Cable TV: Using Electronic Media To Reach The Public

Cable television offers the Park District of Highland Park a challenging vehicle for reaching the community with news and information about recreation programs. The North Shore Cable Television Consortium provides a cooperative base for the Park District's cable television programming.

By Karen Peugh

Recognizing the positive impact that locally produced cable television programs can have on a community, the Park District of Highland Park joined forces in 1981 with other public institutions in Highland Park and neighboring Deerfield and Highwood to produce cable television programs. Using a model similar to special recreation associations, Constance Skibbe, Director of the Park District of Highland Park, worked with administrators from other institutions to form the North Shore Cable Television Consortium.

The Consortium was formed to promote public institutions' use of designated public access channels on the local cable system and to facilitate use of an institutional network which would effectively link all park district facilities with other institutions in a two-way cable system. The municipal governments in Highland Park, Deerfield and Highwood recognized that public access channels and institutional networks can be specified in franchise agreements that municipalities draw up with cable companies. Public access channels are set aside for use by institutions or citizens, as vehicles for communicating with local residents who subscribe to cable television service. The cable company is required to provide the equipment for and personnel needed to assist in public access program production.

The North Shore Cable Television Consortium is unusual in the diverse composition of its membership. The Park District of Highland Park, City of Highland Park, Highland Park Fire Department, Highland Park Police Department, Highland Park Library, Highland Park Hospital, Highland Park School Districts 107 and 108, Deerfield Public School District 109, Highwood-Highland Park District Ill, Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools are all members.

Consortium membership is open to any institution that will be connected to the Omnicom Cablevision institutional network in Deerfield, Highland Park and Highwood. This institutional cable network is. in essence, a second cable system for the municipalities with several significant features. The institutional network is comprised of 54 channels for use by public institutions for cable-casting to other institutions. This system is designed for interactive cable-casting — people at different locations can communicate with both sound and picture — allowing for teleconferencing with one or more institutions in the network. Institutions will be able to send out live or taped programs from any location on the institutional network — in effect making each facility a mini TV studio. The subscriber and institutional cable systems are scheduled for completion by the summer of 1983.

Subscribers can turn to the Park District and fine arts channel and read bulletins about class schedules, special events, and upcoming television programs produced by Park District staff. The Consortium's Coordinator offers television production training workshops to Park District and other institutions' staff. These workshops supplement the technical training provided by Omnicom Cablevision personnel. During the Consortium's first year, the Park District has produced cable television programs for diverse audiences.

They include programs teaching nature interpretive skills to fifth graders; documenting 10, 11, and 12 year old children discovering their roles as passengers on the "Sunship Earth" acclimatization program;providing job training for new members of the maintenance staff; recording special sports events for delayed cablecasting; and special programs and announcements to highlight national "Life. Be In It."day.

Because cable television program production requires significant amounts of staff time, long range planning is essential for effective and efficient use of the cable system by the Park District and other Consortium members. Staff people have trained in basic cable television production techniques and have identified TV programs they will work on over the next twelve months in order to enhance their outreach to the community and to enhance the quality of the Park District activities. The Park District of Highland Park is moving into the 21st century, using cable television programming as an effective way to improve the quality of the service it provides to the community.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karen Peugh is the Coordinator of the North Shore Cable Television Consortium. Before assuming her responsibilities with the Consortium, she worked as a producer-director at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. She earned her MFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 16 May/June 1983