79 New Programs
39 programs produced by NMTV staff
2 program produced by city staff
38 programs produced by the public
58 hours of new programming
HEADLINES
Nationwide Cable Outage
Phones rang off the hook at North Metro TV for approximately 45 minutes on June 22. The reason: a massive, nationwide cable outage affecting Comcast Cable customers. The Co-Executive Directors fielded calls from 18 concerned customers in that time. The customers, who included Darlene Madison, Keith Mortimore, and Penny Fuller were worried there was a problem with their equipment and were frustrated that Comcast had taken their 800 number offline and was not taking calls. In their roles as Franchise Administrator, the Co-Executive Directors contacted Comcast and researched the problem, offering reassurance to the 18 frustrated customers that they were not alone. Comcast later sent the station this statement: “Comcast records reflect that on June 22, 2026, Ms. Hedtke’s services were disrupted by a nationwide outage that was caused by a system update. The outage was resolved on June 22, 2026.”
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.
102,326 Online Views from 13 Videos
Most Viewed Online Story
County Road J / 35E
Interchange
50,062 Views
Access to and from County Road J and 35E is about to get a lot simpler. That’s thanks to a massive new project involving Lino Lakes, Anoka County, MnDOT, Ramsey County, White Bear Township, and North Oaks. The project, one of the largest in recent memory, will add two new access ramps, several roundabouts, and a new bridge to the interchange. John Mazzitello of the Ramsey County Public Works Department told NMTV that the project should be done by this November. See the story here.
Asia Village
Northtown Mall’s highly anticipated Asia Village is now open for business. NMTV spoke to customers and employees about the exciting offerings. The shopping center boasts a market, beauty shops, and cafes, including a boba shop that makes its own boba every morning – a first in the state. Asia Village is part of a greater revitalization expected to bring more consumers to Northtown Mall and to Blaine. Visit the village here.
Blaine Cadets
The Blaine Police Department’s newest class of Public Safety Cadets recently returned from the Minnesota Law Enforcement Explorer Association State Conference, where they won multiple awards and associated scholarships. The annual conference challenges cadets to apply their training in realistic law enforcement scenarios. The cadets themselves are 14 to 20 year olds with an interest in law enforcement. The students receive leadership and problem-solving training from Blaine police officers that can be applied to any career. See the story here.
Foodie Fundraiser
NMTV checked in with Sierra Taylor, the Circle Pines student who has dedicated herself to combating hunger. Sierra recently hosted the second annual Foodie Fundraiser in Golden Lake Park, raising money for the Centennial Food Shelf and its Power Pack program. Sierra thanked the city, vendors, the Centennial Lakes Police Department, and her family for supporting her generous efforts. Meet Sierra here.
Special Olympics Torch
The Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run ended in Blaine’s Tom Ryan Park, outside city hall. Mayor Tim Sanders was on hand to welcome the 3,000 athletes and 1,500 coaches to the City of Blaine. While many events were held at the University of Minnesota, Blaine played host to bowling, soccer, softball, pickleball, and several other events. BPD Deputy Chief Joe Gerhard also celebrated the athletes, praising their resilience and courage. See the torch run here.
SPORTS & EVENTS
NMTV presents high school sports games and community events live on cable channel 15 and on YouTube.
5 New Events with 2,036 Online Views
Blaine Memorial Day Ceremony 2026
Centennial High School Graduation
Spring Lake Park Tower Days Parade
Girls Lacrosse – Centennial at Blaine – Section 7 Semifinal
Boys Lacrosse – Duluth at Blaine – Section 7 Semifinal
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 3 new, full length programs, creating 1.5 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.
