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Westborough TV expands hands-on partnership with WHS journalism; requests town support as cable revenues fall
Summary
Westborough TV and Westborough High School presented a year-two partnership that places students in newsroom-style classes and studio work at the town public-access station; Westborough TV said cable-derived revenues have declined and it will seek town funding to close an approximate $180,000 shortfall.
Westborough School Committee members heard a presentation Tuesday on a growing collaboration between Westborough TV and Westborough High School that places students in broadcast journalism classes and gives them hands-on access to professional equipment and studio space.
The partnership has moved broadcast journalism into the high school fine arts program after Massachusetts curriculum frameworks reclassified broadcast journalism as media arts, Christopher Martin, Westborough Schools director of fine arts, said. Students in journalism 1 learn writing and basics; journalism 2 and advanced journalism produce weekly or biweekly broadcast packages at Westborough TV’s Studio 33.
"The students get a lot of good stuff from us here in terms of the writing side of things, but they have things at Westboro TV that we can't really offer here in our space, especially when it comes to equipment, technology, expertise of their staff," Martin said. Karen Henderson, general manager of Westborough TV, described the nonprofit access station’s PEG (public, education, government) work and its role archiving government meetings, school performances and athletic events for local and remote viewers.
Students shown in a short video and in remarks said the program provides real-world experience in reporting, editing and production; alumni in the video said those skills helped with college applications and some careers. Henderson and Martin said class caps and current program capacity affect how many students can participate in in-school coursework: journalism 2 and advanced journalism classes are capped at about 21 each; introductory journalism (a semester course) reaches roughly 55 students over the year and offers after-school participation via the school’s "lobby observer" social media team.
Henderson told the committee Westborough TV is funded primarily through franchise agreements with cable providers (Verizon and Charter) that contribute a percentage of gross annual cable revenues; she said the town’s shift away from cable toward streaming means the station receives no revenue from streaming platforms. "So every time someone gets rid of cable, it's not because they're not watching anything anymore. They've shifted over to streaming... and we get no funding from that," Henderson said.
Henderson said the station expects to bring a request to the spring warrant asking the town to help close a budget gap created by declining cable revenues; she cited a draft figure of about $180,000 for this year but said the final number will be set after further meetings with the town manager. Henderson also said state legislation repeatedly filed at the House and Senate would, if passed, extend franchise-style payments to streaming services and could stabilize funding for local access stations.
The committee praised the partnership and the student work shown in the videos and asked administrators to return with any further information on capacity, scheduling and potential expansions of in-school course offerings. No formal vote was taken on the partnership itself during the meeting.
