CTN earns three national first-place awards
by Peter Bodley
Managing Editor
CTN Studios, Coon Rapids, has again received national recognition for its cable programs.
The city of Coon Rapids cable studio has earned three first-place awards in the 2011 Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Hometown Video competition.
There were more than 1,100 entries from over 3,000 PEG (Public, Education, Government) cable access organizations and cities across the country.
The CTN first-place awards were in three different categories.
• Live format – professional: live girls’ hockey game between Coon Rapids and Irondale high schools.
• News – professional: “CTN News.”
• Sports coverage – professional: live prep football game between Coon Rapids and Andover high schools.
In mid-June, CTN received notification of the awards, which will be presented at the national festival in Tucson, Ariz., July 29.
But no CTN staffers will be traveling to Arizona to receive the awards – the plaques will be mailed, according to Eric Strouse, CTN production supervisor.
CTN has picked up more than 30 AMC Hometown Video and other awards over the years, but three in one year is the exception rather than the rule, Strouse said.
Strouse attributed CTN’s success to a “staff that is motivated to always make the extra effort in the production of the programs and they work together pretty closely,” he said.
For each category, CTN was required to submit just one show.
The first place for girls’ hockey was a live broadcast of Coon Rapids versus Irondale hockey game at the Schwan’s Super Rink in December 2010.
For the production, there two announcers – Joe Yund and Howie Shapiro – a crew of four camera people, a director/producer/technical director, graphics operator, an audio operator and a tape replace operator, Strouse said.
All live broadcast shows are taped for replay on CTN several times for two weeks after the event.
While this is the first time that CTN has earned a national award for a live hockey broadcast, it has won top honors several times before for its live high school football coverage – four in the last five years, Strouse said.
Yund and Shapiro, who have handled play-by-play and color announcing duties for CTN’s live high school sports coverage for many years, also called the award-winning live broadcast of the Coon Rapids home football game versus Andover last fall, according to Strouse.
In addition, there was a sideline reporter, Ron Johnson, and extra production staff, including five cameras, two people handling directing, producing and technical director duties and an enhanced sound operator for the sideline coverage, Strouse said.
For this particular telecast, the jib or crane camera was moved from its normal spot behind the end zone to a more central location by the Coon Rapids cheerleader and home fans so they could be captured celebrating what turned out to be an upset victory, he said.
“We were able to capture the excitement of the crowd,” Strouse said.
According to Strouse, a tradition over the many years of CTN telecasting Coon Rapids High School football games, dating back to the pre-live coverage days, has been CTN providing a tape of the game to the team that is shown to the players later the night of the game at a “safe party” which is hosted by parents of the players.
“The feedback we get is good,” Strouse said.
The “CTN News” program is broadcast live every Friday at 5 p.m. and then replayed throughout the week.
The 15-minute news show covers not only the city of Coon Rapids, but also Anoka County with both studio and in-the-field reporting, Strouse said.
It is anchored by Steve Ericson, a Coon Rapids High School graduate who has been with CTN for 18 years, and Karen Sivanich.
According to the CTN website, the newscast keeps residents informed about their city government, schools, courts, civic organizations and other important happenings in the area.
The Hometown Video Festival is the oldest and largest festival celebrating the accomplishments of local video producers.
The city of Coon Rapids began producing cable TV programming in May 1986.
At first the programming included training videos and live election coverage, but government programming quickly grew to include regular Coon Rapids City Council and Coon Rapids Planning Commission meetings, “City Council Comments,” “Coon Rapids Profile” and shows featuring city departments.
At the beginning of 1997, Coon Rapids pulled out of an eight-city cable commission and became a single cable TV community television entity.
The council approved taking over community access from then Meredith Cable, now Comcast, allowing the city to expand programming to three separate channels, Channel 15, 16 and 19.
CTN Studios moved into a state-of-the-art facility on the campus of the Coon Rapids City Center in November 2001.
The building is over 8,000 square feet and boasts two studios with a central control room, master control, a voice-over room, tape storage room, four edit suites, and a generous office area.
There is also a two-stall garage to protect the mobile production truck. It is also used as an additional edit suite.
The city does not use general tax dollars to fund the activities of CTN Studios. It is funded through cable user fees, plus revenue generated from its sponsorship programs and production service projects.
For example, CTN provides production services for the St. Paul Saints home baseball games.
Peter Bodley is at peter.bodley@ecm-inc.com
