90 New Programs
54 programs produced by NMTV staff
2 programs produced by city staff
34 programs produced by the public
62.5 hours of new programming
NEWS – EVENTS – MUNICIPAL VIDEOS
North Metro TV News is produced by Danika Peterson and Eric Nelson. Each month, the news team researches, shoots, and edits several news stories. Special Events Coordinator TJ Tronson also contributes videos, when not managing city meetings. Trevor Scholl is North Metro TV’s Municipal Producer. Trevor works with city staff to create videos and stories at city request. These stories are distributed online via NMTV social media channels and compiled into the NMTV News program, which airs on channel 15. The stories relevant to each member city also air in between scheduled programs on the city channel.
144,415 Online Views from 19 New News, Events, and Municipal Videos
Most Viewed Online Story
Spring Lake Park Council Votes to Fly
Former Minnesota Flag
45,809 Views
Following a three to two vote, the Spring Lake Park City Council passed a resolution to display the former Minnesota state flag in the City Council Chamber. The former state flag will join the United States flag and the Spring Lake Park city flag. It is also authorized for use at city facilities. This story proved extremely popular on North Metro TV social media, where it has received 31,353 watches, 3,900 reactions, 233 shares, and 704 comments. See the story here.
Thrive on 65
The Highway 65 construction project looks to cost less than initial projections. That is good news for taxpayers. Eric Nelson spoke to MnDOT’s Kent Barnard who said that the winning bid is nearly $20 million lower than engineer estimates. The Thrive on 65 project is set to begin June 1 and finish in 2030. See the story here. This is one of two NMTV stories about Highway 65 this month. The two videos received a combined 47,000 views on social media.
Flushed
Spring is hydrant flushing season for the City of Blaine. Trevor Scholl spoke to city Water Supervisor Kristian Gaasland, who explained the work allows staff to inspect hydrants for damage and to stress test the water system before summer demand. Water Distribution Foreman Conor Allen even flushed one hydrant on camera so residents can see exactly how it is done. See the story here.
Clean Sweep
Street sweeping is good for area lakes and streams. That is what Lino Lakes Streets and Stormwater Supervisor Tim Payne told Eric Nelson. Payne and his team sweep all 110 miles of Lino Lakes roads twice each year, removing sediment and nutrients before they can enter stormwater drains. You can see the street sweepers in action here.
New MAYC Hire
Sharon Severson loves working with seniors. Which is good news because she is the new Program Coordinator at Blaine’s Mary Ann Young Center. Severson is excited about the active senior community MAYC serves and is looking forward to getting to know all of them. She told Trevor Scholl that she gets her drive to help from her mother, who was an active volunteer. You can meet Sharon here.
Jerry!
A new 27 acre development is coming to the City of Blaine at Lexington and 125th. The development has been part of the conversation for years and is now moving forward. Prospective tenants include a multi-tenant building, clinics, a nail salon, and Wings Financial. Jerry’s Foods is the largest retailer in the mix and many locals are excited about the prospect of a new grocery store on Blaine’s east side. See the story here.
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
NMTV presents high school sports games live on channel 15 and on YouTube. Kenton Kipp and Ted Leroux lead a team of talented videographers in capturing every exciting moment for Blaine, Centennial, and Spring Lake Park High Schools. Games are produced using our HD production truck and the vMix single camera system.
Most Viewed Online Sports Video
Game Recap
Softball: Centennial at Spring Lake Park
3,784 Views
5 New Games with 1,340 Online Views
5 Game Recap Videos Received an Additional 8,391 Online Views
CHANNEL 15
Most staff produced programs air on cable channel 15. This includes North Metro TV News and Sports Den, a weekly sports round up.
NMTV staff produced 3 new, full length programs, creating 2 hours of new content.
CLASSES AND PUBLIC ACCESS
North Metro TV offers its facilities and equipment to members of the public and helps them make and air their own programs! Eric Houston manages the department and offers support to our local producers. He teaches classes on a variety of topics, including video production, film history, and even how to use the internet. Eric also runs NMTV’s popular home movie transfer program, which helps community members put their old tapes, photos, and film reels on digital formats.
5 Live In Person Classes with 12 Attendees
Senior Tech Support at North Metro TV – 2 attendees
Informational Tour at North Metro TV – 3 attendees
Early Film Treasures at MAYC – 3 attendees
Tour of Home Movie Transfer System – 2 attendees
Studio Training at North Metro TV – 2 attendees
6,549 Attendees for Archived VOD Classes
Home Movie Transfers
299.5 Transfer Hours
97 Video Tapes
42 Film Reels
814 Photos and Slides
$2,817 in Fees Collected
Public Access Producers produced 34 new programs with 26 hours of content for Channel 14.
ONLINE VIEWING STATS
While North Metro TV does not have access to cable TV ratings, we can track how many people watch our shows and videos online on platforms like Facebook and YouTube. These statistics reflect both new and existing, legacy content.
SOCIAL MEDIA VIEWS
154,924 Videos Views
392 New Subscribers
13,219 Content Interactions
723,852 Impressions
In addition to airing on our cable channels and on social media sites, many of our programs – like city meetings – are available On Demand on our website and on Roku, AppleTV, and Amazon Fire.
