Saratoga News
News
Costs force 'Saratoga Spotlight' to take a break from production
By Shannon Burkey
Just four months after KSAR's newest television show, "Saratoga Spotlight," first aired, the show will take a break due to high production costs.
"We're holding off on producing any more new shows right now until we can find underwriters and sponsors from the community to continue to produce the show for the community," said Chris Wasmund, executive director of KSAR.
The show, which first aired on the local public access television station in mid-April, was created to promote the people, places and businesses that make Saratoga unique.
The show takes on a news magazine format, and each half-hour piece is broken up into segments such as entertainment, education, in-studio interviews, on-site visits highlighting various locations around the city, and a coming events calendar.
When the show was created, Tom Stoiber, chairman of the KSAR board, said there were two objectives the station wanted to accomplish: Get people familiar with Saratoga and bring more viewers to KSAR.
With production on its eighth episode complete, Wasmund said the show has definitely spotlighted those things in the city that viewers may not have known about previously.
The show has featured downtown shops and restaurants, as well as local events such as the Saratoga Relay for Life and the Rotary Art Show. In-studio interviews with community leaders, event organizers and city employees round out the show, giving viewers an insight into the city.
"We knew if people were going to tune in, we were going to have to give them something of interest," Wasmund said. "So our thought was to develop a local program featuring their city and what's important to them. This is a way for them to become more involved and find out about stuff in their back yards they didn't know about."
But production costs of between $600 to $1,000 an episode have put a temporary halt to the show, while Wasmund said they begin to look for sponsors.
"We're hoping businesses, restaurants, community members and organizations are going to step up and hopefully see the benefit of having their own local show," Wasmund said. "We're just trying to get people to get involved in their community first and foremost."
The station is hoping to find sponsors for each show it produces to help offset the production costs. As a sponsor or underwriter of a show, Wasmund said KSAR would feature the business or person sponsoring the episode.
Budget cuts from the city in 2005 caused KSAR to struggle in the past, but Wasmund said the show is not being put on hold because the station is having financial problems. It does, however, run on a limited budget.
"We just can't keep taking the money out of our own pockets to produce these shows," she said. "Just like TV shows need commercials to sustain them, we need to look for sponsors and underwriters to help sustain this show."
So far, the community has embraced the show, and Wasmund said she has heard nothing but praise for the first eight episodes.
"Everyone we've heard from has been excited. It's all been positive on what we're trying to do," she said. "I think the success of Spotlight is going to be the support of the community--this is their show. We hope they would support something locally."
Episodes 1-8 of 'Saratoga Spotlight' will continue to air on KSAR channel 15 on Mondays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m. All eight episodes can also be viewed at www.ksar15.org. For information on sponsoring an episode, contact Chris Wasmund at 408.741.2108.
