Navigating The Sherwood Forest of Public Access

By Colleen Gundlach

In Norfolk, tuning in to Channel 6 on cable television brings an array of locally produced programs, from a Botelle Board of Education meeting to a Salisbury zoning meeting to the daily Morning Show simulcast from WHDD in Sharon. Formally titled Community Access Television 6 (CATV6), this is grassroots community service at its best.

CATV6 is a part of a nonprofit organization, Tri-State Public Communications, Inc., better known by the fitting moniker of Robin Hood Radio & TV (think “take from the rich and give to the poor”). “Robin Hood Radio is taking the best from the big stations and giving it back to the public free of charge,” says Marshall Miles, who, along with Jill Goodman, co-founded the company.

“Back in 2002,” says Miles, “AT&T was running the local cable channel and was not doing a good job at it. So we formed Tri-State Public Communications and applied to be the new cable access provider.” Six months of public hearings and more than $77,000 later, Tri-State became the proud operator of CATV6. When Comcast later displaced AT&T as cable provider, Tri-State successfully reapplied to oversee the channel’s operations.

Today, as Robin Hood Radio & TV, CATV6 is part of a network of broadcast media that includes three nonprofit radio stations covering the northwest corner of Connecticut, the Berkshires in Massachusetts and Dutchess and Columbia counties in New York.

Miles is also one of the company’s best-known on-air personalities. He began his career as an intern in 1971 at WTOR in Torrington (now WSNG) and a part time assistant at WSBS in Great Barrington, Mass. After a stint as stage manager for television channel 30 in West Hartford, Miles decided that his heart was in radio, so he took a pay cut and returned to the northwest corner. “I was very lucky that I got to learn the business from the inside out, from the people I met along the way,” he says. “I was mentored by the best in the business.”

Miles spends most of his time at WHDD, where he and Goodman host the Breakfast Club, but technology allows him to keep track of all three stations and the cable channel at the same time. The CATV6 office, located in Geer Village in Canaan, is manned for three to four hours per day by Liam O’Reilly and Camilo Torrez, who also film local meetings in the evening. The rest of the time, computers run the preset schedule of cable programs and notify Miles on his smartphone if anything goes wrong.

CATV6 is a local access provider, covering the towns of Norfolk, North Canaan, Falls Village, Salisbury and Sharon, and, as its title implies, is open to everyone. Anyone who has a program they would like to air is invited to do so. CATV6 personnel provide training and will lend equipment to area residents who want to develop their own shows or film a meeting or other event, subject to standards outlined by Connecticut’s Cable Advisory Board. Norfolk resident Phylis Bernard has been a familiar face at town board meetings for the past 20 years as the person behind the camera for the cable channel. Now, since Bernard’s semi-retirement, Wiley Wood has been covering some Norfolk meetings for CATV6 as well. Both are volunteers.

“We depend on volunteers,” stresses Miles, “in CATV6 and at the radio stations.” WHDD is a combination of local programming, provided by northwest corner residents who volunteer their time and talents, and National Public Radio (NPR). The Sharon station is, in fact, the smallest NPR station in the nation. It features such NPR programs as “Where We Live with John Dankosky” and “The Faith Middleton Show.”

Both CATV6 and the Robin Hood Radio stations are nonprofit and supported solely by donations and underwriters. Benefactors are invited to underwrite one of the regular shows or to develop one of their own. The fundraising is understated, however, as indicated on the station’s website by a cartoon figure holding a sign that says, “Welcome to Sherwood Forest. No Pledge Drives Allowed.” Fundraising is never done on the air.

Information about volunteering, underwriting or donating may be found on the website at robinhoodradio.com or by calling 860-364-4640.

Photo: Operations Manager Liam O’Reilly at the console of the CATV6 studio in North Canaan. Photo by Bruce Frisch.