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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Michael Shu, a student at Monta Vista High School, has produced several films for public access cable Channel 28.
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Local cable channel 28 is on the move
Manager wants AT&T to foot the bill for relocating studio
By SAM SCOTT
Like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Sunnyvale's Celebrate 2000 Parade in January was televised. Michael Shu, a film buff at Monta Vista High School, recorded and edited the event, preserving the marching bands, classic cars, waving dignitaries and crowds for all time on digital film. Channel 28, Sunnyvale's education channel airs it regularly. The local cable channel also broadcasts lunch menus.
To educators, the channel is a jewel, an effective way to inform and to teach. It may, however, be costly to keep.
The station's managers feel that it would be better used at a high school than at its present cramped guarantees, and they want to move it--a $60,000 proposition.
School officials think AT&T (which purchased TCI Cable in March, 1999), should pay, as a tribute to the community where it operates. Without the corporation's help, the station looks to be in trouble.
The Channel 28 studio doubles as a fifth-grade band room. Located in a cold, windowless classroom at Vargas Elementary, Channel 28 sends out a unique blend of information, unlikely to be matched by other channels.
"We are on the air 24 hours a day," Pam Cavallero, one of the station's two employees, says. "We have announcement slots. We air what the district provides; lunch menus, community announcements, board meetings." The channel also airs History Channel documentaries, English as a Second Language tapes and videos produced by Vargas students. Available to cable subscribers, the channel draws many viewers. "People call us. If we go off the air, people will contact us" Cavallero says. "I know that there are people out there watching."
At this moment in the afternoon, though, viewers are watching a repeat.
Apart from that, nothing is actually going on in the studio. The two professional cameras blindly face a wall crowded with music stands. It's a scene that points to two realities impacting the school: the studio is occupying valuable space, and it is not being used much.
"It's not used as frequently as was originally planned," Cavallero says. Video clubs at the elementary schools started with a bang, she says, and then dwindled. But the hope is that the studio will be better used after it is moved to Fremont Union High School.
"We've wanted to move it for seven, eight months," Mike Isbutt, Fremont Union High School District's technical director, says. "In the last three or four months we knew we had to move it. Vargas needs the space."
Fremont Principal Pete Tuana would love to have the channel on his campus. He wants to locate it near the school's newspaper office. Students from the district occupational classes could study TV production and use Channel 28 for their projects, he says. Basketball games could be televised. A bridge could be set up between the community and the schools.
"Ultimately, the plan is to make sure student work is being sent over Channel 28," he says. "We also want to use Channel 28 to bring educational programs to school."
Tuana thinks bringing the studio to high school, nearer a large group of talented and curious kids, will result in more people doing what Michael Shu, the filmer of the parade, does--producing original content. But between Tuana and his dream stands the age-old problem--money.
Isbutt says it will cost $60,000 to do trench work and install the fiberoptics necessary to move the station. It is money the district doesn't have. "The entire [TV] operation's budget is less than $60,000," he says.
However, Tuana says that AT&T should pay for the work.
"They make their money out of us, " Tuana says. "If they don't want to cooperate, let's renegotiate their contract."
According to the the Telecommunications Act of 1996, cable companies must pay the communities they operate in a set amount of money each year, for use of the public right-of-way--such as city streets.
Andrew Johnson, spokesman for AT&T, says five cents of every dollar the company makes is paid to city hall. "If city officials concur that the continued existence of the channel is important then funding could potentially come out from that five percent," he says.
If AT&T objects to the school district's request that it foot the bill for relocating Channel 28, Tuoma says, the city should renegotiate its franchise contact with the company, and demand a bigger percentage of the corporation's revenues.
Isbutt says he is in talks with AT&T to try and find a more amenable solution, including using different technology to lower the cost.
"They're trying to work with us to find a solution," he said.
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