PORT TOWNSEND — The public access TV station that brings Jefferson County viewers everything from gay rights, feng shui, yoga and late-night adult shows to conservative Christian programs, high school wrestling and point-counterpoint politics aired a banner broadcast year in 2005.
PTTV Channel 47’s growing volunteer force produced 200 live or taped TV shows last year, station representatives said.
“That’s so extraordinary that many other such stations don’t believe it,” said PTTV General Manager Gary Lemons.
The city of Port Townsend-owned station broadcasts programs to Millennium Digital Media cable TV’s 1,800 in-city subscribers and about 4,000 subscribers in Jefferson County.
Figuring an average of about 2.5 persons per household, that could translate to more than 13,000 viewers around the county, Lemons said.
“The fact that we have the only live studio on the Peninsula is really something that makes us attractive,” Lemons said, sitting in the production studio that he and PTTV member Gary Nelson built and wired eight years ago.
Even those with Bainbridge Island Broadcasting and Bremerton Cable Access TV are looking at PTTV as a model for what they hope to accomplish, Lemons said.
The producers
Inside its modest but well-equipped studio in Port Townsend High School’s Gael Stuart Building on Blaine Street, PTTV’s volunteer producers experienced their best year in the station’s eight-year history, said Lemons and Karen Johnson, the station’s Producers Guild president.
Johnson and up to 30 producers work hands-on in the studio, setting up for shows and operating cameras, which Lemons directs behind the production room computer controls.
“What I see 2006 being is not only new memberships, but new subscribers,” said Lemons.
“The more subscribers we get, the more support we get through subscriptions.”
Last year, the station generated $10,000 through its city franchise cable subscription fee of 45 cents a month per subscriber.
Membership fees generated $13,000 for the station last year, about $2,500 more than two years ago, its best membership year ever.
After starting out with one member eight years ago — Mayor Mark Welch, who teaches broadcasting at the high school and is an independent filmmaker — the station today has 31 individual members and 21 organizational members that total more than 800 people.
The station received a $54,000 city franchise fee last year from Millennium Digital Media.
‘United We Broadcast’
Johnson said she believes a new mission and motto, “United We Broadcast,” will spur the PTTV Producers Guild forward this year.
“Our goal as a Producers Guild is to make sure those airwaves stay open,” said Johnson.
“We are working on developing more programs.”
Those new programs could feature music and a cooking show, she said.
Another guild goal is to get more nonprofit organizations on the air.
Already, United Good Neighbors, a United Way-style fundraiser for the needy in Jefferson County, has aired a program.
The Jefferson County Economic Development Council, seeking more publicity for its efforts, last week became a station member and will broadcast talk programs.
The PDN is a PTTV organizational member, and will resume broadcasting its Peninsula Daily News Show interviews in March.
The PDN also publishes PTTV’s weekly broadcast schedule in its Sunday “TV Week” guide.
