MidValley Television Fact Sheet

MVTV Channel 21

• Philosophy: It is the philosophy of MidValley Television to celebrate the uniqueness of life. Through the limitless communication qualities of television, we desire to examine ourselves as a community – our joys, our fears, our needs, our conflicts, our successes, our failures, our history, our expectations and our hopes for the future.

It is our desire that members of the community use public access as a means to become more involved in the family. Anyone may use this "People’s Channel" to express their opinions, voice their dissent, disagree with the status quo, rave about their accomplishments and praise the good works of neighbors. Through lively communication among the people, the community as a whole will benefit and each member will become a more active part of the whole.

• MVTV’s function is based on a simple premise…that of a community’s ability to utilize television as a logical and necessary extension of it's members right to freedom of expression guaranteed by the 1^st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

• MVTV’s Station Goal: by using this communication tool, from either side, people will become more actively involved in the community and subsequently help determine our community’s future.

• Funding: MVTV is owned and operated by the Cities of Toppenish, Wapato, Zillah and Granger as a public cable access facility. It is administered by the Cable TV Division of the City of Toppenish.

Funding for the facility, equipment and staff comes from a franchise fee the cable company (Charter) pays to the four Cities for using public rights-of-way to string its lines. The revenues are in a fund separate from the City’s general fund. The budget for the operation of the facility is approved by the four City Councils on an annual basis.

• The Cable Advisory Committee (CAC) helps protect users of MVTV from censorship by any political, governmental, social group or individual. The CAC welcomes input from citizens and producers regarding the operation of MVTV.

• Local Community Programming: In the year 2001, 35 community members were certified as MVTV community producers, bringing the total number of people certified as MVTV community producers to 136.

In 2001, MVTV community producers utilizing MVTV facilities produced 53 programs representing 53 hours of first run-programming.

• Public Affairs Programming: In 2001, ninety-seven programs providing over 107 hours of first-run programming were produced at MVTV.

• Imported Programming: Another critically important aspect of MVTV programming is imported programs – programs not produced using MVTV facilities, but requested by community members to be aired on channel 9. Any citizen may request that a non-commercial program be aired on MVTV. The airing of sixty-nine imported programs was requested in 2001, totaling 53 hours of programming.