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Local public TV channel seeking director

Christine McManus

SUMMIT COUNTY – Help wanted: Someone with an interest in the civic life of Summit County who knows how to run a television station.Channel 10, the new public, education and government (PEG) cable channel, will remain blank until the Summit County Telecommunications Consortium hires someone to run it.A message promises the PEG channel is “coming soon.” An eclectic selection of unrelated music occupies the audio.The consortium began advertising for the position this week.”This is a start-up venture. Consequently, there is no existing equipment except for the Comcast cable network,” states the application packet available from Dillon town manager Jack Benson.”We plan to start out simple with community announcements, road conditions and local weather. We hope to eventually phase in more sophisticated programming for community education,” Benson said.The consortium wants applicants to suggest a list of equipment purchases and a budget to run the channel.The position is the first for the new local government/education television station for Summit County. Channel 10, which formerly featured Resort Sports Network programming, became the consortium’s baby when Comcast rearranged the channel lineup several weeks ago, as planned.RSN now broadcasts on channels 13 and 16 on the unified channel grid.Summit County and the towns of Frisco, Breckenridge, Silverthorne and Dillon would not be the first in Colorado to have a government television station.Many municipalities along the Front Range operate locally broadcast channels to communicate civic messages to residents.The channels feature programs such as basic voting information, local history programming, local authors, festivals and building code compliance information.Some carry live city council meetings, a feature that the Summit consortium also will consider.Denver’s station last year began featuring “John’s TV,” showing photos of people convicted of engaging in business with prostitutes. Denver also has a channel for publicly created programming, and runs its own Internet service provider and hosts government Web sites.All programming on Channel 10 will be government related and endorsed by the county or towns. The Summit School District and Colorado Mountain College also are involved. The five local governments each paid $2,500 the past couple years to the consortium.In addition, the station has about $148,000 for equipment. Most of the equipment moneywas given by AT&T Broadband two years ago when it owned the cable system and the government negotiated franchise agreements through the consortium.In addition to the standard resume and reference requests, applicants must read through the consortium’s plans and must propose employee costs, the prices of equipment needed and any other possible costs.The consortium wants to hire someone, either a contractor or full-time employee, who has at least three years of experience in public programming and working with volunteer boards.Applications are dueDec. 12. For information, call Dillon town clerk Jan Thomas at (970) 262-3406 or e-mailjant@ci.dillon.co.us.Christine McManus can be reached at (970) 668-3998, ext. 229, or cmcmanus@summitdaily.com.


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