Posts tagged broadcast
Television: An Introduction
Oct 16th
I am so old that I remember when people didn’t have televisions in their homes. Back in the Olden Days, we had radios and listened to radio stories while we “watched” them in our minds.
For example, as a kid I listened to and “watched” “The Lone Ranger,” “Straight Arrow,” “Tom Mix” and “Billy Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders.”
Google ’em, Dudes and Dudettes.
So, when I heard about television, how it was the “coming thing” and how it added pictures to radio, I naturally assumed that all my favorite radio programs would just automatically migrate to new-fangled television.
Well, of course, some of them did, but many of them didn’t.
Other favorites of my radio listening were “Inner Sanctum” and “Suspense.” Imagine my surprise when years later after I became older and developed an interest in reading and I would read stories by famous authors and recognize some of those same stories that I had listened to and “watched” on radio!
Yes, Dear Reader, Hollywood recycles stories. But then, so did Shakespeare. (Google him, Dudes and Dudettes.)
Anyway, when my parents bought our first television set, guess what. The pictures weren’t in color! They were in black and white! Imagine that. And we were so fascinated with this new-fangled technology that we sat in front of it and watched whatever was being broadcast until the station went off the air at the end of the night.
Yes, Dear Reader, in the Olden Days, TV stations weren’t on 24 hours a day and when they signed off, they showed a picture of a waving American flag and played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
As a matter of fact, in the city where we lived, there were only three TV stations in operation, which broadcast television programs from the only three networks that existed at the time! (Google ’em, Dudes and Dudettes.)
And all those television signals come through the air from the stations’ broadcast towers right to our television set and the rabbit-ears antenna on top of our TV set. And we didn’t even have to pay for it! Our only expense for watching television in those days was what we paid for our television set! And TV sets were so large that they were just like furniture in the room!
That’s right. Back in those days, so-called “cable-TV” was used only for homes that couldn’t get over-the-air reception from the broadcast towers.
And, then, guess what. When cable-TV became popular and people were willing to pay for television broadcasts, some people were so naive as to believe that if they had to pay for television, there shouldn’t be any commercials!
But then television became so popular, more stations popped up in town, more networks came into existence, and even more commercials took over the programming.
In fact, back in those Olden Days, advertisers owned the programs! There was only one advertiser for an entire show! You could google it.
Another oddity back then was that a program lasted all year long! Yes,there would be 39 new episodes each year, followed by 13 repeats during the summer. Imagine that.
Then color showed up, and that meant that it became more expensive to buy a TV set. That also meant that it became more difficult to adjust the picture. And adjusting the picture meant actually getting up out of your chair, walking over to the TV set, and turning dials on the back of the set!
As a matter of fact, the first remote control that I ever owned was actually connected to the TV set by a wire! Can you imagine? Picture it in your mind.
Talk about ancient history!
Kids today just don’t appreciate how easy it is to watch television.
Back in the Olden Days, watching television was an experience. It was something we appreciated, because we had to make an effort to watch it.
And don’t even get me started about kids who have their own television set in their own bedroom! I didn’t own a TV set until I was an adult and had moved away from home!
Well, that’s enough for now. All this reminiscing has made me tired and it’s time for my nap.
Goodbye and good watching.
Bruce Borowsky : Boulder Public Access TV
Aug 30th
What’s After Public Access?
Posted: August 30th, 2011 | Author: Bruce Borowsky | Filed under: Community, Film/Video Production | Tags: Public Access TV, storytelling, Video Production | No Comments »
Remember when we were promised 500 channels on TV? Well, it’s funny; now that it’s here, I’m wishing they would take some away. It seems like out of that 500, about 300 of them are “reality” shows of some sort, then another 150 are sports channels, and the remainder show back-to-back episodes of “Law & Order” or “CSI.” Whatever happened to programming of the people, by the people?
Back in the day (meaning about 20 years ago), there was this thing called Public Access television. It was where Zach and I, and many people we work with now, got their start in professional video production. It was a place where you could make a TV show about anything you wanted, and then have it broadcast to the whole city. For free. Did I mention it could be about anything you wanted?
Public Access TV was where you could find people talking about their cultures, their communities, their individuality. There were no class wars, because it was a level playing field: everyone had access to the same equipment, and it was all shown on the same channel. What mattered was how you told your story. And boy, were there a lot of stories! Living in San Francisco in the late 1980′s, there were shows being produced by everyone in that colorful community: on any given day, you’d see Hmong stories, Laotian stories, Vietnam veteran stories – it was a gold mine, a treasure trove of community-based TV programming.
