SudburyTV Adds Cable Channels

SudburyTV, the town’s community television station, is expanding the number of channels it offers from two to four, including a new high-definition channel.

SudburyTV will offer three standard channels, one each for public, government and educational programming. Public programming is programming from the community at large, including groups such as the Sudbury Historical Society, the League of Women Voters and individuals. Government programming is coverage of municipal meetings and events. Educational programming is coverage of school events, sports, concerts and other student activities, plus school committee meetings. Currently the public and government programming have been combined on one channel, while educational programming occupied the other channel.

The new high-definition fourth channel will feature major events, particularly live broadcasts, such as Sudbury’s annual town meeting and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School graduation, as well as sports and concerts. “We will feature such events on our regular channels as well as the high-definition channel,” said Lynn Puorro, executive director of SudburyTV.

The four channels are available now to Verizon cable subscribers as follows:

30 – Public

31 – Government

32 – Educational

2130 – High Definition

Comcast will provide a similar channel expansion in the fall. Until then, Comcast subscribers will continue to watch public and government programming on channel 8, and educational programming on channel 9.

Program schedules for all channels can be found on SudburyTV’s website, http://www.sudburytv.org. Under the “watch” tab, click on program schedules.

“Separating the public and government channels will give us more flexibility on when we can air meetings and events, as well as the ability to air programs more frequently,” Puorro said. “The high-definition channel will allow us to feature our most important and popular programming with the best picture available.”

At the same time, SudburyTV is upgrading its video-on-demand (VOD) service, which allows viewers, whether or not they are cable subscribers, to watch live and recorded programs via the internet. The new VOD service will be available in early April.

“The new VOD service can adapt the streaming rate to the capacity of the device you are watching the program on, whether it’s your phone or your computer, so you will get a better picture on more devices,” Puorro said. The appearance of the VOD user interface will change, looking more like a YouTube screen, but there will still be live streaming, featured and recent programming, playlists and a search function.”

SudburyTV is an independent non-profit corporation funded entirely by Verizon and Comcast in accordance with Massachusetts law.