McMinnville Community Media unyielding support in the digital age
By David Bates, CRUSH, Visit McMinnville, March
2023
In the age of streaming and seemingly thousands of different cable channels to watch, public access television may seem like a quaint analog throwback, but in McMinnville, it's still a thing ... a popular, busy, and very successful thing.
It's a TV
station by the community, for the community.
It started in
the 1990s with a public affairs show created by the late Linfield University
philosophy professor Frank Nelson, Speaking Frankly. That was back when the
city, public access activists and cable companies were wrestling over the rules
and how the money thing would work.
They smoothed
it out in 2000, and McMinnville Community Media emerged as a non-profit
corporation, headed by Jerry Eichten and funded by a percentage of the
franchise fees paid by local cable providers. Today, they have two channels
(one high-definition, one standard) and offices and a state-of-the-art
production studio in a spacious suite on Third Street just east of the railroad
tracks.
Touring it
recently offered yet another delightful reminder of the fantastic resources you
can find and use in this city if you know where to look.
If you live in
the city, all it costs is $35 a year for MCM membership and you've basically
got a TV and film production studio at your fingertips.
"The
class is basically a half-hour camera orientation," said Phil Guzzo, MCM's
digital maestro. "I'll advise people with shooting and maybe organize some
test shoots they bring back and we can use in the editing class, and that's about
an hour, and then I let them work with it."
But it's not a
sink-or-swim scenario. "The classes are what happens when somebody starts,
but that's not where the relationship between us and the producer ends,"
says Kyle Dauterman, the community services producer. "It's this ongoing
relationship of questions and answers and helping and support. We help people
all year long."
The $35 is
just an equipment and studio fee. Groups, individuals or churches who create
their own content can simply submit it to be aired, no charge.
MCM gets out
into the community regularly to shoot local events like parades and high
school sports, and also city council meetings. The video is professionally
edited and made available on Ziply Channel 11, Xfinity 11 and 331 and also at
MCMTV.org and on YouTube.
The space has
become a mecca for local creatives with a vision: Shows produced by local
volunteers there include the long-running Arts Alive!, Stephen W. Long's The
Writing Life, Mandy & Friends, Speaking Frankly with Howie Harkama, and
Walt Haight's Public Domain Classics show.
Will you be
the next one to create local TV content? It's your move. Visit MCM11.org, call
503-434-1234 or drop in at 825 NE Third Street in McMinnville.
David Bates in a McMinnville writer,
who has appeared in Gallery Theater productions since 1998.
