91 New Programs
47 programs produced by NMTV staff
2 program produced by city staff
42 programs produced by the public
62.5 hours of new programming
NMTV WELCOMES PRODUCTION MANAGER
North Metro TV is excited to introduce its new Production Manager – Rusty Ray. Rusty previously worked at North Metro TV from 2018 – 2022, where he anchored the news, produced hundreds of stories, and helped to create the Local Decision election format that we still use today.
Rusty was just one of the nearly 70 video professionals who applied for the job. The Co-Executive Directors rigorously scored each resume and invited the four top scorers for interviews. While each of those four would have brought something amazing to North Metro TV, Rusty’s previous experience with this community and the lessons he’s learned since, at WCCO Radio and CCX Media, make him the perfect person to help take North Metro TV into the future.
SHORTFORM CONTENT
Each month, North Metro TV staff researches, shoots, and edits several short, topical stories for social media and cable channel 15. NMTV also works with city staff to create videos and stories at city request. The stories relevant to each member city also air in between scheduled programs on the city cable channel.
88,985 Online Views from 11 Videos
Most Viewed Online Story
Blaine Breaks Ground on “The Farm”
36,894 Views
The Farm is a “generational project that is going to change the City of Blaine, Anoka County, and the National Sports Center forever.” That was the exciting message shared by Blaine City Manager Erik Thorvig at the groundbreaking of the city’s new 70 acre entertainment district. The district will house shops, restaurants, and even a baseball stadium. North Metro TV covered the big day and intends to follow the project closely as construction ramps up for what Mayor Tim Sanders called a “heart of the city.” See the story here.
New Chief at Centennial
The Centennial Lakes Police Department has a new chief. After serving the department for eight years, Brian Goetzke has stepped into a leadership role. TJ Tronson interviewed Chief Goetzke about his plans for the department. The Chief underscored the importance of trust and community-oriented policing in Centerville, Circle Pines, and Lexington. He also spoke about his own inspirations and love of doing a job that really matters. You can meet Chief Goetzke here.
County Road 10 Bridge
Work has begun on replacing the section of the County Road 10 Bridge over Highway 65 that was damaged last October by a semi carrying a tall load. A full weekend closure was planned for late August to demolish the existing deck and damaged beam. The full repair should be completed by the end of fall. See the bridge here.
Main Street Market
Rusty Ray visited downtown Centerville to attend the most recent Main Street Market. The Market is a place where vendors can sell their handmade wares and customers can find community. There are several popular theme nights, too, including kids night and pet night. On the evening Rusty attended, there was even a colorful pet parade. You can visit the market here.
Summer in the North Metro
NMTV staff covered multiple events this summer, including social media stories about the TPC Rose charity golf tournament, Blaine’s annual Safety Camp, and others. TJ Tronson worked to find a way to provide low-cost live event coverage and brought his talents – and a couple of part timers – to Centerville’s Fete des Lacs and Lino Lakes Blue Heron Days parades. As fall approaches, work is already underway to devise new methods of covering high school sports.
Local Decision 2026
Election season is upon us and North Metro TV’s new Production Manager is hard at work. Rusty Ray is coordinating more than 50 local candidates who will participate in one-on-one interviews at the station. Each interview will air on Cable Channel 15, post to social media, and even be available as podcasts! Local Decision is one of NMTV’s signature programming initiatives and a truly massive undertaking that brings unparalleled candidate access to our community.
SPORTS & EVENTS
NMTV presents high school sports games and community events live on cable channel 15 and on YouTube.
6 New Events
Lino Lakes Blue Heron Days Parade
North Metro Mayors Forum – Senate District 36
North Metro Mayors Forum – House District 36A
League of Women Voters Forum State Senate District 39
League of Women Voters Forum State Rep District 39A
League of Women Voters Forum State Rep District 39B
CABLE CHANNEL CONTENT
Staff also routinely produces longer form content especially for cable channel 15 and for the city cable channels. Typically 30 minutes to one hour long, these programs highlight more complex issues.
NMTV staff produced 2 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! Staff teaches classes on a variety of topics, including video production, film history, and even how to use the internet. Public Access programs air on cable channel 14.
2 Live In Person Classes with 14 Attendees
DIY Antiques Valuations at MAYC
One-on-One Computer Tech Support at NMTV
5,296 Attendees for Archived VOD Classes
Public Access Producers produced 42 new programs with 35 hours of content for Channel 14.
NMTV is also home to a popular home movie transfer program, which helps community members put their old video tapes, photos, and film reels on digital formats.
