CITY TO IMPROVE PUBLIC-ACCESS BROADCASTS

Broadcasts on Cape Girardeau's public access cable channel should look more professional soon.

The city's Cable Television Citizens Committee decided to go ahead with the installation of new equipment right away instead of waiting to see whether the city buys the old Boatmen's Bank building at 100 Broadway.

The city currently operates the channel out of the Convention and Visitors Bureau office at 2121 Broadway with one tape deck, one monitor and a bottom-of-the-line character generator. The new equipment includes two tape decks and two monitors arranged on a rack to go along with the old character generator.

Currently, when a taped program ends it is often followed by a momentary blackout, said Jim Dufek, a member of the committee. With two decks the volunteer operating the channel can make a smooth transition from one tape to another and can cue up one tape while another is on the air.

Mary Miller, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the city has not yet decided whether to buy the building. The city and the bank announced a month ago that they had a verbal agreement that gave the city a 60-day option to buy the building for $150,000.

Miller said the city has not yet determined the building's condition.

Miller said by installing the new equipment in the old office the city will "make sure it's up and running."

Dufek said the city will shortly buy a camera so it can tape events around town for airing later "CSPAN-style."

In other business, the committee:

-- Reaffirmed its earlier stance against allowing Jackson organizations to use the character generator to publicize events. The current policy calls for only allowing Cape Girardeau-based organizations to use it to publicize events.

Committee Chairman Michael Maguire said the character generator the city now uses doesn't have the capacity to accommodate many more announcements than it already runs. Maguire said Jackson should ask TCI for its own public access channel.

Dufek said he might consider allowing Jackson on the system if the city were to acquire a character generator with a larger capacity.

-- Modified the rules for access for broadcasting announcements using the character generator on the access channel. The Central High School Booster Club wanted to use the channel to promote a fund-raiser at Bent Creek Golf Course last month, but because the rules only allowed using the character generator to publicize events within the city limits and the golf course is outside the city limits, the city said no.

The new rule allows Cape Girardeau-based groups and groups whose memberships are substantially from Cape Girardeau to publicize events within a 30-mile radius of Cape Girardeau.

-- Mentioned that discussions with TCI about switching to digital-compression technology to increase the number of available channels have halted since TCI's announcement that it signed a letter of intent to sell the majority of its interest in the local cable system to Falcon Cable.