1996 Annual Report

Plymouth Community Channel 3 Committee
1996 Annual Report

Plymouth Community Channel 3 (PCC3) is the public, educational, and governmental access channel for State Cable TV's subscribers in Plymouth and several adjoining towns. PCC3's Cablecasting Center is located at Pease Public Library. The Center has equipment for generating a continuously repeating, electronic bulletin board with accompanying radio. There is equipment for automated airing of prerecorded video programs submitted by members of the Plymouth public, schools/college, and government. The Center also has an S-VHS video camcorder and mike for taping governmental and other programming for cablecast on Channel 3. The channel has no set budget and depends on volunteers to accomplish all tasks of channel operation. By stipulation of the franchise agreement with State Cable TV, PCC3 is non-commercial. The PCC3 Committee, inactive in 1996, reports to the Plymouth Board of Selectmen.

In calendar 1996, 570 new announcements were run on PCC3's bulletin board. Here is the breakdown... number run by special interest area: Governments/their agencies - 99, Schools/public education organizations - 24, College - 144, Senior citizens organizations - 73, Arts organizations/artists - 56, Churches - 55, Health/welfare organizations - 43, Business/service/political organizations - 39, Outdoors/sports organizations - 14, Historical/cultural organizations - 13, Garden/nature organizations - 10. Hundreds of additional announcements were received but weren't run due to a shortage of volunteers to enter them in the computer.

In calendar 1996, prerecorded video programming totaled 115 shows. The number of program contributions from each of the 3 access user categories are: Public - 30, Educational - 80 and Governmental - 5. The access user which submitted the greatest number of taped programs is PSC's Meteorology Dept. Their 5 minute PSC PM Weather local forecasts ran on 73 evenings. Two evenings of live programming were produced by the Plymouth Chamber of Commerce. These shows were the Chamber's TV/radio auction, their major fundraiser.

Volunteers who deserve many thanks are Jim Mitchell, John B. Bowen, Jr., David Hoyt, Richard Pratt, Bruce Ritchie, Ken Bergstrom, Jennifer Richardson and Kali Neville. The staffs of Pease Public Library, Plymouth Selectmen's Office and State Cable were always most helpful.

Submitted by,
Wallace Stuart
Access Manager