Home Movie Transfers
65.5 Transfer Hours
14 Video Tapes
70 Photos and Slides
$216.25 in Fees Collected
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
123,801 Videos Views
205 New Subscribers
16,001 Content Interactions
427,935 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
1,179 VOD Views
692 Livestream Views
NMTV WEBSITE STATISTICS
4,451 Users
13,472 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 30 city meetings with 21.5 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 – 126 replays, 127 hours
Centerville – 43 replays, 34 hours
Circle Pines – 171 replays, 68.75 hours
Ham Lake – 57 replays, 11 hours
Lexington – 92 replays, 178.25 hours
Lino Lakes – 94 replays, 51.5 hours
Spring Lake Park – 114 replays, 99.5 hours
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 – 288 live minutes of closed captioning, 288 minutes of post closed captioning
Centerville – 209 live minutes of closed captioning, 209 minutes of post closed captioning
Circle Pines – 66 live minutes of closed captioning, 66 minutes of post closed captioning
Ham Lake – 45 live minutes of closed captioning, 45 minutes of post closed captioning
Lexington – 16 live minutes of closed captioning, 16 minutes of post closed captioning
Lino Lakes – 199 live minutes of closed captioning, 199 minutes of post closed captioning
Spring Lake Park – 305 live minutes of closed captioning, 305 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 – 5 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Centerville – 4 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Circle Pines – 4 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Ham Lake – 4 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Lexington – 1 meetings placed on VOD
Lino Lakes – 5 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Spring Lake Park – 5 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
City Meeting Podcasts
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, 81 total downloads
Centerville – uploaded 3 city meeting podcasts, 171 total downloads
Circle Pines – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 75 total downloads
Ham Lake – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 32 total downloads
Lexington – uploaded 1 city meeting podcasts, 45 total downloads
Lino Lakes – has decided not to convert city meetings to podcasts
Spring Lake Park – uploaded 3 city meeting podcasts, 80 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 4 city meeting transcripts
Ham Lake – created 4 city meeting transcripts
Lexington – not participating
Lino Lakes – created 5 city meeting transcripts
Spring Lake Park – created 3 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 City Meeting Manager routinely backs up the Station Engineer and also provides technical support. The Engineer provided the following services to the cities this month:
Blaine – no assistance required
Centerville
- Created Zoom setup training video
Circle Pines – no assistance required
Ham Lake – no assistance required
Lexington
- Troubleshooted audio issues at City Hall
- Replaced faulty HDMI cable at City Hall
Lino Lakes – no assistance required
Spring Lake Park – no assistance required
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 renegotiation of existing franchises, collecting PEG and franchise fees, conducting regular audits of franchisees, and handling any legal issues through the Commission Attorney.
Project Pedestal
- Continued trying to get various phone company pedestals and other issues resolved
- Made multiple calls to Lumen
- Visited corner of Goiffon and Heritage in Centerville to photograph some low hanging phone wires – we have reported these wires several times with no action from Lumen
- Connected with a helpful, local engineer who offered to get involved on the Centerville wire issue, also provided him with a list of damaged pedestals
Broadband Franchises
- Fielded questions from Blaine residents, primarily about overground cables
- Met with Blaine City Staff and City Attorney
Commission Documents
- Revised Community Programming Rules and Regulations to better fit the current needs of NMTV
- Revised NMTC Rules of Decorum
Financial
- Coordinated Completion of annual audit
- Worked with accounting firm to correct payroll issues
Building Maintenance
- Received rate increase request from current custodian
- Began researching bids from alternate custodial companies
Staffing
- Provided On Boarding for new Production Manager Rusty Ray
- Began search for new Video Engineer
- Met with part time sports producer to discuss viability of low cost live sports coverage
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
- Judy Eagan believed she had been incorrectly charged for a repair on her property. We put Judy in touch with Comcast who corrected the issue.
- The City of Lexington reported that their cable box at city hall was not working properly. NMTV was able to get Comcast to call Lexington staff and walk them through some troubleshooting. This did not resolve the issue, but Comcast still marked the work as complete. The Franchise Administrator again acted on the city’s behalf and Comcast ultimately corrected the issue.
- Elizabeth Jarvey was unable to successful navigate the Comcast phone system in order to pay her bill. We were able to put her in touch with Comcast and the issue was resolved.
- 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 1 such calls this month.
- 1 question about a possible fraudulent email
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:
Legend-ary Pet Treats commented on Facebook about a story about Centerville’s Main Street Market:
- “Wonderful interview and feature. It was such a pleasure to be a part of the market this year. One of our favorite spots to be! Thank you all who made it possible, and for all who stopped by!”
TPC Rose commented on a story about their annual golf tournament :
- “We are so grateful for community partners like you showing up to raise awareness for our worthy causes! Thank you for always being a valued partner and helping us highlight the work we do in the community.”
Brandy Baldwin-Gilbert also commented on the TPC Rose story:
- “Thank you Danika, Rusty and the team [at] North Metro TV for highlighting the important work Ross, Amber and the entire team at The Invisible Wounds Project are doing to help our community.”
Our story on The Farm, Blaine’s new entertainment district, received tons of comments, including:
- “Good for Blaine!” – Candice Kraemer
- “Can’t wait” – Bambe Keita
- “Looks great” – Lynn Dufek
Pat Dobratz commented on a video about Circle Pines and Broadband Franchising:
- “Good job at transparency!!
