114 New Programs

66 programs produced by NMTV staff

2 program produced by city staff

46 programs produced by the public

76 hours of new programming

 

 

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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.

74,433 Online Views from 20 New News, Events, and Municipal Videos

 

Most Viewed Online Story

Spring Lake Park’s MYAS Specializes

in Fun and Games

15,332 Views

 

The City of Spring Lake Park is home to MYAS or Minnesota Youth Athletic Services.  Eric Nelson profiled this dedicated nonprofit, which runs sports events and tournaments across the state.  MYAS serves children age three to eight and currently has 1,826 participating teams.  Corporate partners help keep costs down so the events are affordable for parents.  See the story here.

Polar Plunge

The Blaine, Spring Lake Park, and Centennial Lakes Police Departments all participated in this year’s Anoka County Polar Plunge.  Trevor Scholl and TJ Tronson were on hand to film officers, athletes, and members of the public jump into the freezing water.  It is all for a good cause, with all three departments working to lead the local law enforcement community in raising as much money as possible for Special Olympics Minnesota.  Take the plunge here.

New K-9

Tristin Gillespie, the Victim Advocate for the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office, has a new partner.  Sedona is a three year old support dog, donated by Can Do Canines.  She is a fully trained service dog and will be helping Tristin by offering comfort and support to victims and survivors.  Trevor Scholl met the duo and learned about the differences between therapy dogs and service dogs.  Meet Sedona here.

Centerville Downtown Plan

The NMTV News team spoke to Centerville Mayor Nancy Golden about the city’s push for a revitalized downtown.  Mayor Golden spoke about the city’s multiple open houses and local opinions that may change exactly where the center point of Centerville is.  The City hopes to attract new businesses and restaurants in what it acknowledges will be a long process.  You can learn about the plan here.

Recycling Driver of the Year

Eric Nelson met a local recycling truck driver who was named National Waste and Recycling Association Driver of the Year.  Adam Shequin works for Walters Recycling and Refuse, a small, family run company in Blaine.  Adam, who works hard to help train his fellow workers, is humble about the honor and is looking forward to the free trip to Washington, D.C. to attend the awards ceremony.  Meet Adam here.

Centennial Food Shelf

March is Food Share Month in Minnesota, a crucial time for organizations like the Centennial Community Food Shelf in Circle Pines.  Danika Peterson spoke to Acting President Marc Ehrmantraut about the increased need the food shelf is seeing.  Despite being open just four hours a week, the entirely volunteer staffed shelf serves 20 to 30,000 pounds of food to between 60 and 80 families.  See the story here.

 

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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

Girls Basketball

Blaine at Forest Lake

Section 7AAAA Championship

13,315 Views

 

This year, both the Blaine High School Basketball Boys and Girls teams won their section championships.  North Metro TV was with them every step of the way, with the sports team filming regular season games alongside the semifinal and championship match ups.  Eric Nelson also created special celebratory videos, highlighting the teams and all the excitement at the school.  There was even a special episode of Sports Den featuring interviews with both teams.  You can see highlights of the boys semifinal, boys championship, girls semifinal, and girls championship games, news stories about the boys team and the girls team, and the special episode of Sports Den featuring both teams.

4 New Games with 4,007 Online Views

6 Game Recap Videos Received an Additional 23,361 Online Views

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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 9 new, full length programs, creating 5 hours of new content.

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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.

4 Live In Person Classes with 17 Attendees

Informational Station Tour at NMTV for 3

Camera Training at NMTV for 2

Remote Career Information Meeting for 2

Back to the 80s: The Decades Biggest Blockbusters Lecture Class at MAYC for 10

5,201 Attendees for Archived VOD Classes

 

Home Movie Transfers

416 Transfer Hours

100 Video Tapes

38 Film Reels

532 Photos and Slides

$1,100 in Fees Collected

 

Public Access Producers produced 46 new programs with 36 hours of content for Channel 14.

