During its first year of broadcasting, C-NET -- the government education channel for Centre County -- has provided more than 22,000 households in the region with information on local governmental and educational events.
In only about one year of broadcasting, C-NET has done an excellent job in providing unique informational programming for the community, said Jeff Fisher, general manager of Tele-Communications Incorporated of Pennsylvania.
C-NET is a voluntary, non-profit organization, a 24-hour service available on Channel 24 on TCI cable systems, said C-NET Director John Rocco. The channel offers about 70 hours of programs a month with a bulletin board that fills the programming gaps, Rocco said.
Programs consist of coverage from the State College Area School Board and Centre County Commissioners meetings to international forums held by the Schlow Memorial Library.
C-NET programs serve the community in a positive capacity by showing county residents firsthand how their local government works by bringing town meetings into their homes, said Robert Barbash, former C-NET president. The channel covers entire events, thus showing the whole picture rather than just excerpts which appear on television news programs and in newspapers, he added.
When C-NET is not broadcasting a live program, the bulletin board gives a calendar of upcoming C-NET programs and provides a schedule of community events such as area bookmobile dates and sites.
The background music for C-NET -- which is simulcast from radio station WPSU-FM -- has allowed Bellefonte residents to receive WPSU, previously unavailable without a stereo hookup, said Dave Dzikowski of the station.
These benefits would be impossible without the formation of a government educational channel, Rocco said. The channel was conceived in 1984 when the Borough of State College conducted a study to see if county residents might benefit from such a program.
When the study proved an interest existed for a government education channel, a task force was formed to study such existing channels in other areas. By January 1988, the first C-NET board of directors was in place, and Rocco was hired the following June.
On July 1, 1988, C-NET's first bulletin board aired. The first program was broadcast Oct. 10, 1988.
The programming and messages for C-NET are decided by 11 member organizations , including the University, the Borough, Centre County Commissioners, Centre Region Council of Governments, Schlow Memorial Library, and State College Area School District.
After the organizations provide C-NET with ideas and information, 80 to 90 volunteers from the community and the University produce the C-NET programs and bulletin board. Rocco said volunteers are important because there are only three paid employees at the C-NET headquarters in Suite 350, 444 E. College Ave.
