Houston High TV studio may expand

Municipal district looks at funding

Germantown Municipal Schools officials are looking to create a television studio at Houston High School to mirror the success of Germantown High School’s productions, which are now part of the Shelby County Schools district.

In the tentative budget for its first school year, the municipal district budgeted $224,769 for an instructional television program. That cost includes salaries and benefits for two staff members, an engineer and a program director.

The high school currently has a basic program with limited equipment, but board members and administrators said this week they want to expand the program to be on the same level as the multimilliondollar studio at Germantown High.

Board president Lisa Parker said it would take a while, but the goal is feasible. “For us to compete on that level for the first couple years, it’s not realistic for us,” she said. “But we’ll certainly be broadcasting and doing the best we can.”

Board members and administrators debated during a budget work session Wednesday whether it was a good idea to start the program during the district’s first year.

Board member Mark Dely said he felt it would be best to wait until next year, when the district could work with the city to secure more funding.

“There’s no doubt that if we do this, we will be rushing into this,” Dely said.

Board member Natalie Williams said she didn’t think the program was too much to take on for the first year, because the expectation wouldn’t be for 20 fulltime shows, but rather one or two to start.

Supt. Jason Manuel said this year is a good opportunity to start the program because this is the city’s last year of its contract with Germantown High to run its channel.

Parker said the Germantown High program could switch to channel 19 while Houston High took over channel 17. They could still both cover all of the city’s government meetings.

Parker said the hope was to obtain control of the studio through the buildings agreement with Shelby County, but when the three namesake schools were left out of the agreement, it left the municipal district without a studio.

The Germantown High studio currently receives Germantown city’s public, educational, and government access TV channel funding. Parker said the municipal district will seek that funding, which can be worth up to half a million dollars. She said Shelby County was warned that funding loss was possible during building negotiations, but the district decided to hang onto the high school anyway.

Shelby County Schools has $629,390 budgeted for the program for next year.

Parker said even after the funding dispute, the two schools would be able to work side by side and not in direct competition.

“We’re still providing instruction for anyone who wants to go into television,” she said.