VIDEO ON DEMAND
1,356 VOD Views
541 Livestream Views
NMTV WEBSITE STATISTICS
6,000 Users
18,188 Page Views
CITY MEETINGS
North Metro TV staff members manage all aspects of city meeting video production for our member cities. This includes providing staff to record and direct the meetings, scheduling replays of the meetings on cable channel 16, providing online and Video On Demand copies of meeting, adding bookmarks to VOD meetings for easy viewing of individual topics, creating podcast versions of meetings, creating and managing closed captioning of all meetings, and seeing to the repair and maintenance of city hall video equipment.
This month, NMTV staff recorded 27 city meetings with 22 hours of video.
Meetings are scheduled for replay on cable based on schedules requested by each City. Additional, full length video programs, produced by NMTV staff, are also scheduled on the channels. Shorter videos and promos are loaded onto the CG servers, rather than being scheduled as separate playbacks. These short videos play back in a repeating cycle, along with graphics pages, and air on the channels between scheduled programs, 24 hours a day. The following data represents how many times a meeting was entered into the Tightrope scheduling system and played back on each City channel along with the total length of all programmed content.
Blaine – 170 replays, 205.5 hours
Centerville – 41 replays, 46 hours
Circle Pines – 123 replays, 59 hours
Ham Lake – 56 replays, 23.5 hours
Lexington – 90 replays, 51.5 hours
Lino Lakes – 63 replays, 35 hours
Spring Lake Park – 89 replays, 109.5 hours
Bulletin Board
A bulletin board, or graphics pages, play on the city cable channels in between scheduled city meetings. These display information about the City, local events, and other issues of interest to citizens. With the installation of the CG servers, Eric Houston updates the information on all seven channels. He works closely with City staff to ensure that all requested informational slides are created and posted to the satisfaction of the city. Even though Eric is doing the work of creating the informational pages, the Cities maintain editorial control. In addition to the graphics pages, the CG units play video. Each video’s producer is responsible for posting any short videos that are displayed. The following work was done for City CG servers this month:
Blaine – 15 videos
Centerville – 8 videos
Circle Pines – 9 videos
Ham Lake – 7 videos
Lexington – 8 videos
Lino Lakes – 10 videos
Spring Lake Park – 9 videos, 4 slides
Closed Captioning
Closed captioning is an additional service provided by North Metro TV. Every city meeting is closed captioned live via our Tightrope system. That process is assigned a per-minute price by Tightrope. Once the meeting is recorded on our servers for repeat airings, that version of the meeting must be captioned separately. This is accomplished through a system owned by North Metro TV and does not incur additional costs. The following data tallies the number of minutes of captioning provided to each city for the month.
Blaine – 250 live minutes of closed captioning, 250 minutes of post closed captioning
Centerville – 224live minutes of closed captioning, 224 minutes of post closed captioning
Circle Pines – 90 live minutes of closed captioning, 90 minutes of post closed captioning
Ham Lake – 73 live minutes of closed captioning, 73 minutes of post closed captioning
Lexington – 71 live minutes of closed captioning, 71 minutes of post closed captioning
Lino Lakes – 152 live minutes of closed captioning, 152 minutes of post closed captioning
Spring Lake Park – 160 live minutes of closed captioning, 160 minutes of post closed captioning
City Meetings On Demand
NMTV has created a Video on Demand service, with agenda item bookmarking, for our cities’ meetings. To accomplish this, each meeting goes through several steps. The meeting must first be transferred and transcoded from the playback server to the video on demand server. Once that is done, a staff member must go through the meeting, entering a bookmark at the start of each agenda item and entering the corresponding chapter titles. Next, the meeting is linked to the NMTV website’s city meeting page for Video on Demand. Finally, PDF copies of the meeting agenda are attached to the video. The following meetings were bookmarked and/or placed on VOD for the Cities this month:
Blaine – 4 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Centerville – 4 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Circle Pines – 3 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Ham Lake – 3 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Lexington – 2 meetings placed on VOD
Lino Lakes – 3 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Spring Lake Park – 2 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
City Meeting Podccasts
NMTV provides a city meeting podcast service. Depending on each city’s wishes, any or all meetings can be converted. All podcasts are available across six platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Amazon Music/Audible, iHeart Radio, and Pocket Casts. Links to each platform are available on each individual channel’s website and at northmetrotv.com/podcasts.
Blaine – uploaded 4 city meeting podcasts, 68 total downloads
Centerville – uploaded 4 city meeting podcasts, 555 total downloads
Circle Pines – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 17 total downloads
Ham Lake – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 24 total downloads
Lexington – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 27 total downloads
Lino Lakes – has decided not to convert city meetings to podcasts
Spring Lake Park – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 64 total downloads
City Meeting Transcripts
NMTV also provides a city meeting transcription service. Depending on each city’s wishes, any or all meetings can be transcribed. The transcripts are generated using an online platform called Otter.ai, which creates an interactive transcript that is broken down by speaker. Anyone using the transcript can click on any word to hear the meeting audio. Once created, links to each transcript are sent to relevant city staff, who often use the transcripts to help with creating meeting minutes.
