LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida — A panel of top small cable company executives said that while improving the overall customer experience is a primary goal for operators — especially as broadband competition heats up — maintaining a strong line of communication with customers is essential.

“I think A-plus-B equals customer experience,” said Buckeye Broadband president Geoff Shook at The Independent Show panel session titled “The Impact of Industry Evolution” and moderated by NCTC president and CEO Lou Borrelli. “I think the A would be customer service, but the B part that we have to zero in on is customer care. We have the opportunity as the more personalized provider to accelerate to accentuate the customer care, the fact that the service doesn't stop at the side of the house.” 

Schurz Communications chief technology officer Tom Williams added that it is essential that operators not only keep the lines of communication open with customers, but that they communicate in the way they want to. 

Also from The Independent Show: Borrelli Says New Name Emphasizes NCTC Strength

“Maybe they don’t want to make a phone call,” Williams said. “Maybe they want to do a text chat over their phone. They want to get the information and talk to us the way that they want to talk to us, not in the way that we want them to talk to us.”

Shook added that while communication is essential, techs and other cable employees should keep the message simple, direct and with as little jargon as possible. Sometimes, he said, too much information can “torpedo” the customer experience. 

“There’s a razor’s edge between too much communication and not enough,” Shook said. “We tend to not saturate but thoroughly communicate.”

Communication also means letting customers know in advance when there is going to be a service disruption due to planned maintenance or other factors, he added.  

“Bad news does not get better with time,” Shook said. “If we know that there is something intrusive getting ready to happen, in the field we like to make absolutely sure that we’ve communicated it thoroughly so it is not a surprise.”

Williams added that operators have to consider what messaging they are sending out to customers and be careful not to flood them with marketing messages that force them to overlook important service information.

“You can throw so many marketing messages out that they're not going to listen to the technology message of an outage,” Williams said. “There's a real balance you have to play there, or else their not going to listen to ‘There’s going to be a 5 minute outage on Tuesday night at 12:30 a.m.,’ and then they're online and it drops anyway, because you’ve sent so many marketing messages that they just delete all the messages coming from us.”

Conway Corp. chief marketing officer Crystal Kemp said it is important for operators to stress that customer experience isn’t just a priority, it is one of their core values.

“Because our priorities can change, our values usually don't,” Kemp said. “We are constantly putting that in front of people, in front of our employees, in front of our customers, to say along with reliability, along with innovation, along with all of those things, customer experience is a core value.”  

Operators also stressed the importance of their local presence, which gives companies a regular opportunity to reinforce their brand. 

“I’ve been to more franchise meetings than I care to talk about, but every single one of them they are appreciative of how local we are,” Williams said. “It is their residents that are answering the phones every day, or responding to a message or coming to their homes.” 

He added that it makes a big difference, especially when small operators are competing against larger operators that have huge bureaucracies and make it difficult for customers to access care reps. 

“It’s not hard,” Williams said. “You have to make it easy to work with. You want to delight your customer.” ￭

The Law&Crime channel has reached a carriage deal with Blue Ridge Communications, the network said Wednesday.

The Dan Abrams-founded network, which offers live court trial coverage as well as true crime shows and documentaries, adds Blue Ridge to the list of recent carriage deals with Verizon FiOS, Cincinnati Bell, Hawaiian Telcom and Buckeye Broadband to make the network available to more than 23 million customers, according to network officials. 

“Law&Crime continues to diversify channel lineups in a legal and true crime programming genre that remains highly sought-after” said Alex Kopacz, Head of Content Distribution & Licensing at Law&Crime in a statement.. “Our unique content has helped the network stand out and we’re thrilled that Blue Ridge sees this value for their channel packages and subscribers.” 

One America News Network (OAN) and lifestyle channel A Wealth of Entertainment (AWE) have signed long-term carriage agreements with Buckeye Broadband and MaxxSouth Broadband.

“We appreciate our partnership with Buckeye and MaxxSouth and are thrilled that Buckeye and MaxxSouth Broadband customers will have continued access to OAN and AWE," said Ann Schick, executive VP for content distribution at parent company, Herring Networks.  

Herring Networks said that for the week of Aug. 24, OAN was the fourth-ranked news network. It has gotten a boost from President Donald Trump, who has tweeted that it could be his new favorite network. He also routinely calls on OAN during press conferences.

