’ as a Menu of our equipment and services. (I’ll have the Two Cameras – with a side of audio, please.) It averages the market rate services from ‘for hire’ media and production companies across the country.

Then the fun begins. I combine and tally services for the types of productions we create. I model studio projects; location projects. Then I tally all the episodes we produce for each program series, school games, civic events, government meetings. It’s our report card. It’s our North Star. It’s – a lot.

In fact, it’s typically 2.3x to 2.6x our income. What does that mean in real numbers?

‘For hire’ media needs a margin of at least 1.8x just to survive. We’re healthy, so far.

Franklin has 33,000 residents. At $18 per capita (and dropping), our annual income is around $594,000. Our ‘fair market’ value total is $1,425,000; 2.4x our income. This is what a performance reality check should look like. The numbers reveal all.

Our math? It’s totally mathin’. It’s not the income that matters. It’s the outcome.

And – as always –