There are a lot of adjectives I could attach to the 1995 [11/10/94 to 11/10/95 ] programming year. "Boring" is not one of them. 1995 has seen innovation, controversy, and change. Some of it has happened quietly, behind the scenes, while some of it was played out on live TV and in the pages of the Star Tribune.
In '95 we lost the services of Lisa-Marie Greenley who did playback and updated our channel character-generators. Lynne Washington is doing the CG updates now, and Tony Clark took over three playback shifts per week. I was pleased that Lynne Washington agreed to train as my new Sub. Lynne is a long time employee at MTN, in fact she hired me into playback five years ago, and has the unique and rare combination of professional skills needed to run programming. I am very grateful for the job she did thi s summer; substitute program managing is not an easy job, and Lynne took on the task with aplomb.
The number of new programs aired in '95 has stayed roughly on a level with the number submitted in '94. In 1995,access producers submitted (the envelope please) 2398 new programs. Producers started 44 new series programs - that's about one every 1.18 we eks - and turned in 290 stand alone titles - that's 5.5 per week or one and a fraction each and every working day. This represents a remarkable body of work. If you're a producer reading this, take a moment to congratulate yourself: even the easiest sh ow to produce can be a major hastle and time consumer. Consider even the trivial task of picking up your tapes; can you just drop by when you're in the area? NO! You have to call in advance because, and you've all heard this speech "...we keep the main tape library at our playback facility in North Minneapolis, and don't have room for it here. Just call me a day in advance and IÕll get it for you". Suddenly an easy task is cumbersome. Thank you one and all for sticking with us. It is your perserver ance that is making Public Access Television in Minneapolis a success.
Page One: Good Bye Everett