Home-Grown Television : Channel 8 Turns Cameras on Sunland-Tujunga for Community News, Public-Access Programs

At a minute past 6:30 Thursday night, the scheduled live broadcast of the Foothill News was “dead.”

Instead of the local happenings around the community, black-and-white static was televised all over Sunland-Tujunga on Channel 8. Technical difficulties at the main broadcast station delayed the start of the news, and the production crew rushed around in a quiet but anxious frenzy as they waited for the problem to clear.

Less than two minutes later, the static vanished, the crew returned to their posts, the camera lights grew bright and news anchor Anne Armstrong welcomed viewers with a smile.

But even as the program progressed, Monte M. Hart, the general manager of Channel 8, still grimaced about the technical glitch. “In live television, it’s things like that that just infuriate you,” he said.

Living with the perils of holding a television station together has turned the 57-year-old Hart into somewhat of a local hero. Hart, a communications teacher at Verdugo Hills High School, has helped create what area cable observers say is one of the most popular channels, cable or otherwise, in the Sunland-Tujunga area.

Verdugo Hills Television, more commonly known as VHTV, broadcasts about 26 hours a week of home-grown live and taped color programming over the King Videocable Co. system, the area’s cable franchise operator. VHTV is the only channel in the city of Los Angeles to have regular blocks of programming created by and catering to community residents, officials of the company maintain.

Shares Space With Video Store

It is almost certainly the only television studio which shares a storefront with a video store. Hart is the proprietor of the store, which helps pay the overhead for the studio. He often rents out tapes in the store while the news is being broadcast live in the studio, but he still manages to watch the program on one of the store’s several monitors.

Almost all of the staff is volunteer, and the operating budget is roughly $57,000 a year. Because of its nonprofit status, the station receives grants from the City of Los Angeles and also relies on viewer donations.

The program menu is grass-roots eclectic, featuring everything from tapes of high school football games to Chamber of Commerce installation luncheons. There is the Verdugo News, produced by high school students, an MTV-style music video show and a public access show in which local residents can showcase their talents, unusual or otherwise.

Monthly Arts Event

The station also sponsors a performing arts event each month in the community, such as a jazz or vaudeville show, and tapes it for broadcast.

The half-hour Foothill News, which runs Monday through Thursday in direct competition with more established Los Angeles news programs, is the newest addition to the schedule and is part of Hart’s effort to reach adult viewers. The program has a format like its competitors, and most of the personalities exhibit on-camera poise and professionalism.

But only one of the anchors has any journalism background, and the program turns out to be more of a tightly structured community calendar than a hard-news broadcast. Armstrong, 28, the head anchor, appraises residences during the day and sometimes writes her copy on letter stationery.

On one show last week, business reporter Harry Hughes, 60, showed footage he had taken of an accident involving an overturned semi-truck on Foothill Boulevard, but he neglected to provide details on how the accident happened or whether or not anyone was injured. After several seconds of the footage, Armstrong joked about how fascinated Hughes seemed to be in filming the truck’s wheels.

Hart even made an impromptu appearance to show a meritorious service certificate he had received from the office of Rep. Bobbi Fielder (R-Northridge).

“What I want to do is hold a mirror up to the community, but a mirror that shows the glass as half full rather than half empty,” said Hart, who lives in Reseda but has worked in the area for 22 years. “I want to give the community a sense of purpose and pride.”

Hart appears to be succeeding in his mission. Based on surveys by King Videocable, he estimated that about 30% of viewers watching television in the area during evening hours are watching Channel 8.

One study conducted last year by independent consultant Sharon M. Browning for King Videocable stated that “Channel 8 is loved and respected by the residents of Sunland-Tujunga. Viewership in other communities is limited. However, there is great interest in what the channel is doing and some envy that each community doesn’t have local programming. Widespread support exists for improving the quality and amount of programming offered on Channel 8.”

Hart said another reason for the popularity of the station was the feeling of isolation by most of the residents of the rural community; that people in the rest of the city do not understand or appreciate them.

Although Hart wants to provide as much access as possible to residents, he said, he does not want the programming to regularly degenerate into “showboating,” as it does on other public access channels around the city. “This is not just an open door for kooks to display their ignorance,” he said. “We do hope that the programming serves some sort of public purpose.”

In addition to the satellite studio where the news show is filmed, Channel 8 also has a studio on the campus of Verdugo Hills High School, where much of the programming is taped.

There is room for improvement, Hart acknowledges. The news show is filmed behind a worn coffee table that is elevated by two unpainted wooden boxes. Lattice framework is positioned behind the anchors. Hart said he and some of the students are planning to build a new set Thanksgiving weekend.