OAN launched July 4, 2013. AWE was formerly WealthTV.

CHICAGO — Bridging the digital divide in small rural communities is still a top priority and one that can help operators drive sales growth even as video customers dwindle, a panel of top small cable CEOs said at The Independent Show’s Opening General Session.

“Providing that local connection, and not just driving the content of those customers, [is critical],” said Buckeye Broadband president and general manager Geoff Shook at the session titled Hot Topics, Cool Leaders. “Owning that relationship from the edge of the end user’s device all the way through the businesses.”

MCTV president Katherine Gessner added that just providing the service isn’t enough for success. Education is a key part of the puzzle.

Gessner told the audience that in MCTV’s initial moves to convert some newly acquired customers from fairly antiquated systems to fiber-to-the home, they were reluctant to switch, even though converting meant they would get data speeds four times faster than their old DSL service.

“They didn’t understand what you could do with it [higher speeds],” Gessner said. “We found out there was a waiting list for DSL. They didn’t want to switch because they were scared that if our service didn’t work they couldn’t go back.”

For Schurz Communications, president and CEO Todd Schurz said one solution has been to partner with other providers in building out broadband networks. Schurz is currently working with local governments, using some state grants in Vermont and Minnesota, working with telephone co-ops in Iowa, electric co-ops in Minnesota, and Native American nations in Minnesota and Arizona.

“What we have found, all of these are structured differently, there’s no one model that fits everything,” Schurz said. “But it’s something that everybody realizes they need to do.”

“If you can go to some of these local entities and say, ‘You don’t have to build a digital headend, you don’t have to worry about all of that infrastructure, and you can put your resources into upgrading the local network, and we will then take the handoff,’ that seems to work pretty well,” he said.

As the industry moves closer toward 5G wireless services, smaller operators are helping to lead the way. At Shentel, executive VP and chief operating officer David Heimbach said that while his company is moving forward on wireline initiatives like DOCSIS
3.1 — which should be completed by the end of the year — they are also making inroads with 5G.

Heimbach said Shentel is currently trialing a 5G service, but there is still plenty of time before that service becomes essential. Of the 5 billion discrete wireless customers worldwide, he said, only one-third are on a 4G network and only 15% of mobile customers are expected to have 5G by 2025.

“This has a long tail on it,” Heimbach said.

But small operators are forging ahead, building out their networks and providing state-of-the-art service to customers, largely funded by their own coffers.

Gessner said that although MCTV did look into obtaining federal grants to build its fiber network, it didn’t make sense in the long run. MCTV began overbuilding its network with fiber to the home in 2014 or 2015 and last year began acquiring a few small properties near its traditional territory. The upgrades have resulted in strong broadband growth, she said.

“We shut off the analog plant in the first system in November and went from 0% internet penetration to about 20% in about seven months,” Gessner said. “It really opened our eyes to the need for rural broadband.” 

Buckeye Broadband and MaxxSouth, two cable operators owned by Toledo, Ohio-based Block Communications, have deployed app-based video services powered by Evolution Digital’s full IP-based platform.

Centennial, Colo.-based Evolution Digital, which announced deployment of its IP video solution with Missouri’s Vast Broadband last month, would not confirm the client deployments. 

But an individual with knowledge of MaxxSouth TV and Buckeye’s StreamTV said the services—which deliver IP content to popular mobile and OTT and mobile devices, sans proprietary set-top—are based on the Evolution Digital technology.

Related: Evolution Digital to Deploy Full IP Video Platform with Vast Broadband

Evolution Digital’s eVue-TV content delivery system provides residential and business customers with app-based access to hundreds of linear channels, video on demand, network DVR and pay-per-view programming through platforms including Apple TV, iOS and Android Mobile. Apps associated with the platform are playable on Evolution Digital’s proprietary Android TV powered eStream 4K devices.

Buckeye, for example, is advertising a StreamTV bundle that includes the Big Four broadcast networks, along with around 26 basic cable channels. Households can have four streams at once, on a 4K-capable, Android TV-powered eStream set-top branded “Jetstream,” or on an Apple TV device. Viewers can also use iOS and Android-powered mobile devices.