In those days, I used to volunteer on a show called The Doghouse. I was shown how to operate one of the three video cameras in the studio, and then all of a sudden, we’re broadcasting live to the whole city. There’s a great feeling of excitement when working on a live TV show – any mistakes you make are seen immediately, there’s no editing. So it would always be fun, during my several month tenure on that show, to see and hear the wild things guests would do, especially frequent guest-host Jello Biafra, who always had something fun to talk about.
When I moved to Boulder a little over 20 years ago, I started hanging out in the little Public Access facility here, volunteering on a variety of shows, meeting people, learning new equipment. There was a great energy, and it was exciting to see what people were doing in a town a lot smaller than San Francisco. Like most cities, the City of Boulder has a franchise agreement with Comcast, and as part of that agreement, Comcast would provide three TV channels, along with funding (equipment) for those channels! Those channels were to be for what is known as “PEG” programming: Public, Educational, and Government.
Alas, these days in Boulder, Public Access is no more. For a variety of reasons, the wonderful Public Access channel we used to enjoy here is dead. Somehow it got absorbed into the Government channel and the Education channel, so unfortunately people have to go to neighboring cities who still have a local station.
However, one could give the argument that, now in the 21st century, the Internet has made a “TV channel” irrelevant. Now one can make that same program – about anything they want – and the world can watch it, not just a small town. BDA tries to fill the many gaps of Public Access by offering the Filmmaking Incubator that gets people to collaborate on a new short video project every month, a greenscreen production studio at well-below-market rates, and high-quality, professional trainingat very affordable prices.
Since the City actually still gets the money from the franchise fee (it’s just not used for Public Access), perhaps one day BDA will even have equipment to check out to people for free! Boulder Digital Arts would LOVE to be able to do that; as we have the perfect existing infrastructure to make it happen pretty easily. Maybe tell your Boulder City Councilperson, or the Boulder City Manager, if you think it’s a good idea. Maybe they might agree – weirder things have happened in Boulder!
Bruce Borowsky, Co-Founder
Boulder Digital Arts
www.boulderdigitalarts.com
www.bruceborowsky.com
Boulder council moves ahead on municipalization questions; final vote scheduled for Aug. 16
Aug 3rd
One final vote on this issue is scheduled for Aug. 16, but council has indicated this can go on the consent agenda, so no significant changes are anticipated.
The approved ballot language includes several provisions that place limitations on the authority to issue bonds and chart out clear citizen involvement and representation on an advisory board to guide future decisions. These include:
A provision that rates cannot exceed those offered by the current provider, Xcel Energy, on the date that the city purchases the system from Xcel;
Guiding principles for the municipal utility, once established, that make rate parity and the city’s commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions key factors in future ratemaking and operations decisions;
A commitment to a nine-member advisory board, appointed by City Council, with staggered five-year terms; the board can include up to four non-residents (to allow for involvement of business owners and employees of businesses that pay electric bills within city limits), and council will seek broad, but not rigidly defined, representation of customer classes; and lastly,
A guarantee that the city will cover taxes that would have been paid to the Boulder Valley School District as well as a mechanism to allow for the payment of similar taxes to other governmental entities.
Each of these issues is covered in the ballot language and accompanying ordinance for the first of two measures voters will be asked to consider.
The second, related question will ask voters to approve an increase in the Utility Occupation Tax that Xcel currently collects from customers. This increase is necessary to fund legal and engineering costs the city will incur while working to determine a final price to purchase Xcel’s system. The tax, which would raise up to $1.9 million a year, would last either until Dec. 13, 2017, or until the city makes a decision about whether or not to proceed with buying the system, whichever occurs first. The idea of the tax is to provide the funding for the period before the city could actually launch a utility without having to move forward on issuing bonds. This period is expected to last three to six years.
“This is an exciting time for Boulder, and it was very satisfying to see council come to some important conclusions last night,” said Mayor Susan Osborne. “The language that we expect to go before voters includes carefully thought out opportunities and limitations that address both the city’s economic and environmental objectives. Although there are still some differences of opinion on council, we are unanimous that it is time to ask voters to play their part in charting out our future.”
More details, including specific ballot language and staff memos to council, are available at http://www.boulderenergyfuture.com. A complete broadcast of the council meeting is available for viewing under http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/channel8 under the Council Archives menu item.