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On Thursday, July 24 at 3:45 p.m., Asbury Park’s Cable Television Advisory Committee [APTV] broadcast to home television sets for the first time in the station’s history.

The local station has been uploading recorded City Council meetings and other content to the internet since January of 2014, and now Asbury Park area residents can view the content on Verizon FiOS channels 28 and 30, and Cablevision/Optinum channels 77 and 116, said APTV board chair John Kaplow [pictured above in the APTV studio in City Hall].

Currently, two four-hour blocks are scheduled to air content, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Kaplow said. Programming includes Asbury Park City Council meeting and previously recorded events. Programs that come from outside of Asbury Park, but which may be of interest to people in the area created by Monmouth University, Brookdale University and the New Jersey Education Association will also air, he said.

Static messages that run in between programs will ask members of the community to submit their ideas for on-air content, and Kaplow and his crew of volunteers — and a newly acquired intern — will begin to tape Asbury Park Board of Education meetings in the fall, he said. Volunteers are always welcome at the station and can use the content they produce  for demo reels.

Kaplow expects to eventually form a programming committee who will make executive decisions on content, he said.

Current APTV committee members include Kaplow, Douglass Ferrari, Ed Salvas, Ginny Otley,  Lydalle Akins, John Fredricksen, Mike Sodano and Councilwoman Amy Quinn.

“We’re using the next six weeks of summer as a soft launch,” Kaplow told the Sun late last week. “A marketing committee is completing logos and putting together press releases, and more of a formal marketing campaign will roll out in the fall,” he said.

In addition, APTV added a bulletin board to their internet site where various community groups can submit meeting information, Kaplow said.

A City Council candidates’ forum held last year not only helped the community ascertain who they wanted to vote for, but also served to put APTV on the radar.

“We had just gotten the OK from City Council to operate and we set the time right by doing this [the candidates’ forum] the first year,” he said.  Kaplow expects to host two more forums this year, prior to the City Council elections and Asbury Park Board of Education elections, he said.

The station’s operating budget is $25,000.

[Image at top provided courtesy of John Kaplow.]

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