Pleasantville Community Television (PCTV) has filmed important moments in the village during the past 25 years. Its studio on Lake Street, and for many years before at its Jackson Alley space, has attracted the likes of actor Rob Lowe, bestselling author Stephen King and many other celebrities and highly accomplished figures.
One of the most prolific community access stations in the area, PCTV has amassed an archive of more than 10,000 programs, most of which were hosted or produced by local residents on a dizzying array of topics. There is Ben Cheever’s “About Writing” where he talks to authors, exercise shows from the Clinton Street Senior Center and more than 300 episodes of “The Listening Place” featuring discussions about healing that was launched by Nancy Rosanoff after 9/11.
It has regularly filmed the Pleasantville Music Festival each July and its cameras have captured Village Board, Planning Commission and Board of Education meetings and ribbon-cutting ceremonies for countless local businesses.
Longtime station manager Shane McGaffey, 54, who has run PCTV for the past-quarter century in the community where he moved to as a child with his parents and where he has raised his two children, said it isn’t a coincidence that PCTV has been a magnet for well-known guests. He’s convinced that having a local community access station that also covers live events figured into part of the calculus for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to come to Pleasantville to sign the state’s property tax cap legislation into law in 2011 and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins many presentations.
“The fact that Pleasantville was on the map enough for these people to come here and be interviewed and be filmed to give a message to the community members here, I think it makes a difference,” McGaffey said.
However, the days of making a difference are quickly dwindling. This spring PCTV, a non-profit village entity, is closing operations, a victim of evolving technology and persistent funding challenges throughout the station’s history. While there was no official closing date given when local officials made the announcement early this year, Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer said the goal is to have the station cease operations by or before the end of the village’s fiscal year on May 31.
Bringing Pleasantville Together
For 12 years, operations manager Evelyn Latella took on multiple responsibilities for PCTV, handling many of its administrative tasks. In her estimation, PCTV has helped bind the community with programming that cannot be found elsewhere. PCTV would not only film the Memorial Day parade and the ceremony that followed along with Veterans Day recognition, but it also highlighted stories of local veterans.
Its close relationship with the Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce where the station would collaborate on the organization’s annual Person of the Year, was another example of helping integrate PCTV into the community.
“It was really very successful, and it really brought the community together, it brought the village together, the people in the community together,” Latella said. “It kind of helped raise our fundraising, our arts donations every year, and it was just the planning and execution of making a difference, I thought.”
When McGaffey returned home after five years in Russia, he soon learned there was a fledgling local television studio and sought to lend his talents. He was quickly attracted to the community-minded approach and the ability for community members to bring unique programming to residents.
“I started to get a real high from that and I felt that what I was doing was important,” he said.
Consistent Headwinds
Despite being an asset for many years, there was always the hurdle of village funding. In the current fiscal year, the village budgeted about $120,000 for the station, Scherer said. But at a time where costs continue to rise and modes of communication have made it easier for the public to produce and post content themselves, what was once a groundbreaking model has in many ways been surpassed by social media.
“I think we’re in an environment now where so many people have so many different ways of creating the content they might once have found tethered to a public access station,” Scherer said. “Now, to the extent that they want to put together a show, they can do it with limited equipment in their living room and get it up on YouTube and all of those places and honestly get broader distribution than they were getting through PCTV.”
The village will continue to record its meetings through technology and post them on the village’s website, he said.
But for McGaffey, a graduate of the All-Russian University of Cinematography in Moscow after earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of Rochester, PCTV’s looming closure will leave a void that cannot yet be calculated for the roughly 55,000 households who could access the channel in Pleasantville and in neighboring towns. The recordings comprise a catalogue of Pleasantville’s recent history, at least since the archives were established in 2009. While many viewers have become used to the quick hits of seconds-long videos on TikTok and Instagram, there is still demand for long-form interviews and programs that extensively delve into a topic, he said.
McGaffey also predicts that it will make communication more difficult for the residents. “I still think you need the full story so people can take a deep dive (on an issue), and make up their own mind,” McGaffey said. “I think you may have some five-minute things, but they’re not going to be able to delve deeper anymore.”
Good News, Bad News
The likelihood of a closure caught McGaffey by surprise at PCTV budget meetings last fall. PCTV had secured several grants to help offset funding, including $50,000 and $20,000 state grants related to educational purposes and $8,500 and $10,000 county grants. Only the $8,500 was a grant that required a match from the village.
“We had identified what we wanted to do,” McGaffey explained. “The Village Board at our last budget meeting was really happy with the direction we were providing. They were really thrilled, and then the grants starting rolling in. All that work was starting to pay off. We had a real vision and everybody was on the same page.”
The grants would augment extra revenue the station had been pulling in from commercial work, a concerted effort that was made several years earlier to offset costs. McGaffey thought they were in an improving position.
“If there was ever a time, this wasn’t it, just because we had an agreed upon mission, or so we thought, and we were bringing in a lot of revenue to make that happen,” McGaffey said.
Michael Inglis, the PCTV board president, said in a statement that with the village pulling funding for the station, there did not seem to be a path forward.
“The PCTV board thanks the Village for its funding over the years, and all the past board members who have been involved with this public endeavor. We also wish to acknowledge all the producers who have created so much outstanding local content over the last 25 years and thank our partners and sponsors for their support,” the statement read in part.
Scherer said with continued rising expenses, including an estimated $265,000 to replace the roof on the water district building where the studio is housed, the Village Board needed to decide. Plus, village officials were concerned about any ongoing obligations from the grants.
“You arrive at a point every year with the budget season right now with a challenge to figure out what needs more money and what needs less,” Scherer said.
“We felt that the number of people taking advantage of it was small enough where we needed to invest that money in other more effective ways in communicating,” he added.
“So many of these shows were really like a college education,” McGaffey said. “The depth and breadth of programming created through the station will be difficult to replicate. For example, I never would have known that Pleasantville was part of the Underground Railroad if not for PCTV. I got to meet a lot of really cool people and filmed a lot of interviews where I learned a lot.”