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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

102,361 Videos Views

250 New Subscribers

4,298 Content Interactions

646,654 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

3,947 VOD Views

1,786 Livestream Views

NMTV WEBSITE STATISTICS

9,238 Users

27,822 Page Views

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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 24.5 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 – 183 replays, 207.5 hours

Centerville – 56 replays, 74 hours

Circle Pines – 160 replays, 56 hours

Ham Lake – 71 replays, 67 hours

Lexington – 106 replays, 45.5 hours

Lino Lakes – 81 replays, 63 hours

Spring Lake Park – 127 replays, 102.5 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 – 12 videos

Circle Pines – 11 videos

Ham Lake – 10 videos

Lexington – 11 videos

Lino Lakes – 11 videos

Spring Lake Park – 14 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 – 279.5 live minutes of closed captioning, 279.5 minutes of post closed captioning

Centerville – 486 live minutes of closed captioning, 486 minutes of post closed captioning

Circle Pines – 65.5 live minutes of closed captioning, 65.5 minutes of post closed captioning

Ham Lake – 214.5 live minutes of closed captioning, 214.5 minutes of post closed captioning

Lexington – 27 live minutes of closed captioning, 27 minutes of post closed captioning

Lino Lakes – 26 live minutes of closed captioning, 26 minutes of post closed captioning

Spring Lake Park – 147 live minutes of closed captioning, 147 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 – 5 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 – 5 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, 48 total downloads

Centerville – uploaded 5 city meeting podcasts, 143 total downloads

Circle Pines – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 40 total downloads

Ham Lake – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 49 total downloads

Lexington – uploaded 2 city meeting podcasts, 40 total downloads

Lino Lakes – has decided not to convert city meetings to podcasts

Spring Lake Park – uploaded 3 city meeting podcasts, 39 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 5 city meeting transcripts

Circle Pines – created 3 city meeting transcripts

Ham Lake – created 3 city meeting transcripts

Lexington – not participating

Lino Lakes – created 5 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

• Met with Z Systems to discuss upgrades to the city control room
• Assisted city staff with a Zoom test
• Responded to an emergency call of Zoom audio not working

Circle Pines 

• Investigated report of Zoom audio not working during a recent council meeting
• Tracked the issue to a specific component, ordered and installed replacement

Ham Lake 

• Installed QLED TV at Fire Station 2

Lexington – no assistance required

Lino Lakes 

• Met with city staff to run tests on all control room equipment
• Discussed upgrades to council chamber video and audio with Z Systems

Spring Lake Park 

• Provided a transcript of a council work session at staff request
• Updated city control room manuals
• General microphone troubleshooting
• Ran full test of video systems in the multi-purpose room

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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

• Began planning and scheduling for a strategic plan meeting

Broadband Franchises

• Worked with the Commission Attorney, the City of Blaine, and the Blaine City Attorney to respond to a letter from a firm representing Gateway
• Drafted a sample resolution for member cities that might wish to affirm the Commission as Franchise Administrator
• Point 2

Financial Matters

• Provided documents and answered questions for this years Commission audit
• Conducted an extensive viewership study as background for 2027 budget discussions
• Wrote a detailed report presenting 2027 budget options

Member Cities

• Touched base with all member cities to update individual policies on city meeting recording retention
• Disseminated information to relevant staff

Client Services

• Met with representatives from the League of Women Voters to discuss options for recording their 2026 candidate forums
• Spoke with Fridley city staff about upgrades that were made to their video systems and WCAG requirements
• Provided a quote to the Minnesota Vixen Women’s Football team for production services at their request

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
  • The Chain of Lakes Church in Blaine reached out regarding their efforts to have Comcast run an internet line to their building.  According to the church, the initial estimate for the service was $35,000.  We contacted Comcast who promised to work with the church to bring the cost down.
• 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 2 such calls this month.
  • 2 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