Shelby Township: Shelby TV Named Region's Top Access TV Operation By Alliance For Community Media

Press release from Shelby Township:

08/24/2021 3:31 PM

Shelby TV and the township’s Community Relations Department won multiple awards at the 2021 Philo Festival of Media Arts, including overall excellence as the best access TV operation in the region.

Government access professionals from the Alliance for Community Media’s Central Region, which encompasses Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, voted on the awards.

“These awards are particularly gratifying as they come from our fellow professionals in government media and communications,” Shelby Township Community Relations Director Brad D. Bates said. “These are the people that understand the unique challenges and opportunities we face in community relations and government access programming.

“They also understand all of the roadblocks that have sprung up surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic as it pertains to communications. We all struggled with issues such as staffing, canceled events, changing information and constant upheaval. So to be recognized at this time by this group is special.”

Tops among the five awards Shelby TV won this year was the “overall excellence” award for the region’s top access TV operation. This distinction recognizes an organization’s content, and it is open to all of the region’s public, educational or government access channels.

“We have a great staff led by Broadcast Services Manager Art Shink that works incredibly hard whether we are providing live Board of Trustees meetings, streaming football from Swinehart Field or introducing our firefighters and police officers to children with the ‘Treehouse’ kids program,” Bates said. “We know there are teams throughout the region working just as hard as we do, so it means a lot to be recognized by our peers for the work we did for Shelby Township.”

For individual programs, Shelby TV and former News Director Stacie Smith won the best news program for “Shelby This Week,” and it won the best magazine program show for “Living in Shelby Township, ” which is produced by Content Specialist Andrew Sielski. The win for “Living in Shelby Township” was the second honor in three years.

Shelby TV was runner-up in two categories: Shelby TV’s broadcast of the Utica Eisenhower/Chippewa Valley first-round playoff football game, produced and directed by Shink and Production Coodinator Nick Monacelli, was runner-up in “sports coverage.” In addition, the “It’s a Wonderful Life, Otto” program, produced by Producer Stacey Sansoterra, with Macomb County Animal Control was runner-up in the empowerment/inspirational category.

“Shelby TV has never won overall excellence before, and it’s worth noting they won it while providing top-notch full-service community relations support for our entire township during a global pandemic,” Township Supervisor Rick Stathakis said. “I am proud of the creative professionals we have at Shelby TV and the Community Relations Department. Because of them, the rest of the world has an opportunity to understand how amazing our township is.”

The township posted a special playlist on its YouTube channel, youtube.com/shelbytownshiptv, to showcase the award-winning programs and the highlight reel for the overall excellence award.

All of the township’s programming is available on this YouTube channel and the township’s other social media accounts, which the Community Relations Department manages. In addition, cable subscribers can view Shelby TV on Channel 5 on the Comcast Cable System, Channel 10 on the Wide Open West system and Channel 99 on AT&T U-verse.

“It’s a big job to share all of the things that make Shelby Township an exceptional place, but we have a great team that does just that every day,” Shink said. “I am extremely proud of the way our staff rallied this past year and embraced the challenges of the pandemic to produce our best content.”

Click here to visit the Community Relations Department and Shelby TV homepage

This press release was produced by Shelby Township. The views expressed here are the author’s own.