WTCI plans to launch a new multicast channel of local programming with seed funding from the city of Chattanooga.
The Voyager channel will carry live coverage of civic events, such as city-council meetings throughout the region and issue-focused town hall events. It will also feature a new weekly series on arts and culture. Local documentaries and WTCI’s own five weekly series would also get additional plays on the channel. Content will be accessible across multiple platforms and promoted via social media.
The station requested $250,000 from the Chattanooga City Council to develop the channel and solicit support from foundations and corporate sponsors, according to Paul Grove, WTCI president. The council will vote on the funding request later this summer.
Grove sees the channel as an important community-engagement service as policymakers begin developing the region’s first-ever 40-year growth plan. “That’s a big thing for this community and this region,” Grove said, “and we think we can play a vital role in that.”
WTCI will retain editorial control of Voyager.
Voyager would replace the current lineup on WTCI’s multicast 45.2, which combines programming from Create, the lifestyle channel distributed by American Public Television, with state-legislature coverage and regional high-school and college sports. — Dru Sefton
KBTC-TV in Tacoma, Wash., and the state’s public-affairs cable channel, TVW, have paired up to produce a weekly book discussion and author interview show, Well Read.
For each 30-minute episode, host Terry Tazioli, a former Seattle Times editor, interviews regional writers. He also talks with Mary Ann Gwinn, book editor at the Times, about other books and authors related to the show topic.
The guest author for last week’s premiere episode was Kent Hartman of Portland, Ore., author of The Wrecking Crew, a nonfiction book about a group of Los Angeles musicians who weren’t credited for performances on hundreds of Top 40 hits in the 1960s and early ’70s.
The show airs Tuesday evenings on both stations and streams live on their websites. — D.S.
In The Life, pubTV’s newsmagazine about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, debuts a special episode about transgender and gender-nonconforming children and their families this month.
“Becoming Me” features eight families with children ages 5 to 25 and explores how “gender identity unfolds throughout childhood, adolescence and into early adulthood,” according to a news release. The 30-minute program offers “a sensitive look into the real-life experience of families whose children fall across the gender spectrum.”
In the Life is distributed for pubTV broadcasts by American Public Media, and offered as a video stream at ITLMedia.org. — D.S.