Franklin●TV is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. We operate the local access TV studios for Franklin. We produce local TV programs on three channels:
- Franklin All Access TV - Our Public Access Channel (Comcast 8, Verizon 26).
- Franklin Pride TV - Our Schools Channel (Comcast 96, Verizon 28).
- Franklin Town Hall TV - Our Government Channel (Comcast 11, Verizon 29).
We are Franklin’s local TV channels on Comcast and Verizon. We are not owned by Comcast or Verizon.
Background
The Town of Franklin is the Local Franchise Authority (LFA) that maintains agreements with Comcast and Verizon. Franklin●TV’s funding comes from a local access fee that cable subscribers pay per the LFA agreements. Thus, as an independent nonprofit group, F●TV is not funded by taxes. We operate at no cost to the town. We support both residents and the Town per our charter. F●TV also pays a PILOT fee (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) to the Town of Franklin by agreement. We are the first nonprofit group that contributes to town services. As an IRS 501(c)(3) charity we also may receive grants and donations from contributors.
Community Bulletin Board Service
In addition to programming, Franklin●TV offers free community announcements on our Bulletin Board for all three P/E/G channels. Nonprofit organizations who wish to promote their meetings, special events and activities are welcome to contact us.
Our Studios and Offices
We have five thousand square feet that houses two video studios (a large drive-in access studio and an interview studio), A live television control room, two audio recording and production rooms, six digital video editing/effects systems, and our multi-channel playback systems and offices.
We also have general purpose Community Meeting Space available – free to qualified nonprofit groups and service organizations for occasional meetings. Our facility accommodates up to 30 people.
Uniquely Trying Times for All
At the start of 2020 the world experienced the rapid rise of the drastically transformative COVID pandemic. Whether that transformation would prove disastrous or not in the long run was a matter of reassessing our present circumstances and longer-term future plans.
In the film Apollo 13. NASA's Mission Director Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) declares, "Failure is not an option", and he asks the pivotal question, "I know what's not working. Tell me what's working."
What was not working?
Out of an abundance of caution our studio was closed for the duration. This was true for all local community TV studios. We opted to avoid having people gather for interviews in our smaller studio. Having folks talking in close proximity for an hour or so posed far too much risk of infection.
So, what was working?
We moved quickly to add new technical capabilities across the facility. The entire operation is now controlled remotely. We edit our video programs remotely. We control our cable channels remotely. We manage wfpr.fm, our radio station remotely. We added online video services via YouTube as well.
Meanwhile, normal town business had to continue. Our coverage of open meetings required a substantial expansion of technical facilities, both in our main studio as well as in Franklin's Town Chambers. Zoom became the digital transport means for most of our live event programming. The result is that meetings are now more interactive, enabling town officials, committee members, experts, guest presenters and residents to communicate freely in real-time.
We also began covering Franklin high school's varsity sports as live events via Zoom. This became a major priority since parents could no longer attend events to watch their kids play. Our announcers also worked remotely from home, watching and commenting on the games via Zoom. To facilitate multi-camera sports coverage we designed and constructed three video 'flypacks' - basically a ready-to-air TV control room in a highly portable, fold-up, fifty-pound box. Unfold box. Connect cameras. Broadcast live.
We also worked to support other organizations – Senior Center, The Rec Dept., Black Box, the boy scouts and others to provide streaming coverage for key events where a live audience could not attend.
Finally, our radio station has actually expanded its local programming - effectively doubling since the pandemic began. We provided podcast microphone kits to our radio volunteers to connect them all together and to the radio station via Zoom. Steve Sherlock, Jim Derick, Frank Falvey, Jay Horrigan, Anne Bergen, Pandora Carlucci, Michael Walker-Jones, Jeff Roy, Mark Lenzi, Kim Simone, et al have all engaged in enhancing our community connectedness in a time of increased social isolation through their ongoing radio programs and audio podcasts.
Each challenge during this past year has been met with one philosophy. Whatever the solution – it's here to stay, so do it right. We are already the better for it, and the sweeping technical changes that we have made will be a permanent part of our newer, better normal. Failure was not an option.
This is part of the Franklin Annual Report which can be found online ->
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