Tier 2 & 3 operators are turning to robust IP-based video platforms offered by vendors including Evolution Digital, TiVo and MobiTV, as new video technologies such as 4K and app-based viewing emerge, but the will to handle major headend and CPE upgrades for video wanes. 

CableLabs has filed suit against Buckeye Broadband in a Colorado federal court, claiming the Ohio cable operator hasn’t paid its dues all year, Cablefax reports.

The journal said Buckeye, which is owned by Block Communications, decided to pull out of the industry consortium at the beginning of 2018, and has not paid its Q1, Q2 and Q3 dues. CableLabs, meanwhile, is reportedly digging in, holding the operator to a three-year-notice requirement that wouldn’t leave it eligible to leave the organization cleanly until Jan. 21, 2021.

CableLabs said it can't comment on pending litigation, while Block Communications commenting. The suit was filed Friday in Colorado District Court.

Buckeye’s decision to leave CableLabs, an organization it joined in 1992, reportedly came after the consortium announced its 2018 dues, which were determined to by 0.05157% of the members revenue from cable services from the previous quarter. 

Buckeye remains listed on CableLabs list of member companies. 

Harmonic announced that Northwest Ohio operator Buckeye Broadband has deployed CableOS, the tech vendor’s virtualized Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP).

Buckeye adds to a list of more than a dozen cable operators around the world that have either deployed CableOS or are in the trials with it.

Read More: CableTec Expo 2018

Virtualized CCAPs like CableOS are gaining traction as MSOs look to become more agile in their service launches, put more capacity into their networks, and reduce the space, cooling and powering requirements that come with traditional, purpose-built CCAP chassis. In the case of CableOS, an important selling point is that it runs on off-the-shelf, Intel-based x86 servers.

Related: Harmonic Expands Deployments, Field Trials of its Virtual CCAP

“As we look to deliver next-generation data, voice and video services to customers, we need a future-proof infrastructure solution,” said R.J. Walker, VP of engineering, operations and IT services at Buckeye Broadband, in a statement. “Harmonic’s CableOS solution provides sustainable capacity growth over the long term and end-to-end support for centralized architectures now, while future-proofing our operations for distributed architectures, enabling us to deliver faster broadband offerings and address critical space, power and cost requirements.”

Added Nimrod Ben-Natan, senior VP and general manager of cable access business for Harmonic: “Software is transforming the future of cable access networks, providing increased scalability, flexibility and cost savings to operators. We’re excited to collaborate with Buckeye Broadband on this world-class broadband access network. With the CableOS solution at the heart of its infrastructure, Buckeye Broadband is ready to achieve unprecedented DOCSIS bandwidth and boost cost efficiencies.”

Espial said Buckeye Broadband, an operator that serves parts of northwest and Ohio and southeast Michigan, has inked a deal to license Espial’s “Elevate” software-as-a service video platform.

The move will enable Buckeye Broadband to provide integrated access to OTT services such as Netflix and YouTube, as well as new voice-based navigation features.

RELATED: Espial Adds Amazon Alexa Voice Support to ‘Elevate’ Platform

The agreement expands on the video relationship between Buckeye Broadband and Espial. Part of that stems from Buckeye’s deployment of a multi-room DVR centered on Arris’s Whole Home Solution offering. Espial acquired Arris's Whole Home Solution business in 2016.

RELATED: Buckeye Bucks Up Multiroom DVR with Arris Gateway Launch

“Elevate enhances the experience of our video customers, while giving us flexibility in how we deliver those experiences in the future,” Jeff Abbas, president and GM of Buckeye Broadband, aid in a statement. “The continuous innovation being driven on Elevate helps us increase customer engagement and satisfaction while mindfully controlling our expenses.”

The agreement was announced amid this week’s NCTC Winter Educational Conference in San Antonio.

Read More: Additional Coverage of the NCTC Winter Educational Conference

Espial struck a similar deal last fall with MCTV for services supporting live TV, whole home DVR and OTT apps.

Buckeye Broadband also markets a TiVo-based offering under the “Express TV” brand.

In a world where consolidation is the norm and independence is increasingly rare and difficult to pull off, Buckeye Broadband is clearly bucking the trend.

After more than five decades as Buckeye CableSystem, the company ditched the “cable” moniker this summer, supplanting it with “broadband” to better reflect the company’s emphasis on high-speed Internet and its expansion of new products and services.

