The city of Bainbridge Island should listen to the experts.
Just not the ones they paid.
City hall recently tapped CBG Communications, Inc. to advise the city on what it would take to relaunch a local public access television station.
A report from CBG Communications that was presented to the council this week estimated the costs of the city getting back into the TV business, and the total price tag was as shocking as the season finale to “The Sopranos.”
The cost: $929,600 for equipment alone, which includes robotic high-definition cameras, a mobile TV van and revamping a room next to council chambers into a TV studio.
Nearly a million dollars. And that doesn’t include the salaries of the people operating the equipment.
Unlike HBO’s hit television show about the mob, however, Bainbridge’s new notion for putting city hall back in the TV business won’t cut to black at the end.
Instead, it looks like it will stay in the red: Revenues from existing Comcast subscribers that the city currently collects as part of its franchise agreement will come nowhere close to covering the costs of the ambitious venture.
At this week’s council meeting, Barry Peters, a former councilman during the time of the city’s previous foray with BITV, advised the council that the recommendations from CBG Communications were just too much.
He also recalled how the high cost of labor helped scuttle BITV in the end, when the city had to revamp its budget during the recession.
Others with experience in the broadcast world also reminded the council of the changing nature of the medium.
Simply put, the audience for television continues to splinter, and people have found other things to occupy their eyeballs. The Internet and Facebook, for example.
A city television station, as informative and as entertaining as it may be, is not an essential government service, and we can think of many things more deserving of a million dollars on Bainbridge.
And if some residents still pine to see their elected officials in high-definition, there’s always the old-fashioned way. It’s called attending a council meeting.
