East Brunswick has its own television channel, called EBTV. The channel airs township meetings, high school sports, and provides information about municipal services, among other things.
The channel is a municipal access channel, which is a bit different from public access, in that the programming is designed to benefit the town rather than simply showing public content.
How Does a Town Get a Cable Channel?
“When a cable company wants to come into your town, they have to come up with an agreement with your township, and in most states, they are required to give the local town at least one channel. Often, it’s two, one for municipal use and one for education. They provide the channel, and then the town has to provide the content,” said Dave Ambrosy, station manager at EBTV.
In East Brunswick, there are two cable providers, Comcast and Verizon. For residents with Comcast service, EBTV is on channel 26. Verizon customers can find it on channels 37 and 38.
EBTV is More Than a Cable Channel
For residents who have “cut the cord” with cable, EBTV is still available, because nearly all the same programming is also on the EBTV website, www.ebtv.org.
“People can watch on a mobile device, or they could be in California and watch our township meeting live or access it at a later date and watch it,” Ambrosy said.
In addition to Comcast, Verizon and the EBTV website, some content is available on YouTube, and starting a few months ago, on Facebook Live.
“Multiple platforms are changing how we distribute the content. Everything we produce and show on the cable channels go out in standard definition, but everything we put online is in high definition,” Ambrosy said.
Local Business Involvement
Although EBTV doesn’t run traditional advertising like for-profit channels do, local businesses do have the opportunity to sponsor the community bulletin board.
“There’s a small fee to sponsor the bulletin board, and they get a banner ad for sponsoring,” Ambrosy said. n By Dava Stewart