To be sure, Buckeye is still in the cable business. The company offers a robust lineup of local and satellite-delivered video channels at packages that start at less than $30 a month. It also offers phone services to round out the triple play.

But it’s broadband Internet service that executives believe will be Buckeye’s future — one that will make it the competitor to beat and one that will help keep the company remain independent.

“We’re not changing Buckeye, but we have to identify what it actually is now, which is different than what it was in the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, 1990s, and even the last few years,” Allan Block, chairman of Block Communications, said in June when the company’s new name took effect.

FAMILY AFFAIR

Block Communications was founded in 1900 when Paul Block formed an ad rep firm for newspapers. The Block empire grew through the 1910s and ’20s, encompassing several newspapers on the East Coast. The Great Depression resulted in the loss of all but three of those properties: the ad rep firm, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade.

Block moved the company’s headquarters to Toledo in 1927. After Paul Block died in 1941, his sons took over. Allan Block, Paul Block’s grandson, serves as the company’s chairman today.

Eventually, the Blocks added TV stations to the company’s arsenal and, in 1965, they started Buckeye CableSystem. From the beginning, the Block family stuck to its roots, serving residents in Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio. They neither expanded nor considered selling out.

Related:Buckeye's Hyper-Local Sports: A Winning Play

In 2014, Block saw an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Harron Communications was selling its rural network of cable systems in Mississippi, and Block snapped them up. Operationally, the MaxxSouth properties are run separately from Buckeye, but the company adheres to the Block Communications vision and mission of customer first, according to MaxxSouth president and CEO Peter Kahelin.

“We service small, rural communities and we’re a big part of their lives,” Kahelin said. “Harron did a good job of taking 60 communities and connecting them to one network. We saw that as a big boon and took advantage of it when those properties came on the market.

“We’ve seen strong growth since we took over,” he added. “We created new packages. We’ve been going door to door and that has worked exceptionally well in these rural communities. We expect to see growth of between 8.5% and 10% by the end of the year.”

Keith Wilkowski, Buckeye’s vice president of business and legal affairs, spent weeks attending town council meetings in 45 jurisdictions served by MaxxSouth, and said he found the reception to be warm and welcoming. The residents were excited about receiving new services and the community leaders were pleased to hear about Buckeye’s commitment to the communities it serves, he said.

The Toledo, Sandusky and MaxxSouth systems count a combined 137,000 video customers and 160,300 broadband customers as of March 31. Block has about 800 Buckeye employees and another 2,300 corporate-wide. It has 5,800 miles of coaxial cable and another 3,200 miles of fiber as of Dec. 31, 2015.

To kick off the rebranding, Buckeye began this month increasing its 9 Megabits-per-second high-speed Internet service to 18 Mbps and its 26 Mbps service to 50 Mbps. The move coincides with the rollout of TiVo software and hardware that will enable customers to stream video from services such as Netflix and Hulu.

After nearly 20 years of offering broadband services to its customers, high-speed Internet is now the biggest part of the company’s business, and Block thinks broadband will be the product that keeps Buckeye in the bull’s-eye. It will be what differentiates the company going forward, he said.

Meet MCN's Other 2016 Independent Operator of the Year:WideOpenWest Covers Its Bases

VIDEO STILL MATTERS

Unlike some other operators that are beginning to trim back or eliminate linear offerings, Buckeye continues to add video channels that executives believe will enhance its product lineup without hurting the bottom line. Independent networks given berths on Buckeye in recent months include Poker Central, Pivot, One America News Network, Newsmax TV and MAV TV.

Another addition was Februrary’s multiyear deal with TiVo, which makes the company Buckeye’s primary provider of software, user experience and cloud services across its entire footprint. The deal, which went into effect June 1, includes TiVo DVR set-tops and its Web, mobile and tablet applications.

Buckeye will also use a new TiVo-based non-DVR hybrid set-top that will tie in the operator’s on demand offerings with over-the-top services including Hulu, Netflix and Amazon.

Block once worried that broadband service would become a commodity, but he said he’s no longer concerned about that. That’s because Buckeye has focused on having the most reliable network in its service territory and is offering services that will enable customers to fully enjoy the connection, he said.

And as Internet connections are integrated into household appliances like refrigerators, having a reliable and robust pipe to the house will be crucial for success, according to Block. “The Internet of things will change everything,” he predicted.

