BRATTLEBORO-Nearly 70 creators, producers, and fans of Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV) traversed a red carpet into the Stone Church on Nov. 14 for the local cable access station's annual Producers' Party/awards night, yoked with its 50th anniversary celebration.
A huge screen loomed over Aaron Wallace, aka Oh Dad, playing on stage as people met, mingled, and queued up for a buffet catered by 802 Soul Kitchen.
As award winners, families, and friends took to the tables, the mood was upbeat in an air of accomplishment and hometown pride.
BCTV Board Chair Garret Harkawik opened the presentations.
Noting that BCTV produced 1,300 local programs this year, he thanked sponsors, underwriters, and donors for making that possible.
The celebration aimed, said Harkawik, to recognize "a handful of producers or individuals whose contributions exemplify BCTV's motto: Be creative, be informed, be local."
The awards (see sidebar) show the many ways that "creating local content is a powerful tool to share your enthusiasm, views, information, talent, dedication, and enjoyment," he said.
"It's been an amazing 50 years," Harkawik said.
'Everything gets its fair chance'
BCTV's executive director, Johnny Gifford, then took the mic: "BCTV is a special organization, not just in this community, but in the larger scope of things," he said.
Based on his conversations with "colleagues from a lot of other stations" across the region and the nation, Gifford confidently asserted that "we have a higher participation rate in community media per capita than the vast majority of other centers across the nation."
Often Brattleboro - and Vermont as a whole - serves as a model for community media elsewhere in the country, he added.
After screening a video greeting of congratulations and gratitude from U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, Gifford added that "we also got a really nice letter from [U.S. Sen.] Bernie Sanders that came in last night."
Gifford reviewed highlights from the past year, as well as advances and improvements. He noted, too, that from a June gathering in Boston of the Foundation of the Alliance for Community Media, BCTV and its partners came home with six hometown media awards - "the most national awards of any other attendee - among a couple hundred - at the conference," Gifford said.
Among those, BCTV won for overall excellence in its division (stations with annual budgets between $300,000 and $650,000).
Asking all who produced shows in the past year to stand, Gifford launched the awards. Each was accompanied by a video created by Production Manager Nolan Edgar, who'd also done a summary video that opened the presentations.
Congratulating all recipients, Gifford added, "Everyone deserves to have a voice on BCTV - no matter where you're from or what you do."
Programming is created "by what's coming into us and what we're producing," Gifford explains.
A day of its around-the-clock broadcasting might include Brattleboro Gallery Walk coverage; an episode of Wendy O'Connell's Here We Are; a Friends of Island Park Meeting; Theatre Adventure's performance of The Prince and the Goblins; worship services; Financial Fitness; music; and, of course, various board meetings.
"We're trying to give it all equal airtime," Gifford says of programming. "Everything gets its fair chance."
'The uniqueness of this community'
Before coming to BCTV, Gifford, from Maynard, Massachusetts, had done similar work as an intern at Harvard University. He then served as executive director at Springfield (Vermont) Area Public Access TV.
As a teen, Gifford was a leader in the public access station housed at his high school.
"I was there every single day after school, doing a radio show, helping out with TV shows, editing municipal meetings," he told The Commons. "I ended up leading the organization my senior year."
He then went on to Fitchburg State University, where he majored in film and video production with a minor in music.
Why was he drawn to BCTV? "It was very clear to me from the beginning, after I was introduced to community media in Vermont, that BCTV was really ahead of the curve," Gifford said.
"I attribute that to [former BCTV Executive Director] Cor Trowbridge 100% and to the uniqueness of this community: I think we're at this nexus of creativity and population density," he said.
With the leadership of Trowbridge, who led the nonprofit from 2006 to 2024, "it was all facilitated in this really strong, community-minded way," Gifford continued.
Addressing viewership, he noted that it's complicated to track the number of viewers given that some view BCTV content via its two Comcast cable stations, while others stream the broadcast or the station's archives via the station's website or its YouTube profile.
Gifford said the station presumes that diversifying outlets can only increase BCTV viewership.
"We post most of our programs to YouTube, and from there we import those to our website. So there are multiple places to view the same content. We use YouTube analytics." He also tracks views of occasional short videos posted on Facebook and Instagram.
Viewership impacts revenue. Whereas five years ago, Gifford estimates, cable subscriber revenues contributed to 80% to 90% of the operating budget (now $424,000), that percentage has steadily decreased.
Now "probably more like 70% of our revenue comes from Comcast and their obligation to fund public access" as people have moved to other viewing options, he said.
To compensate, Gifford explained, in the mid-2010s Trowbridge "started assigning value to the work we do. It's pretty traditional for public access stations to do things for free all the time," but Trowbridge steered a new course.
"Fees were attached to BCTV's covering selectboard meetings, school board meetings, and local events," Gifford said. Now, all eight Windham County municipalities served by Comcast - and a few other towns occasionally - pay for services, most on a contract basis.
If you were to add up the hours involved, Gifford says, the fees are "pretty minuscule," but they do help cash flow - and public perception of BCTV's worth.
New funding - from the state
Gifford highlighted an emerging source of revenue for BCTV: the state budget.
All 24 Vermont access management organizations are members of the Vermont Access Network (VAN), established in 2001. Designated by the IRS as a tax-exempt business league, "it's not a nonprofit, it's a collective of nonprofits," said Gifford, who serves on the organization's board as its secretary.
VAN operates a statewide public access channel (Vermont Community TV) and the Vermont Media Exchange, which lets member stations share content for broadcast. It also engaged a lobbying firm to advocate for its interests in Montpelier.
