“Local media is what the residents want due to more or less losing all their other local media outlets,” said David Bennett, Communications & Multimedia Coordinator for the City of Columbus. “There really isn’t any local media in Columbus beyond the City’s two cable channels and the quarterly City publication, so the challenge is establishing City-backed local media that hopefully can be useful to our residents.”
The City of Columbus nicknamed “Red Bud City,” is located about 30 miles northeast of Madison between the banks of the Crawfish River in the southeast and U.S. Route 151 within its northwest border. The city is known for its historic downtown and as a regional market center, serving many rural residents and small communities in the area. The city is one of a handful of places in Wisconsin where the Amtrak passenger train stops, and it is the only depot between Milwaukee and Portage. Columbus has been steadily growing and its population now stands at 5,540 – an increase of 1,000 people in just the last twenty years.
Bennett not only manages the City’s presence on cable television, programming the City’s two PEG (Public, Education, Government) cable channels on 980 and 981 on the Charter Spectrum cable TV system, but he also helps manage the City’s website and Facebook pages, contributes to and promotes the city’s quarterly newsletter, The Commotion, and manages a separate easy-to-use website for livestreamed programming and video-on-demand called Columbus Cable.
The position Bennett fills was created by the city in 2021. Before that, from 1985, when the city signed its first cable television franchise agreement, until 2019, the City managed the PEG channels using part-time contractors overseen by the Columbus Cable Television Commission. Two of the videographers managed Columbus Cable for long periods of time. Chris Beal took care of the channel from 1999 to 2012 and Jesse Wilson took it over until 2019. The City funded the channels by dedicating nearly all the fees it received from the cable operator for staff, operating expenses, and capital equipment.
By 2019, it was clear that the City’s communication needs had expanded so the City brought the position in-house, expanded its responsibilities, and created the Media Coordinator position. Operating expenses for the department were no longer entirely tied to cable company VSP fees, but also paid from the City’s general fund. Lisa Wolf (now Famularo) was the first person to hold this position and after further changes to the position, David Bennett became the new Communications & Multimedia Coordinator in 2021.
The City of Columbus council chambers is equipped with a three-camera automated production system. Four city meetings are offered live on cable and livestreamed on the Columbus Cable website where they can also be seen on-demand: City Council, Committee of the Whole, Plan Commission, and the Utility Commission. Links to these meetings can also be found on the City website.
Bennett also works on tourism and economic development projects and with residents and organizations that submit programming or graphic slides to the cable channel. Bennett estimates he receives programs from nearly 30 different producers who create programs for churches, non-profit organizations, schools, and events.
Columbus High School offers a video production class and produces programs that appear on YouTube, Facebook and its cable television channel 981. Bennett manages the schedule on the school district’s cable channel, pulling the videos they produce, including sports and school board meetings, from the digital platforms they use.
Bennett brought a well-rounded experience to his position in Columbus. After getting a taste for video by filming sports in high school in Medford, Bennett graduated from college in 2009, where he wrote articles for the college newspaper, worked at the college radio station, and ran the Film/TV Club. The club sometimes borrowed equipment from the city’s PEG channel, called The Ripon Channel, for projects and he got to know the staff. After graduation, Bennett did freelance work, and in 2012, Riley Icenogle, The Ripon Channel manager, hired him as one of two part-time videographers. After a few years he also secured a part-time position with the City of Port Washington, covering meetings, shooting a series with the mayor, and working with churches that submitted programming for the channel. He also worked at IPS Solutions, a website design firm located near Green Bay.
In 2019, Bennett landed a full-time position with the City of Marshfield as a Communications Specialist where he helped rebrand and build Marshfield Broadcasting, the PEG channels for the City. In 2021, when he saw there was an opportunity to take charge of the City of Columbus’s media presence, he jumped at the chance. “The City of Columbus gives me the opportunity to not only do video, but to also utilize my marketing skills, graphic design, and website maintenance experience,” said Bennett. He also helps with event presentations and press releases. “I see video production as one tool in my toolkit. I look at what the message is and decide how best to communicate it to the audience we want to reach. Sometimes its video – like for a ribbon cutting -- and sometimes it might be creating a graphic for social media and our cable TV message board. It’s always on a case-by-case basis.”
“I’m building a digital-first operation here that prioritizes analytics to give the residents of Columbus the content they are most receptive to,” said Bennett. “That provides the anchors to which I then can pair City messaging to. It’s pretty much a similar model to broadcast television networks. The City uses cable as part of our communications outreach because it’s an additional audience and the goal is to reach our audience where they’re at.”
Bennett is hoping to expand his capabilities with part-time help. If you are interested in getting experience in video production, Columbus, with its wide-ranging use of all kinds of media, may be a great place to start your career! See Work in Media for more about the position.
