CITY TO ADD LOCAL PROGRAMMING TO CABLE ACCESS CHANNEL

Are you tired of channel surfing to find that there's really nothing on television?

Well, the City of Cape Girardeau hopes to solve your problems by adding more local programs to its access channel.

Members of the Cable Television Citizens Committee and the Public Awareness advisory boards met Friday evening to discuss programming options for the local channel.

The city currently is sharing the channel with the C-Span network but TCI Cablevision of Missouri will move the network from cable channel 5 to another unspecified channel by Jan. 22.

With the move the city will have more air time to show local programs instead of just city council and school board meetings.

Mary Miller, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the city should have no trouble filling the extra time. "It's a matter of getting the word out about the good things in our city," she said.

One way the city hopes to get the word out is through a character generator. The machine, which costs about $1,000, prints messages and lists upcoming activities on the television screen. It would serve as a bulletin board of community activities.

"The local access channel has been operating in a vacuum for years," said Michael Maguire, chair of the cable committee, adding that now the city has the opportunity to develop its channel.

City Manager Michael Miller said, "People aren't going to watch it just because the city says it has a program on. It's tough to compete with the local media."

Miller suggested airing live programs, possibly for children, at a regular time slot.

In addition to the live meetings currently being aired on the channel, some programs being considered are the "Mind Extension University," which offers correspondence college courses, and music video programs.

Before any programming will be added, the committee will develop some criteria for programming.

It will also collect bids from production companies, who would serve as a third-party contractor. The company, acting on behalf of the city, would monitor the programming, maintain equipment and run the studio operation, if necessary.

A specific bid package will be developed by the committee later. There is no definitive timeline for the expansion of the local access channel.

"We don't want to rush into it with the first thing to come along," Maguire said.

The cable television committee was formed in 1989 and re-activated by the council last fall. The date of the next meeting has not been set.