By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on April 1, the Independence Township Board of Trustees heard an update presentation from John Ehlke, the station manager for Independence Television.
Ehlke provided the board with some highlights from 2024 and goals for the current year.
“These are reports that I give at our quarterly video center board meetings that we do, but I thought I’d bring our annual report to the board today, just to let you know what’s going on and what we have accomplished in 2024,” Ehlke said.
Independence Television operates across three pillars: cable, live and online.
Ehlke highlights successful campaigns in all three pillars including a Christmas Day movie marathon that was broadcasted over cable last year, a live Santa Call-In show that took place on Dec. 15 and a transition to high-definition streaming feeds.
The station also had significant coverage of many public events; covering 14 ribbon cutting ceremonies with the Clarkston Area Chamber of Commerce, four live seminars/ceremonies with the Clarkston Area Youth Assistance, six broadcasts of Music in the Park, a total of 87 videos uploaded to ITV’s YouTube page, two parade live streams (the Holiday Lights Parade and Independence Day Parade) and 2,502 minutes of television across 36 meetings from the City of the Village of Clarkston and he Clarkston Independence District Library.
“You’ll also kind of see some partner organizations that we work with: the library, family farm, garden club, Clarkston Area Chamber of Commerce and a number of other organizations that we have gotten to partner with and create videos for throughout 2024,” Ehlke said. “Just a wide net of the amount of people that we try to help throughout our community, from the public side, through the different productions that we do and all those videos that we did.”
Independence Television currently has three rotating public shows created by members of the public: Inside Independence, Conversations with Bill and Connecting Clarkston which, collectively, have totaled over 18 episodes that have gained over 3,100 views.
“(We are) so happy to kind of have this studio space where people can use this to have their voice heard and create content for the community. It’s one of the big things that we like to do. And these are three of our most, I’d say, successful and recurring shows. So, (we are) always happy to have them in Studio to create their content,” said Ehlke.
ITV also features a segment from Production Coordinator Mat Legato titled “Michigan Moment” which are brief videos that showcase interesting facts about Michigan.
On the education side, ITV broadcasted two graduations, 16 varsity sports, three Public Service Announcements for Clarkston Community Schools, 12 board meetings, eight award ceremonies and held one Movie in the Park night.
When it comes to government coverage, they produced 13 promotional videos for Independence Township and 13 videos of events.
ITV also spent some time in Lansing last year, opposing HB4965.
“In April, we went to Lansing to oppose HB4964, a bill that threatened our franchise fees and PEG (Public, Educational and Governmental) fees,” Ehlke said. “I will say that we successfully defeated the bill. In December, Michigan became one of the first states ever to defeat this bill and while that is an extremely great thing and something to be celebrated about, it’s something that we’re gonna have to continue to fight and continue to educate and let people know that our franchise fees and our PEG fees, they are dwindling, streamers and website providers and everything like that are trying to avoid paying these fees, and it’s something that they, as you know, companies that are using the right of way have to pay their their fair share for using that, and they’re trying to avoid doing that right now. And it’s something that we need to stay on top of, because it could threaten, obviously, a large chunk of our revenue from the township side, from a franchise and PEG fees standpoint.”
In 2024, ITV hosted a Summer Media Camp which had 15 campers and made money, making the camp fully self-sustaining. Ehlke also noted that enrollment for this year’s camp opened about a week prior and they have already hit capacity.
Other successes from 2024 include earning the Hometown Media Award for overall excellence in PEG access and earning recognition at the Philo Festival of Media Arts Awards.
Looking ahead to 2025, ITV hopes to continue to explore additional revenue options, develop a working equipment list to better understand what the station’s equipment needs are and to continue to improve community presence at events across Clarkston and Independence Township.
Board members spoke to praise the station for its work with the schools in covering events and giving students opportunities to get involved in video production.
The Independence Television station is located in Clarkston High School and its broadcasts can be viewed online at independencetelevision.com.