Neepawa TV still going strong

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This article was published 01/12/2016 (3254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Neepawa’s TV station — a relic from the golden age of community-owned television in Canada — will remain on the air.

There was speculation the channel would fade to black after longtime volunteer Ivan Traill decided, at 84 years old, it was time to leave, but last month, his fears were wiped when the publishing team behind Neepawa’s newspapers was announced as the station’s new management group.

The change at the top marks a significant adjustment for Traill, the driving force behind the station for nearly 40 years.

After decades of often putting in 50-60 hours a week, always without a paycheque, the president and CEO retired on Nov. 9.

He wishes his successors nothing but the best, a sentiment some are surprised by, Traill finds.

“People are looking at me and saying, ‘Well, I bet you hope that it doesn’t do as good,’ but that’s not true. I hope they do it 10 times as good as I did, I really wish them all the best,” he said.

The possible closure of Neepawa Community Access TV (NACTV) raised the alarm of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS), who warned, in a media release sent nationally, one of the remaining community-owned TV stations in the country was at risk.

CACTUS said Neepawa has one of only eight non-profit community stations remaining. Traill said there used to be more than 100.

Traill’s own concerns about the station’s fate subsided when three parties, alerted of Traill’s retirement, presented to the channel’s board expressing their interest in running the channel.

The newspaper group, headed by Ken and Christine Waddell, was selected as the new managers at the station’s annual general meeting last month. NACTV will remain a non-profit organization and the management agreement with the Neepawa Banner centres on day-to-day operations.

The channel was framed in Traill’s vision, he’ll gladly admit, but now it will have someone else’s imprint.

“They’re going to build on what we’ve done in the past and move to the next generation.”

NACTV is filmed using cameras and tapes, but the Banner is hoping to modernize operations with a computerized system.

“When you’re 84 years old you don’t start doing that kind of stuff, you stick to the old ways that worked,” he said. “These people can see the future a lot better than I can.”

The station currently airs approximately 20 hours of original content per week, on Westman and MTS cable systems and nationally on Bell ExpressVu.

NACTV broadcasts church services, town council meetings, Ukrainian music and bingo games. Sports, including the Neepawa Natives of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League games, are commonly on the schedule.

Traill said he’ll help out the station when needed, like in fixing various glitches in the days after his retirement, but his days of zipping to the studio every day are over.

Instead, Traill and his wife Pat, a loyal NACTV volunteer herself, have a lot of vacations to make up for.

“We’re not going very far, just far enough,” he joked of one trip.

Ensuring the viability of Neepawa’s on-air voice is important, explained Ken Waddell, who owns the Neepawa Banner, Neepawa Press and Rivers Banner newspapers and companion website myWestman.ca.

“Small towns lose stuff, right?” Waddell said. “For the good of the community, we wanted to keep it together; there’s a lot of history there.”

The Banner will be paid $500 per month and keep 20 per cent of any profits, as part of their contract with NACTV.

The station lost $12,000 last fiscal year, said Traill, who explained they were close to breaking even a few weeks after the year’s fiscal calendar closed.

Four Banner staff members with multi-media talents will help run the station, along with new and existing volunteers.

In an age of downsizing media companies, Waddell has bucked the trend by slowly adding staff, he said.

It is their commitment to local that remains key, a pledge he is affirming by believing in community television.

“We just thought it was a good thing to do.”

» ifroese@brandonsun.com

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