Still, Buckeye isn’t relying on new smart appliances to reach its customers and provide broadband service. It has created a pay-as-you-go broadband service called Nimble.

Not everyone can afford or needs the amount of broadband offered in the company’s packages, Block said. Some 10% to 12% of Buckeye’s homes passed are former customers with bad credit and who couldn’t pay their bills at some point.

Buckeye’s executive team didn’t want to totally prevent such consumers from accessing the Internet. The Nimble product gives folks the ability to connect with the outside world without it costing an arm and a leg. “Pay as you go with broadband gives people dignity and the ability to access the net when they want to or need to,” Block said.

In addition, Buckeye is committed to making sure every resident in its service territory has access to the Web via broadband. To that end, the company years ago wired up every school in its service territory, public and private.

Buckeye is also currently working with public housing authorities in its territories to provide free universal broadband access to qualifying low-income residents. It’s a limited service but allows folks to use email or surf the Web, president and GM Jeff Abbas said.

Low-income residents who don’t qualify can still buy a lifeline broadband service for as little as $5 a month. “This enables people to get on the grid,” Abbas said.

About 150 people have signed up for the free broadband access to date, Abbas said. Some customers who signed up for the free service has since upgraded to a pay package or the Nimble service because they realize they want more access.

“We need to hear what our customers are telling us,” Geoff Shook, executive vice president of customer experience, said. “We hear what they want and then we figure out how to fulfill those needs. We heard they wanted a lifeline service and a pre-pay service so we created them.”

Customer experience is everything at Buckeye. When a customer calls, they are immediately connected to a real person. New software allows the agent to greet the customer by name and on-screeen information gives the agent the customer’s history and service levels.

That’s not unusual. But what really differentiates Buckeye from its competition is the fact that all agents are local, Shook said. If a customer calls Buckeye, chances are they might know the person on the other side. Being local allows agents to better understand and discern the situations, locations and issues that affect that customer, he said.

When the cable industry developed uniform customer-service benchmarks in the 1980s — after being vilified for bad customer service — longtime Buckeye employees recall laughing at the notion. That’s because Buckeye was already surpassing those standards by leaps and bounds, said MSO veteran Bonnie Ash, who had served as vice president of business operations before retiring a few years ago. Ash eventually returned to Buckeye as director of community affairs, working closely with Wilkowski.

TECH SUPPORT ‘BRANIACS’

“Our goal at Buckeye is to touch everyone in the community in some way or another,” she said. Ash and and another staffer plan and execute hundreds of community events every year, often handling multiple events in one day.

Ash counts on company employees to pitch in and help and most are happy to do so. Buckeye has a charitable program that gives ever employee $100 they can use to donate to any charity of their choice. They just have to donate two hours of their own time to be eligible. Buckeye also launched its own version of Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” tech support service, called “Braniacs.” The tech team is available to all help all customers to connect their various devices and services, Wilkowski said. Braniacs also visit local senior centers, recreation centers and other venues to educate residents — Buckeye customers or not — free of charge.

“We take a consultant approach to customer service and sales,” Shook said. “We drive home the fact that every customer could be your neighbor and you want to treat them like your neighbor. People connect with the notion of being local because it’s the exception rather the rule these days.”

That’s always been the Buckeye way, according to chairman Block.

“I have never agreed with the notion that the big MSOs can do a better job or have better service than an independent operator. I’m proud of our customer-centric attitude and our philosophy of treating people the way you want to be treated.

“Are we perfect? Of course not. But our commitment is constant and consistent. We are customer-service diehards,” he said. “As long as we can do business better than our competitors, there’s no reason we shouldn’t keep doing that.”

SIDEBAR: Hyper-Local Sports: A Winning Play

Like many larger MSOs, Buckeye Broadband is in the regional sports business. But it’s not the sort of costly, pro-sports-focused RSN operated by big MSOs such as Comcast or Charter Communications.

BCSN, the RSN launched by Buckeye in 2004, is a hyper-local channel focusing on smaller-scale events like minor-league hockey games, local college and high-school contests and even little league games.

The model was so successful in the Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio, systems that Buckeye launched a similar, hyper-local sports channel in the MaxxSouth systems it acquired from Harron Communications in 2014. MaxxSouth, operated separately from Buckeye Broadband, serves about 50,000 customers in 60 rural Mississippi communities.

