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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

1990'S: CABLEVISON CAME, LOCAL PROGRAMMING WENT!

I remember it well. Ronnie Stewart was play by play for ALL local high school sports and Tom Glover was fulfilling the local cable promise of local access programming. Both programs were very well received. Then, along came Ms. Amy Goldberg, then Program Director at Cablevision who invited me to lunch and at that lunch telling me that they really liked the local access programs which TKR was providing and that Cablevision would be carrying on the tradition. That was a luncheon that I recall vividly. Then, out of the blue, Cablevision took over with their "TV That's Close to Home," and we get to watch an interview with the Mayor of Wall Township, the councilman from Matawan, a visit to an Ocean County High School, and other "TV That's Close to Cablevision's Home." programs. Going from small to large in cable providers resulted corporate bureaucrats who wanted less expensive logistics than traveling all the way from Wall Township in Monmouth County to Hamilton, New Jersey for truly local programming. Instead of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade which the old TKR covered, let's slip in the St. Patrick's Day Parade from Belmar; much cheaper to drive 10 miles then all the way to Hamilton.

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