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By the time he retired last week from his position as CATV’s director, the station had become the fifth largest public access station in Vermont, with an annual budget of $435,000, and the only one in the state that also receives funding from New Hampshire.
In 2005 CATV moved into its current home in the Tip Top building in White River Junction, where it has a studio, offers classes in video technology and editing and makes its equipment available to the public.
The station’s full-time staff now numbers four, and can count on a small group of volunteers. The station broadcasts live on public access channels 8 and 10, its website features a variety of local programming and its video coverage of town government meetings also includes Hartford, Hartland and Lebanon.
CATV also has put special emphasis on creating opportunities for middle and high school students to make short films through its Halloween-a-thons and Film Slams, and offers summer video camps for kids.
Franzoni’s approach, he said, has been to dream up ideas and encourage others to do the same.
“I’m a person who doesn’t care about details but I need to make sure the person I’m working with is detail-oriented,” he said.
Franzoni still believes that the core mission of public access broadcasting is covering the nuts-and-bolts operations of local government.
And because, as he put it, “You can’t fit 4,000 Hanoverians in one room,” CATV brings politics and governance to the people.
However, as digital technologies have allowed people to stream, download and watch programming on their phones and computers, the future of CATV may lie in its role as a media platform, rather than solely as a TV station.
The station’s motto should now read, Franzoni joked, “We’re not just TV anymore.”
The station is broadening its customer base through its website, he added.
A viewer coming to CATV through the web would find recorded school board and town government meetings, a Montshire Museum of Art presentation on protecting pollinators, a Vermont Humanities Council-funded First Wednesday presentation in Norwich on the history of the Republican Party and a symposium on “fake news” at Dartmouth College, among other programs.
One of the first tasks for his successor, Donna Girot, who comes to CATV after five years as supervising producer for Trumbull Community Television in Trumbull, Conn., as well as experience in marketing and advertising, is to look at how to maintain CATV’s current financial stability.
CATV, and other stations like it, have traditionally relied on such cable companies as Comcast to funnel 5 percent of a cable TV bill to fund public access. Money from franchise fees in Vermont goes directly to CATV; in New Hampshire, the money funnels to the towns to the public access stations. (In Hartland the fees go through VTel.)
However, as consumers drop their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming through computers or through televisions via Roku, the diminished revenue to cable companies affects the money going to public access channels.
“Funding is always a concern,” said Girot.
Currently, Franzoni said, the percentage of Comcast funding is steady, and increases slightly with a swelling summer population.
Girot, who praised the station’s organization and staff, also will reassess the station’s objectives with the board.
“It all needs to be measured and figured out what it will evolve into. The goals we’re trying to promote are transparency, equity and inclusion,” she said. “We’re a great conduit for getting your voice out.”
One of the long-time voices at CATV is Linda Carbino, who for 11 years has hosted the show “Walking Through Life,” which focuses on issues pertinent to people who have struggled with substance abuse, or who have disabilities. She came in to talk to Franzoni after seeing an ad on CATV looking for programming ideas, and he encouraged her to do the show.
Franzoni has brought a lot to the station, Carbino said, both in his initiatives aimed at children and teens and his ability to educate. “He’s a great teacher,” she said.
But she is also excited about what Girot can bring to the station. “I think it’s going to be a great experience for all of us down there; she brings a lot of knowledge about community access television,” Carbino said.
Peggy Allen, CATV’s board chairwoman, said that Franzoni had been instrumental in shaping the growth and future of the station.
“He focused on the educational component and loved nurturing his staff,” she said. His decision to retire after so many years at the helm left a big hole.
But Girot met the criteria the CATV board was looking for in Franzoni’s successor. “We wanted to find someone who was well-versed in community access television and who also came with a lot of passion. … She has served in the private sector and has community access experience,” Allen said.
Franzoni, who has already moved with his wife, Deborah, to the Castleton, Vt., area to be nearer their son, now takes up a subject close to his heart: American history. He will be an on-site interpreter at the Vermont Revolutionary War battlefields of Hubbardton, Mt. Independence and Chimney Point.
Without a knowledge of American history, and an understanding of the Constitution and its amendments, Americans are operating in the dark, he said.
“People need to understand the history,” he said.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.