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The local cable foundation is looking to reorganize, upgrade equipment, and is seeking money from the Seal Beach city government for staff, equipment, and a new manager. The council is expected to approve the budget for 2025-26 in early June.
The chair of the Seal Beach Cable Communications Foundation argued the station should get $115,000 a year.
The proposed 2025-26 budget allocated $90,000 for SBTV.
Presentations
Peter Anninos, chairman of the cable foundation, and Jim Quinlan gave the City Council a presentation on SBTV3 on Monday, April 28. Quinlan spoke on behalf of the Seal Beach Cable Communications Foundation. The Foundation is looking at transforming SBTV3 into a Community Media Access Collaborative. Members of the Seal Beach Lions Club have reportedly endorsed the proposal.
The council took no action on April 28 as SBTV was not on the agenda.
The Foundation’s request is not a new development. (See “SBTV-3 board seeks upgrades and a manager,” at sunnews.org.) Long-time station manager Robin Fort-Lincke reportedly resigned for health reasons in December 2022. She passed away in April 2023. The station has been without a manager since she left.
Due to space limits, what follows is not a transcript but some of the highlights from the presentation and a review of a presentation document.
“We only need your direction and approval,” Anninos said. He said they had found a great candidate to replace Fort-Lincke. Later, he said Fort-Lincke was paid out of the city’s General Fund.
“The Seal Beach Cable Communications Foundation’s been operating on the same $75,000 a year for 40 years,” Anninos said.
“How many here could manage on what they made 40 years ago?” Anninos asked.
“The city gets a 5% franchise fee from cables providers and as is spelled out in the law and 1% goes to PEG which is public educational governmental programming. That’s us. For PEG, we should be getting approximately $115,000 a year, not the $75,000 that we currently are” Anninos asked.
“The city gets a 5% franchise fee from cables providers and as is spelled out in the law and 1% goes to PEG which is public educational governmental programming,” Anninos said.
He said state law does not say where that money can be spent.
He said what he was presenting includes no capital expenditures.
“The first thing I want to bring up is pay raises for our people. Thanks to the state, we the cable foundation now have to act as the employer and as such we have all the federal and state requirements that we have to deal with and the next issue may be mandatory health coverage. We have to pay people to stay competitive and keep good people. Other costs are day-to-day operating expenses like pay playback systems, maintenance, insurance, basic office services, internet, phone, that sort of thing. I feel it’s absolutely appropriate to raise the wages of our staff to $30 an hour,” Anninos said.
“In other surrounding communities, the starting wages are substantially more of at least $40 an hour and many are making $90 an hour just for council meeting coverage,” he said.
Returning to the difference between the $75,000 a year he said the station gets and the $115,,000 a year he believes the station should get, Anninos said the difference goes into an account that Anninos said should have $500,000 in it. “We really don’t know where it is,” Anninos said.
He said Fort-Lincke’s job was being performed by three part-time employees and Anninos, who is a volunteer.
He put the combined costs of hiring a 20-hour manager, plus labor and non-labor costs, at $110,000 a year. With a full-time manager, labor and non-labor costs were put at $165,000 a year.
He said the newest piece of equipment the station has is nearly 20 years old.
Jim Quinlan then gave the council a presentation on the proposed reorganization of the Foundation and the station into a media cooperative.
“The city of Seal Beach faces a critical communications challenge. Cable franchise fees and subscriptions are declining, while our ability to produce programs, share local stories, document our history, and provide emergency communications has diminished due to equipment and staffing shortages,” Quinlan said.
“Spectrum reports a 15% subscriber decline in Leisure World alone,” Quinlan said.
“SBTV lacks both structure management and a clear succession plan for station leadership,” Quinlan said.
“Without action, we risk losing a vital community resource that has served Seal Beach for decades,” Quinlan said.
Quinlan then discussed the Community Media Access Collaborative model.
Phase one involves hiring a new station manager; filing paperwork to form a 501(c)3 non-profit; and replacing equipment.
Quinlan put the total cost of phase one at approximately $250,079.
Quinlan projected annual income that would reach $390,000 by year three.
According to a copy of the community media collaborative proposal, a copy of which was provided to the Sun, the station’s traditional revenue sources are declining. Cable franchise fees are decreasing, the station’s current annual budget of $110,000 is projected to decrease by 5 to 7%, the current organizational structure of the foundation limits access to grants; there is no mechanism for generating additional revenue, and costs are rising.
The 84-page document also cited aging infrastructure, no clear succession plan for station management, a describes a growing gap between community needs and available resources, and increasing competition from digital platforms.
The proposed collaborative would include paid memberships ($50 to $100 for individuals); provide professional production services, get access to grants, corporate sponsorships, and sharing resources to become cost-efficient. The document included several examples of community media access cooperatives.
The second phase of the project would include a community outreach.
District Two Councilman Ben Wong asked Quinlan to provide some examples of how SBTV would get grants. (Wong attended recent meetings of the Cable Communications Foundation Board. At those meetings, Wong encouraged the Foundation to request money now, during the city’s budget approval cycle.)
“Many cities have already implemented this model,” Quinlan said.
“Our first step would be to go to the cities which my mother has actually started doing, and working as a collaborative effort to find out exactly which ones do they apply for and how they form those 501c3s” Quinlan said.
“Some cities have two 501c3s for different funding sources,” Quinlan said.
He said there were various grants out there. Examples he cited were library grants, historical grants, and education grants.
“We are also hoping for private investment from major organizations here in Seal Beach,” Quinlan said.
District Three Councilwoman/Mayor Lisa Landau asked if hiring a new station manager was part of the budget process.
Community Development Director Alexa Smittle said yes. “We have included some placeholders in there right now and are ready to discuss it further,” she said.
During the public comment part of the meeting, Teri Quinlan also expressed support for the proposed community media collaborative.
“Through the Lions we know that there are already people waiting in line to start production because we used to do a lot of productions at our studio,” Quinlan said.
She said creating a 503c would be no problem because they already have copies of the documents from other facilities.
Terri Quinlan said right now SBTV does not have an active website or an active phone number. “We do have a portion of YouTube,” she said.
She said public educational governmental programming channels use YouTube as a source.