1 Live In Person Classes with 1 Attendee
Senior Tech Support at MAYC – 1 attendee
10,560 Attendees for Archived VOD Classes
Public Access Producers produced 38 new programs with 30 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
69.5 Transfer Hours
3 Video Tapes
20 Film Reels
$961.45 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
158,739 Videos Views
348 New Subscribers
3,539 Content Interactions
479,338 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
2,901 VOD Views
1,011 Livestream Views
NMTV WEBSITE STATISTICS
6,040 Users
23,961 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 29 city meetings with 18 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 – 128 replays, 168 hours
Centerville – 29 replays, 24 hours
Circle Pines – 143 replays, 90 hours
Ham Lake – 55 replays, 5.5 hours
Lexington – 90 replays, 71 hours
Lino Lakes – 59 replays, 36.5 hours
Spring Lake Park – 151 replays, 113.5 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 – 221 live minutes of closed captioning, 221 minutes of post closed captioning
Centerville – 45 live minutes of closed captioning, 45 minutes of post closed captioning
Circle Pines – 106 live minutes of closed captioning, 106 minutes of post closed captioning
Ham Lake – 12 live minutes of closed captioning, 12 minutes of post closed captioning
Lexington – 101 live minutes of closed captioning, 101 minutes of post closed captioning
Lino Lakes – 77 live minutes of closed captioning, 77 minutes of post closed captioning
Spring Lake Park – 101 live minutes of closed captioning, 10 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 – 3 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Centerville – 2 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Circle Pines – 3 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Ham Lake – 2 meetings bookmarked and placed on VOD
Lexington – 2 meetings placed on VOD
Lino Lakes – 2 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 3 city meeting podcasts, 46 total downloads
Centerville – uploaded 1 city meeting podcasts, 199 total downloads
Circle Pines – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 29 total downloads
Ham Lake – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 26 total downloads
Lexington – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 36 total downloads
Lino Lakes – has decided not to convert city meetings to podcasts
Spring Lake Park – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 53 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 2 city meeting transcripts
Circle Pines – created 2 city meeting transcripts
Ham Lake – created 2 city meeting transcripts
Lexington – not participating
Lino Lakes – created 2 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 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
- Worked with city staff to schedule city control room and council chamber upgrades from Z Systems
- Began multiple daylong onsite support for Centerville during extensive control room and chamber upgrades
Circle Pines
- Responded to reports of unusual microphone problems at city hall
- Rebooted systems following storm related power outage
- Reset MakitoX after failure
Ham Lake – no assistance required
Lexington
- Repositioned council chambers camera after it decided to start pointing at the ceiling
Lino Lakes
- Discussed Lino Lakes upgrades with Z Systems
- Discovered and corrected multiple, significant system issues following a storm related power outage
- Worked with city staff to provide compatible audio for a staff presentation
- Reset MakitoX after failure
Spring Lake Park
- Offered remote assistance troubleshooting sound issues in the multipurpose room
- Rebooted systems following storm related power outage
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
- Coordinated with member cities, particularly Centerville and Lexington, to try and find a better means of reporting and repairing damaged pedestals, low hanging wires, and other nuisances that belong to the cable company or to companies like Century Link
Broadband Franchises
- Monitored communications with multiple potential broadband franchise providers
- Joined with other community stations to offer reply comments to an FCC NPRM. Comments will be drafted by Commission Attorney Mike Bradley
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
- Helped Robert and Francis Kuha contact the cable company regarding a cable line that was obstructing a tree removal on their property.
- As mentioned above, provided assistance to 18 customers affected by a nationwide outage affecting cable television and Comcast’s customer service line, including:
- Linda Tallaksen
- Karen Hedtke
- Daniel O’Brien
- Edward Holland
- Dave Swiegert
- Darlene Madison
- Richard Pederson
- Michaeline Kozlak
- Alice Motarjemi
- Robert Peterson
- Thomas Westeberg
- Keith Mortimore
- Joanne Anderson (who requested we “shake their tail”)
- Don Foss
- Raymond Finnegan
- Philip Fuller
- Diane Sontag
- 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 3 such calls this month.
- 3 general billing questions
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
