ELCAT launches first weekly programming schedule

April 14, 2016 | Chris Goudreau
news@thereminder.com

EAST?LONGMEADOW – Residents will soon have advance notice about what will be airing on East Longmeadow Community Access Television’s (ELCAT) three channels starting in May.

ELCAT Director Don Maki told Reminder Publications this is the first time ELCAT has created a schedule of its programs, which outlines on a weekly basis each time slot for a specific program on channels 191 to 193 for Charter customers.

Maki said the weeklong schedule would be for the entire month – with change in programming only taking place due to rescheduling or cancelation of events.

“The schedule will stay the same, but the individual programs will change over the four weeks,” he explained.

He noted residents cannot search on their televisions for an ELCAT schedule because the channels are not specific to East Longmeadow. Other communities, such as Wilbraham, Ludlow, and Easthampton also use the same Charter channels for their public access programs.

“There is no other way for people to know when any given program is actually going to be aired on the channels,” he explained. “We’ve never been able to do [this] before. This is huge because for the volume of programming [that] we produce ourselves and for some of the content we have some other access stations in New England – some of which is pretty interesting – history, travel, programs about Cape [Cod], and a lot of music programs.”

He added ELCAT airs at least 50 different programs across its educational and public channels and consistently tapes meetings from seven elected boards in town on the government channel.

Maki said new schedule will be inserted in the senior center newsletter – available at the town hall, library, and senior center – and there are plans to post the schedule on the town’s website. The May schedule will be available on April 28.

He added it’s been his goal to create a program schedule since taking over as ELCAT director in 2008.

“I won’t say that it’s been in constant development since that time, but it really has been the most difficult issue to solve since I’ve been here,” he noted.

Maki said he hopes the new schedule would make the programs more visible to the East Longmeadow community.

“We’ve had a lot of visibility recently with all that’s been going on in the government side,” he added. “People have been very interested in watching all the meetings.”

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