PCTV is Turning 40
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield Community Television is turning 40 this week, and it's celebrating with its viewers and listeners.
This Friday, Sept. 18, PCTV will celebrate at the Berkshire Hills Country Club. Ryan Peterson, WTEN News10 ABC anchor and Pittsfield High School graduate, will give the keynote address.
Executive Director Shawn Serre, who has been with the station for over 32 years, said it's their chance to celebrate all they have been able to bring to the community.
"It's a chance to reflect on everything that the organization has done over those years, all the people that have been involved. From board members to volunteers to producers to crew people to staff members, and all the different programs that we've produced," he said. "Everything from public programming to education, sports, graduations, parades, government meetings and forums, and election night coverage, and all kinds of other things that just year upon year of history that we've been able to create and document here for the Pittsfield community over those years."
Serre took over as executive director about nine years ago. Originally a volunteer fresh out of college.
The original board included former mayor Edward Reilly, Dan Dillon, Diane Morgenstern, Bernard Avalle, and John Fukes of the Berkshire Athenaeum. The operation was all-volunteer until PCTV hired the first executive director in January 1989.
PCTV has operated out of its station on Federico Drive since 1999. But originally they worked out of a basement.
"The first location that we ever had, we had all of our equipment stored in cardboard boxes in the basement of the Berkshire Athenaeum, because the Berkshire Athenaeum at the time was very gracious and allowed us to have some space while we sort of got our feet on the ground and sort of got things organized," he said. "But we had no location. We had no studio. We just had this equipment that was ordered with the money that we had from the original cable franchise grant."
"So that lasted a couple of years, and then we signed and got a lease over in our first studio location, which was over on Fourth Street in Pittsfield," Serre continued. "That was around the time that I first got involved, just before we moved to Fourth Street. So I was there in the basement of the library, opening those boxes up and seeing what we had for equipment. So we stayed there at Fourth Street for about 10 years, and then this building that we're currently in now, over on Federico Drive, was constructed in 1998. It was built kind of custom-made for the cable company and for us and for one other company."
Serre said one of their proudest moments was saving the radio station WTBR-FM back in 2018. PCTV made space for them so they could continue operation.
"We carved out some space here in our facility for that, and we've been operating that radio station ever since. So those are some of the big milestones of growth of the organization over the years, and the things that we've done," he said.
They have also invested in advanced technology to keep their programming accessible to all.
"Technologically, there's another whole series of things that we've gone through," he said. "We've started out with a single cable TV channel. We grew to three cable TV channels. We started out as standard definition on videotape, and we grew to digital, and then to high definition, and then everything went to the internet. So we're able to offer video on demand and live streams and video on social media. And then with the radio station, we also have a live stream there and podcasting. So we've seen a lot of technological change and tried to roll with that over the years."
Serre said that PCTV strives to keep people informed while also allowing space for people to create their own media.
"The whole idea behind PEG [Public Education and Government Access]...the whole idea behind that back in the 70s and 80s was that people could be left behind with the technology that's available to the big corporations," he said. "So, if you had a cable system at the time, ordinary people maybe they had camcorders at home, but they didn't have access to a TV studio; they didn't have access to the kind of technology that we had to allow them to create programs and share it with the community. So we filled that gap, and that was one of the main things that we did. And then also to be able to create programming for viewers and for the city, so that the municipal meetings can be shown, and so school committee meetings can be shown, and it really brings people in and involved."
PCTV airs many programs including sports, parades, elections, city meetings, and more. One of their longest-running programs is from the Elder Services.
"The longest-running program we've had comes from Elder Services of Berkshire County that do Berkshire Senior TV," he said. "I think they started that program, believe it or not, in 1989, and some different administrations of the organization there have carried that program through every month here at PCTV, and they're still producing it to this day."
Serre also said they have had long-running members who have helped them through the decades, and they have hundreds of others that keep the shows going daily.
"We have somewhere around 275 members. All of those people are involved with one thing or another," he said. "It might be one specific program or organization...and that they come and produce something, either monthly or every couple of weeks, or maybe sometimes it's just once a year. They might come and take out a camera and shoot something in the community and bring it back, and we play it on the air."
He proudly said they have also helped start many careers of interns who realized they loved doing this type of work.
"We've launched careers of people who got involved with community television and then realized that it might be something that they want to pursue as a future career," he said. "So we've had people move on and work in news and work in technology and work in production and places like that. We've had interns over the years that have spent time with us and then gone on and started their careers."
Now that they have hit 40 years, PCTV will show some of their past broadcasts, and recognize the many people who have helped them along the way.
Serre said they hope to continue along the same path for another 40 years.
"We're always looking to make sure that we can stay relevant, and also to survive the various different tides of the way that people consume their media these days. So there's a big shift from cable TV to streaming, and everybody knows that. So we're looking for funding models that we can survive on, because if cable ever completely goes away, it would be difficult to continue the way that we have in the past. So we're always looking to make sure that we have a stable financial footing that we can stand on, and that we can continue to do the work that we do for the community," he said.
Tickets for Friday's full event end today. People who want to watch the band, Joe Adee and the Lugnuts, can pay $10 at the door at 9 p.m.
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