Blaine – not participating
Centerville – created 4 city meeting transcripts
Circle Pines – created 3 city meeting transcripts
Ham Lake – created 3 city meeting transcripts
Lexington – not participating
Lino Lakes – created 3 city meeting transcripts
Spring Lake Park – created 2 city meeting transcripts
Equipment Consulting and Technical Support
The NMTV Station Engineer is also responsible for overseeing the maintenance and repair of city hall video systems related to recording city meetings. He is also available to answer video questions and consult on city equipment purchases. The Engineer provided the following services to the cities this month:
Blaine – no assistance required
Centerville
- Addressed echoing audio issue
- Reviewed Z Systems quote for city control room upgrade
- Worked to design new audio system for city council chambers
Circle Pines – no assistance required
Ham Lake
- ordered and installed new, ceiling mounted televisions in council chambers
- provided quote for new dais monitors
Lexington – no assistance required
Lino Lakes
- performed control room equipment checks following a power outage
- coordinated with Z Systems for control room upgrade quote
Spring Lake Park
- performed control room equipment checks and provided city staff training prior to a city event and helped to ensure that presentations would display properly
STATION AND FRANCHISE ADMINISTRATION
Co-Executive Directors Eric Houston and Danika Peterson manage the North Metro TV station and staff and act as franchise administrators. Franchise administration is the day to day management of the member cities’ cable television and broadband internet franchises. This includes resolving customer concerns, ensuring both quality service and availability to all households, ensuring maintenance of the rights of way, negotiations of new franchises, regular renegotiations of existing franchises, collecting PEG and franchise fees, conducting regular audits of franchisees, and handling any legal issues through the Commission Attorney.
Cable Franchise
- Calculated total member city households at the request of a Cable Commission member
- Coordinated Strategic Plan meeting, including:
- meeting with Dr. Craig Waldron
- preparing budget report
- preparing meeting supplies and snacks
- coordinating schedules of all attendees and possible alternates
- providing post meeting notes to Dr. Waldron
- distributing finished report
- Informed Operations Committee of possible legislation
Broadband Franchises
- Responded to letter from Gateway
- Coordinated franchisee responses with city staff
Financial
- Provided data and materials for annual audit
- Continued 2027 budget planning
- Managed staff payroll
ADA Accessibility
- Revised Blaine CG channel to comply with ADA requirements
- Reworked compliance timeline after delayed enforcement announcement
Building Maintenance
- Coordinated installation of new alarm system and completion of dry fire suppression system
- Programmed new alarm system
- Cancelled old alarm monitoring service
- Met with Station Engineer and Program Coordinator to discuss master control upgrades
- Renewed property insurance
Staff Communication
- Continued regular meetings with station staff to foster communication and understanding and to create a more efficient workplace.
- Conducted employee annual reviews
- Continued with regular, twice monthly producers’ meetings
- Continued with monthly full staff meeting
- Continued with monthly NMTV Sports team meeting
Cable Customer Service
- Requests forwarded to Comcast
- Robert Webber called to complain about a temporary over ground cable line that was installed in the winter. He wanted help getting the line buried. We relayed his request to Comcast.
- We responded to a request from Barbara Mahr of the Lexington City Council regarding a damaged pedestal near a city utility building. NMTV staff helped Comcast identify the damaged pedestal, at which point Comcast informed us it was not one of theirs. Staff has traced ownership to Century Link and is working to try and get the damaged pedestal repaired or removed.
- Eileen Welna was frustrated that all of the emails in her Comcast email account were going to the trash folder. We referred her to Comcast Customer Support. On the call to us, Eileen wanted us to know, “I so wish you could find another company to be a cable provider. I just hate Comcast.”
- We also receive a steady stream of phone calls from Comcast customers who call us in error after finding our number on their bill. We typically provide them with the proper number for Comcast and recommend calling them directly to resolve the issue. If they cannot resolve the issue in this way, we invite them to call back. We received 5 such calls this month.
- 3 general billing questions
- 1 issue with a faulty cable box
- 1 request for a representative from Comcast Business
Miscellaneous
- Reviewed Legal Report
- Read industry articles
- Attended webinars and meetings hosted by MACTA
- Created meeting agendas and packets
- Wrote monthly report
- Administered employee payroll and benefits
Viewer Comments
Each month, the Co-Executive Directors field viewer comments over the phone and via NMTV social media channels. Here are some of this month’s highlights:
- Tracy Imsdahl, commenting on a video about the Bunker Hills and Rice Creek compost sites:
- “Adorable!”
- Daniel Olson, commenting on a Facebook excerpt of a Blaine City Council Meeting celebrating the Blaine Boys and Girls High School Basketball teams:
- “[Thanks] to Blaine City Council for this moment of recognition for these hardworking student athletes.”
- The Metro North Chamber of Commerce appreciated our video on their annual Excellence in Business Awards:
- “Thank you for highlighting this and showing off all the great businesses in our community!”