As stations statewide started recognizing that cable subscriber revenue was quickly declining, players wanted to seek a permanent funding solution from the state. Thus, the Vermont Legislature established a study committee in the 2019–20 biennium, chaired by Balint, then a state senator, which explored options for funding local PEG (public/educational/government) programming providers.
While a concrete solution has not yet emerged, Gifford explained, "the state had been kind enough to include one-time appropriations for us in their annual budget."
From 2020 to 2024, PEG organizations statewide were receiving these annual infusions, the amount of which, while not great, had steadily increased, he said. In 2024, "we almost had a bill make it across the finish line, but it died at the end."
Then the Vermont Legislature, the Joint Fiscal Office, and the secretary of state all agreed that the VAN was an essential service and that community media should be supported in the governor's budget.
"So as of this year, we're a line item," Gifford said. "We're in the budget when the governor first starts writing it. Which is huge."
A staff and a 'hodgepodge of people'
In addition to Gifford and Edgar, BCTV employs Helena Leschuk, operations manager, and Van Wile, content manager. Five part-time staff round out the operation.
In addition to Harkawik, board members include George Anthes, Lynn Barrett, Alex Beck, Nancy Wolfe, Renee Woliver, Alex Hacker, and Seth Thomas.
Having first joined BCTV as an intern through Leland & Gray Union High School, Edgar was previously its content manager. He credits mentors Trowbridge, Roland Boyden, and Jeff Mastroianni - all of whom have moved on from BCTV - for his advancement in a career that he started to shape in high school some 15 years ago.
Today, Edgar oversees day-to-day operations to ensure that whatever is being filmed and created goes smoothly. And he does most of the trainings, he says.
Of his path, Edgar shares: "When I started, I didn't imagine enjoying it so much or really believing in [BCTV's mission], but I really feel like I fit in this world. I really enjoy being here."
In addition to staff, members are the backbone of the creation of original content. Members pay a modest annual fee to secure use of and training in filming, editing, and studio equipment. "But if a membership fee is not doable for someone, we're not turning them away," Gifford said.
BCTV has roughly 50 members. "It's sort of a hodgepodge of people," Gifford explains, "some just creating their own content, some volunteering with BCTV, some doing both."
BCTV has also welcomed interns - like Edgar - over the years, either by individual arrangement or in programs developed for and with regional schools.
Hinsdale High School, Gifford adds, has a "pretty exceptional" program that allows high school seniors to pursue an internship in a career of their choosing, fully backed and supported by the school.
Leveraging technology for communication
Founded in 1976 - eight years after the first PEG public access station opened in Dale City, Virginia - BCTV became the first station to do so in Vermont. It's been a peripatetic journey, but the organization is in such a strong place that Gifford has heard former members and staffers say they wish they were there now.
"We're facilitators," Gifford said. "We do produce a lot of our own [...] but really we're facilitating content being produced by the community."
"I think we're just a helping hand along the way," as some folks enter the scene with savvy and others need more coaching and training, he said.
The BCTV team has also built an audio system that can travel with staff to productions, thus addressing audio quality issues that often arise when streaming and filming community events.
The technology was intended to "make our community look and sound good," said Gifford, a musician and a "self-proclaimed audio guy."
"We built a system to serve a proven method of delivering high-quality audio feed both to the room amplified and to BCTV's live broadcast," he explained.
Among other recent advancements, BCTV can now generate live captions and send them to multiple places at once.
"People in a room can read the whole transcript of what's being said in real time," Gifford said, describing it as an ongoing effort "to make our programming as accessible as possible for all people: That's really the point of what we're doing."
Recently, too, BCTV has integrated LiveU Solo Pro, a device that processes the data from a field recording for streaming via YouTube, Facebook, and other streaming platforms.
This technology "allows us to broadcast from anywhere" allowing delivery of news breaking in the community, Gifford said.
"If there's a disaster, a bridge collapses, or there's a flood somewhere, we could send a camera out to be able to grab footage, to broadcast live in the moment," he said.
Gifford added that BCTV is working with Brattleboro and other municipalities to be a part of their respective town emergency plans, "so that when something goes wrong, we can be an entity to deliver important, of-the-moment information when that happens."
'BCTV shows up for us every single day'
In creating the committee to explore PEG funding, the Legislature asserted that "public, educational, and government (PEG) access television provides an essential community service in Vermont."
"PEG access television extends the concept of participatory democracy by providing not only a window to state and local government proceedings but also a forum for citizens to voice their viewpoints and opportunities for life-long learning and cultural exchange," reads the text of a bill that led to further study and recommendations by a consulting firm.
Of BCTV - the mission of which is "to promote civic engagement and transparency, and to empower community members to share their knowledge, views and creativity, without prejudice" - Kate Trzaskos, executive director of the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, is one of many community leaders who acknowledge BCTV's importance locally.
"In this moment, access to reliable local news and events is essential to the strength and spirit of our communities. BCTV shows up for us every single day, offering a platform that truly keeps us connected," she said.
Assessing the health of BCTV today, Gifford said, "I just think we're a very welcoming and engaging center. And again, I attribute that largely to my predecessor, Cor. She'd curated a staff that works really well with the community, and that makes people want to come and work with us."
In turn, that staff has "made sure that what we're offering for media and editing equipment - and everything related - is state of the art and accessible." And that help is available at each step "to empower and teach people."
Of the future, Gifford said, "I think a lot of roles we play now are going to remain evergreen and, in this current political climate, they're more important than ever."
He said that ensuring "access to free speech, civic proceedings, and civic transparency is one of the most important roles we play."
"And that's not going to be expiring anytime soon, I don't think," Gifford said.
To learn more about BCTV and its history, and to stream its broadcasts live or archives of its programs on demand, visit brattleborotv.org.
This News item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.