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Show Live from the Marsac Building: You'll soon get the picture by Teri Gomes Have you ever wondered how much city officials fidget when interviewed on local radio station KPCW? Well, if all goes according to plan, you'll be able to see and hear KPCW's guests after Jan. 1, when the radio station will add television to its information delivery service. "The move to television is designed to give us greater penetration," said Blair Feulner, KPCW station manager. "Right now a number of residents and hotels and condos don't have FM radios, but do have television. Initially the audio for the television will be the radio station and that will allow us to reach a far greater audience." Local residents without cable service can tune in Channel 9 (Channel 8 for those with cable) ' beginning mid-November to sample Park City's own television station. A rapid-changing slide show of the town provided by the Chamber Bureau will be the backdrop for the audio information. While a number of details are yet to be firmed up, Feulner said plans include a "crawl line" on the bottom of the screen that will display the name of the underwriter for that hour of programming. A continuous line of local news will run along the top of the screen. It will be "a sort of extended headline service, really," said Feulner, The station has purchased equipment equip-ment totaling $16,000 for the move to television. And while that may sound like a healthy sum, Feulner explained it was enough to purchase only a studio camera, a slide chain machine and a character transmitter. The station "rolled over" its $28,904 note with Silver King Bank to fund the purchase. The station will get some help in paying for the machines needed for production from the Chamber Bureau, which over a 12-month period will pay a total of $4,000 to help fund the slide chain machine. And should you wonder just where in the Memorial Building the television station will be added, the answer is nowhere. After Dec. 1 the radio station and the new television station will be housed in the ground floor of the Marsac Municipal Building. Feulner sees the addition of television as simply a natural evolution for the radio station, and this initial step as just the first phase of the process. "Right now the only local origination we will be capable of is to focus a studio camera on someone who is in the studio. We'll probably start televising our news two, maybe even three, times a day. But for now, that's all we can do. "The next step in the process would require nearly $100,000 in equipment purchases, so we're quite a ways away from that." Parkites will remember that KPCW got on the air with a lot of equipment left over from other radio stations. Feulner says he plans to scour every television station "within "with-in 400 miles" and go through their junk boxes to see what he can put together. "Eventually I see us working with the schools and creating our own programming. I have in mind, too, a show that would be a sort of cross between the "Tonight" show and a game show. "One common complaint from visitors is that there is little to do here in the evenings. Maybe we can help provide some entertainment." The seed for a local television station was planted nearly five years ago when the city council asked Feulner to advise them on plans for a public television station that could be provided through the cable television network. Cables were laid from a Prospector Square cable company to the Memorial Building for the eventual hook-up. However when the cable company moved to ParkWest, plans were delayed while all parties involved tried to figure out who would pay for the nearly $60,000 worth of cable line needed for the hook-up. During this process the county commission decided to give up Channels 9 and 11, which they controlled. KPCW petitioned to have the licenses transferred to them. Once again they were, at least figuratively, in the television business. busi-ness. Community TV of Utah has made a $1,000 donation to KPCW for start-up costs and is expected to announce a sizable grant to the station soon. Feulner said the expansion will generate a need for more staff, probably after the first of the year. As to the cost of providing this additional service, he said underwriting under-writing for programming will Increase In-crease between 10 and 15 percent. "But advertisers will be getting double exposure with both the radio and television coverage," said Feulner. "With all the theater groups in town, there is a lot of talent and I see us eventually being able to offer some fun entertainment. And with the University of Utah's division of continuing education also located at Marsac, there are some natural tie-in possibilities for educational programming. pro-gramming. "There are real horror stories out there about community radio stations sta-tions which have jumped into television and then bankrupted the radio station. We plan to move slowly. We're not going to see that happen here." So, for now, it may be KPCW reporter David Fleisher with a bare mike smiling at you from the television screen with the news of the day. But it's only a matter of time before he might add, after a newsbreak, "Film at eleven." |