Public Access TV Offers Lots of Room for Show and Tell

The cameraman raised his left hand, slowly lowering one finger at a time as he counted down the seconds before show time. When he was down to his fist, he pointed at a perky blond teen-ager sitting in front of the lights.

Right on cue, 14-year-old Kelli Muller smiled into the camera and welcomed Covina viewers to her new cable television show, “Kelli’s Korner.”

The half-hour program, scheduled to debut on Continental Cablevision Wednesday night, is a brisk mixture of conversation, contests and top 40s countdown.

It is one of scores of locally produced programs aired on the public access channels of San Gabriel Valley cable systems. The public channels, which cable companies provide as part of their franchise agreement with county or city governments, feature talk and music shows, City Council meetings, high school sports and community events.

Staff Helps

Some, such as Kelli’s Korner, are produced by local residents with help from cable company staff members. Others are put together by cities and school districts.

In Pasadena, for example, the Pasadena School District and Pasadena City College jointly produce educational programs for the KLRN channel.

On the KPAS channel, programs such as “Pasadena Snapshots” and a Spanish-language program called “Que Pasa” are produced and aired by the city. Ramon Curiel, affirmative action coordinator for the city and producer of “Que Pasa,” said he developed the program earlier this year to reach out to Pasadena’s 40,000 Latino residents, who constitute nearly a third of the city’s population.

The first “Que Pasa” program, which aired last month, introduced Latino viewers to city government. A second one in August will discuss the U.S. census, to help ease fears of being counted, Curiel said.

To serve the growing number of Asian residents in Monterey Park and Alhambra, Choice Television has increased the number of local Chinese-language programs produced by its own staff. Recently, the company produced a magazine-style program in which a Chinese hostess took viewers on a tour of the Huntington Library and Gardens.

Workshops Offered

As part of their franchise agreements, many cable companies offer free workshops on television production and film editing to enable residents to produce their own programs.

Although there are plenty of people interested in learning about television production or starting their own show, not all pursue their interests the way Kelli did, said David Cluck, director of programming for Continental Cablevision in Covina.

Cluck tells would-be David Lettermans and Oprah Winfreys to submit proposals for their show. “Some of them I never hear from again,” he said.

But in Kelli’s case, she promptly handed in a proposal for a youth-oriented show covering topics ranging from cartooning to sports to drug abuse.

Kelli, who will be a sophomore at Charter Oak School this fall, said a media course at Royal Oak Intermediate School piqued her interest in television. At 13, she volunteered to work as a camera operator on Continental’s evening program, “Quintessential Covina.”

“It was a fun show,” Kelli said. “If you make a mistake, it’s OK.

“I like the programs they have, but they didn’t cover that many teen topics,” Kelli said. “I want to have some things that teens like to watch.”

For her first show, featuring an interview with Hollywood cartoonist David Silverman, Kelli asked Covina businesses to donate teddy bears and movie posters, which she announced would be given away in trivia contests. As her friends and parents watched, she closed her show with a personal sign-off, “And remember, we bring the power to TV!”

Kelli said she is not sure if she wants to be a television personality.

“Being in front of the camera is fun and everything, but I don’t want to do that as a career,” she said, explaining the lack of job security for on-air talent. “I want something to fall back on. Maybe entertainment law.”