BCSN and MaxxSouth Sports do more than just cover games. The Ohio network has partnered with WTVG-TV in Toledo to produce a half-hour nightly sports show that goes beyond game recaps.

Through WTGV, BCSN also delivers a weekly four-hour football program covering all the local high-school action, as well as a three-hour high-school basketball recap during hoops season. Ohio law forbids live high-school football telecasts, but BCSN’s four roving studio trucks visit each game and gather news, tidbits and features on what’s happening, BCSN general manager Marc Jaromin said.

BCSN’s four production trucks often cover multiple events in a single day. “We are efficient,” Jaromin said. “We can roll in an hour-and-a-half before an event and break down within a half hour after an event.

“Recently, we covered the same event as ESPN. They had 33 people doing the same job at the same level of performance as we did with seven people.”

BCSN recently covered and sponsored a charity boxing event to fight Parkinson’s disease in Toledo. The network didn’t just cover the seven fights on the card — it also produced a half-hour pre-show spotlighting athletes affected by Parkinson’s, and taped local health officials talking about the disease for use in interstitials.

“Anyone can offer up a box score,” Jaromin said. “But telling the news behind the score is what makes BCSN different and relevant with viewers. Bottom line, we want to deliver to the community what the community wants to see.”

Buckeye also plans to launch a new arts channel along the lines of BCSN. BCSN Arts, located next to BCSN on the dial on a former local-origination channel, will soft-launch this fall and formally kick of in January, Jaromin said.

BCSN Arts will televise content developed by local high school students and help them with their projects as well. And it will televise shows featuring students preparing for school plays, choir concerts, dance recitals and band performances.

“This is just another way for us to connect to our customers and our community,” Jaromin said. “I think it will be very successful and as popular as BCSN.”

Like many larger MSOs, Buckeye Broadband is in the regional sports business. But it’s not the sort of costly, pro-sports-focused RSN operated by big MSOs such as Comcast or Charter Communications.

BCSN, the RSN launched by Buckeye in 2004, is a hyper-local channel focusing on smaller-scale events like minor-league hockey games, local college and high-school contests and even little league games.

The model was so successful in the Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio, systems that Buckeye launched a similar, hyper-local sports channel in the MaxxSouth systems it acquired from Harron Communications in 2014. MaxxSouth, operated separately from Buckeye Broadband, serves about 50,000 customers in 60 rural Mississippi communities.

MCN Independent Operators of the Year:Buckeye: Building on Broadband | WideOpenWest Covers Its Bases

BCSN and MaxxSouth Sports do more than just cover games. The Ohio network has partnered with WTVG-TV in Toledo to produce a half-hour nightly sports show that goes beyond game recaps.

Through WTGV, BCSN also delivers a weekly four-hour football program covering all the local high-school action, as well as a three-hour high-school basketball recap during hoops season. Ohio law forbids live high-school football telecasts, but BCSN’s four roving studio trucks visit each game and gather news, tidbits and features on what’s happening, BCSN general manager Marc Jaromin said.

BCSN’s four production trucks often cover multiple events in a single day. “We are efficient,” Jaromin said. “We can roll in an hour-and-a-half before an event and break down within a half hour after an event.

“Recently, we covered the same event as ESPN. They had 33 people doing the same job at the same level of performance as we did with seven people.”

BCSN recently covered and sponsored a charity boxing event to fight Parkinson’s disease in Toledo. The network didn’t just cover the seven fights on the card — it also produced a half-hour pre-show spotlighting athletes affected by Parkinson’s, and taped local health officials talking about the disease for use in interstitials.

“Anyone can offer up a box score,” Jaromin said. “But telling the news behind the score is what makes BCSN different and relevant with viewers. Bottom line, we want to deliver to the community what the community wants to see.”

Buckeye also plans to launch a new arts channel along the lines of BCSN. BCSN Arts, located next to BCSN on the dial on a former local-origination channel, will soft-launch this fall and formally kick of in January, Jaromin said.

BCSN Arts will televise content developed by local high school students and help them with their projects as well. And it will televise shows featuring students preparing for school plays, choir concerts, dance recitals and band performances.

“This is just another way for us to connect to our customers and our community,” Jaromin said. “I think it will be very successful and as popular as BCSN.”