10/30/22 UPDATE: Charter resolves Watertown TV audio problem after more than 4 months

OCTOBER 30 UPDATE: Audio problem resolved.

After more than four months and a report to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP), Charter Spectrum finally identified the problem with Watertown TV's signal as an encoder problem on their end and installed a new one on September 29. Lisa Famularo, manager of the channel, reports that the audio is now better than ever.

Starting in late May, Watertown TV began receiving calls from residents about bad audio on the channel.   “I started getting two or three complaints every day about the audio cutting out,” said Lisa Famularo, Media and Communications Director for the City of Watertown. “When the audio goes out every three to five seconds, it’s impossible to watch our channel’s programming.  This will go on for maybe a week and then clear up.  But then it happens again.” 

After checking to be sure that the city was sending a clean signal to Charter, she emailed Charter on May 25.  Mike Hill, Director of Government Affairs for Charter, responded two days later, explaining “we have some equipment issues on our end that will need to be replaced.”  But despite follow up calls and emails, Watertown TV’s channel is still having problems and so is the City of Jefferson’s JPEG channel. 

Famularo has been tracking complaints and now has a pretty long list of names.  “Most of the callers are watching church services on Watertown TV and most of them don’t have the Internet,” said Famularo. 

Frustrated by Charter’s inaction, a local church finally filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) on behalf of its congregants on August 29.  Two days later the state agency called the church back and shortly after that, the church received a call from Charter, asking who specifically had been complaining.  Not comfortable supplying the names of members of its congregation without permission, the church decided to say it was the City of Watertown.

Today, [September 6, 2022] Charter technicians are being dispatched to check the lines between the City of Watertown origination point and the company’s headend – where the signal connects to Charter’s system.  “I’m crossing my fingers that the technicians figure it out,” said Famularo.  “Having recurring reception problems for three months is far too long.  The people I’ve been hearing from – some of them are just livid at this point.”

New Video Series Aims to Help Novice Hunters and Anglers

WCM member Dan Small has released four new videos and made them available for WCM member stations to download and air. The target audience for these videos is adults who want to get started in hunting or fishing. The topics covered are hunting wild turkeys, upland birds, and small game, and stream fishing for trout.

Suzy Limberg, narrator of the turkey video, with a wild turkey bagged on a spring hunt. Photo by John Motoviloff

Small teamed with Paul Zwicker, of OCA Media, Oregon’s PEG access media center, to produce these videos for the National Wild Turkey Federation (www.nwtf.org), a non-profit conservation organization dedicating to maintaining healthy habitat for wildlife and preserving the hunting heritage. John Motoviloff, former recruitment, retention and reactivation coordinator for NWTF, served as executive producer for the series.

The videos follow a similar format, using narrators who, in three cases, came to their respective sport as adults. Each video depicts adult newcomers learning the basics in actual hunting or fishing situations under the guidance of seasoned mentors.

“We wanted to offer novice hunters and anglers a usable reference that covers the basics without diving in too deeply,” Small said. “We designed these videos for adults who want to try out these sports or who want to see what it might be like to hunt grouse, turkeys, or rabbits, or catch trout in a stream.”

Numerous studies have shown that adults of all ethnic backgrounds are interested in finding local sources of nutritional, organic food, including wild game and fish. Accordingly, each video contains a section on preparing the harvest for the table.

The videos were all shot in Wisconsin but depict typical scenes and habitat throughout much of North America. The trout video was shot in the Driftless Region of Vernon County on tributaries of the Kickapoo River. The grouse/woodcock video was shot on county forest land in Florence County. The turkey video was shot in Dane County. The rabbit/squirrel video was shot in Dodge County.

Two anglers fly fish for trout in the trout fishing video. Photo by John Motoviloff

WisconsinEye joins WCM to expand viewership

WisconsinEye has joined WCM as an Independent Producer member to expand its reach through WCM's 53 member media centers. 

"Collaborating with WCM members is an important and exciting step in advancing our common goal of educating and engaging Wisconsinites to participate in their democracy," said Rachel Sanders, WisconsinEye Director of Communications. "WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network is committed to providing citizens with unfettered access to the actions of our state government and to a range of civic and policy forums and events from across Wisconsin."  

WisconsinEye's Rewind: Your Week in Review provides a well-balanced weekly breakdown of the latest news in Wisconsin state politics every Friday featuring WisconsinEye Host and CBS 58 Capitol Reporter Emilee Fannon and WisPolitics.com Editor JR Ross. Look for one of your local PEG access channels to carry the program. See our list of members here.