Eau Claire's Converge Media reinvigorates local programming with the arts

Eau Claire’s Valley Media Works and Converge Radio have combined to form Converge Media!  The new collaboration brings together local radio station 101.9 and the two PEG (Public, Education, and Government) cable television channels, 993 and 994, on the Charter Spectrum system that have long been managed as a community channel and a government access channel. 

 The part-time executive director of Converge Media, Cullen Ryan, is very excited about the collaboration, which will ultimately bring together a very active arts community in Eau Claire with the PEG center’s mission to cover local government and community issues.  “Eau Claire is a hotbed of artists -- including famous ones,” said Ryan.  “There’s an incredible amount of talent here.  With Converge Media, we have the ability to serve the community and showcase the arts.  I’m really excited about that.”

 Converge Media is led by an eleven-member board of directors that includes two members of the former Valley Media Works Board, local musicians, musical event planners, radio managers and technicians.  Ryan met all of them after becoming involved in the open mike comedy scene at The Plus in Eau Claire when he moved here in 2012.  What started out as just a few people walking up to the mike on a Wednesday night blossomed into 30 or 40 people performing sets by 2015.  Ryan was the driving force.  He brought talent to The Plus from around the region, then started booking national acts.  Soon he was working with Converge Radio to bring bands to The Plus that Converge Radio would record. 

 In 2020 there was a major setback.  The UW-Eau Claire Foundation, which held the operating license for Converge Radio on 99.9 (WDRK-FM), decided to sell the station to the Family Radio Network, a Christian network based in Appleton.  The station would no longer offer space to local performances.  Ryan and Ed Hudgins, a local arts enthusiast, started hunting for an alternative broadcast opportunity and discovered that Valley Media Works was ready to give up management of its low power radio station, 101.9. 

Valley Media Works is one of the oldest PEG media centers in the state, for a long time calling itself Chippewa Valley Community Television.  The media center had a history of success, with robust public access services for the community and a strong relationship with local government.  But due to passage of 2007 Wisconsin Act 42, dedicated PEG funding ended in 2011 and the center lost more than half of its annual budget. The PEG center was forced to downsize and drastically shrink its services to the community.  In the ensuing years, the center had difficulties finding a sustainable model.  Then in 2019, it hit a brick wall.  Nearly all its paid staff resigned and eventually in 2020, both the city and the county pulled their contracts with the organization.  Valley Media Works moved out of its studio space at Banbury Place and the Board of Directors struggled to maintain services with volunteers. 

Converge Media came out of the ashes.  The new non-profit has already delivered on creating a new space on local radio for fresh and homegrown music and comedy and is now working on saving the once thriving local venue for video production and community programming. 

“I am really thrilled to have the calibre of people we have on the board of directors,” said Ryan.  “Ed Hudgins, the president of our board, has been involved in the local music and arts scene for a long time and has so many great ideas.  Lindsey Quinnes is our secretary.  She also works for a local community arts publication and manages its retail store, called Volume One.  It's our local free arts magazine.  Scott Morfitt formerly managed Converge Radio and brings a wealth of experience.  Karen Verlander is a media specialist with the Blue Ox Music Festival.  Jerrika Mighelle is a local musician.  Adam Accola, our vice-president, is also our ‘resident genius’ and brings a lot of creativity and organizational ability to the mix.  Brad Murphy is in charge of the technical aspects of running a radio station. Chris Schlicher, a longtime volunteer with Valley Media Works, understands the history of community television in Eau Claire.  Ron Viste was the last manager of Valley Media Works and brings his experience from that world to our board.  The newest member is AJ Moen, who works at the Pablo Center at the Confluence where the radio station has its studio.”

Today, Converge Media offers a mix of music, comedy, and government meetings including live coverage of Eau Claire School Board meetings, Eau Claire City Council, and the Eau Claire County Board.  Ryan says a lot of decisions still need to be made about the cable television side of the collaboration.  Right now, the cable channels carry coverage of government meetings and schedule information and people can view meetings on-demand through the Valley Media Works website. 

Finding more funding for Converge Media is at the top of the list.  “We want to be accessible to the public,” said Ryan.  “And we need more funding to re-energize the video services Valley Media Works once offered.”  The Converge Media Board hopes that the Pablo Center at the Confluence, a major downtown arts and entertainment center that is already providing space to the radio station, may also support the video aspect of its mission.  “The Pablo Center is a wonderful arts facility and is central to the arts scene,” said Ryan.  “Having its support for our full mission would be such a win for the whole community.”

While the Converge Media Board of Directors may not know yet what the future holds for this non-profit local television and radio collaboration, every one of them is determined to deliver to Eau Claire, and the whole region, the kind of media coverage that reflects the creativity, talent and dynamism of its residents.

The City of Columbus fills the void in local coverage using a wide variety of tools in the media toolbox

“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.