Back when you had cable, you may have passed a channel with locally-created television programs or Knoxville government meetings. Knoxville Community Media, formerly Community Television of Knoxville, brought you those programs and are still bringing voice to the people 50 years later with an even broader mission and wider access.
Community, narrative storytelling and localism were all themes of my conversation with Amos Oaks, Executive and Creative Director of Knoxville Community Media. Oaks gave me the history of KCM, which could be coming to an end with shifting consumer behavior and pending federal legislation. The mission remains a critical one, though.
The History of Knoxville Community Media
KCM started with a cablecast in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral on December 24th, 1975. Oaks told me that “not everybody could afford to buy an ad on TV or speak their voice…public access television was a real novel thing back in 1975, and it gave people a way to speak their voice…” Oaks believes Knoxville’s Public Access is the second oldest in America.
The Cable Act of 1984 bolstered public access through new Federal policies. Since cable companies ran their infrastructure on public rights-of-way, they were required to pay negotiated franchise fees to municipalities, allowing taxpayers to benefit from publicly-owned land. The act also created and funded public, educational, and government access, also known as PEG channels who were tasked with providing government transparency and giving equal voices to people.
After a brief stint in the City County building, public access, now named Community Television of Knoxville, moved to the Andrew Johnson building. Oaks said the AJ “was a fantastic facility. The county provided the space for us. The county no longer provides space for us, but they did at the time….we had three studios up there, two editing suites. It was amazing.” He discovered public access through his father, a UT student studying video in the classroom. He volunteered to run cameras for county commission and city council meetings at age 17 and has been there since.
808 State Street was their next home. And finally, KCM moved to the First Horizon building in 2017. Oaks said, “it’s a great space…it’s kind of state of the art for us, but it’s just not a very convenient location.” Visibility and parking are major issues. Oaks added, “public access means you should be in a place that’s really accessible, so we’ve kind of been on a our own mission to find a new location, but it needs to be in the downtown area.”
Vox Populi
Localism and amplifying unheard voices remain central to KCM’s mission. Oaks elaborated, “I’ve always said that we are on a foundation of storytelling, and…we are building with free thought, free expression, and free speech to create and house the preservation of localism.”
Oaks has observed the disappearance of localism. He added, “I just feel like when you don’t have local news sources, then you start to lose an identity. When you don’t have people telling their story here, when you’re just getting news stories that are coming out of some conglomerate somewhere that are maybe international or national, which some of those stories are definitely important, but if you forget about what’s happening locally, then I think a community suffers.”
Scanning through the station or its archives on YouTube shows the breadth of these local voices through locally produced documentaries, music performances and more.
Oaks also feels people are losing voice through social media, though he isn’t opposed to it. He said, “it just becomes another image or another slogan or something else that’s being thrown into your face. So we think that our organization can help you explore you and back to that free thought and free expression and free speech idea.”
KCM programs work to get people away from devices and get real cameras in their hands. The weight of a professional camera is “something tangible in your hand that requires more thought. I feel that you can start to explore stories or ideas in a much more meaningful way’” Oaks added.
More Than Television
Storytelling has expanded beyond television. Oaks told me that “we were Community Television of Knoxville until three years ago, and we’re not stupid. We know that people don’t watch TV much anymore, that cable cutting is a real thing.” After a name change to Knoxville Community Media, the group embraced multiple media forms: podcasting, radio, print with zine making, and photography.
Of course, they still have TV studios, offering hands-on video production training. The studio production course features a turnkey system with robotic cameras, live direction, graphics, and video roll-ins.Portable production training includes the use of GoPros, consumer and prosumer cameras, green screens, and microphones. KCM also offers instruction in video editing on professional-grade equipment. Members are responsible for editing their own projects due to liability policies. Cinematic cameras are available upon completion of additional paid training.
A small fee of $25 annually grants you KCM membership and access to equipment and training.
Staff members direct three current live shows, like Speaking the Truth in Love, a 30-year on-air church program and Wrestle Talk. Though not liable for content, staff load graphics, select cameras and help with production. Live shows are a dollar a minute, a separate fee from membership.
KCM is available on channels 12 (Xfinity), 193 (Charter), 6 (Knology) and 99 (AT&T U-Verse). They stream at knoxcm.org and Amazon Fire and Roku.
Radio for the People
KCM now streams live radio. Oaks said, “With WUTK going away, there were a lot of DJs who were without a home, and we had thought about doing radio for a long time.” WUTK’s closure was the perfect opportunity to move forward. KCM shifted funds from a move to purchase equipment for a radio station studio, setting up in Oak’s old office.
The station is available at radiokcm.com and on the Live365 and TuneIn apps. Oaks told me that “we’ve got some people in town that love music and didn’t necessarily want to have a radio show, but have large collections…so they’ve been curating playlists for us to play.” One morning DJ is at the station five days a week with others coming in around noon and some starting at midnight or 2 a.m.
Community radio producers are also responsible for their content. Among many other genres, music includes heavy metal, punk, Grateful Dead, bluegrass and pop. Comedy shows, a talk show about producer’s exploits in the theater world, and a Friday skateboarding show with music and history fill out the week.
I stopped by the studio last week and chatted with Liz Burling whose Wednesday show Midweek Mixtape showcases themed playlists each week from 7 – 8 PM. She found her home at RadioKCM after an open call for on air radio programs. Her playlists are similar to mixtapes she made for fun. DJ Fritz Siegel follows Burling with his show Pour Some 80s on Me from 8 – 10 PM. Siegel found a home after a shakeup at WUTK, some of which Urban Guy covered last year. Both emphasized the wide variety of genres of music RadioKCM features.
Friday mornings at 8:30, Oaks hosts Government Spin, interviewing local and state government officials. He said, “it’s kind of my way for people to get to know government officials on a street level.” He also asks guests to pick three songs that are meaningful to them. He said Councilwoman Lauren Rider had some very progressive music selections and added that everybody surprises him. He cited emotional episodes like LaKenya Middlebrook’s and Sheryl Eli, Parks and Rec Director, that made him cry.
Radio is separate from television production, but is also $25 annually.
Teaching the Next Generation of Storytellers
In recent years, KCM expanded its mission to reach the next generation of storytellers through youth programs. For the past few years, it has partnered with the Phyllis Wheatley Center to offer hands-on, device-free workshops, including zine making and experimental photography with disposable and Polaroid cameras. Oaks noted that kids often look at the disposables and ask, “well, how do we look at it? So you don’t know what you’re going to get until they get developed. And so that anticipation…creates an excitement in a lot of the youth.” Workshops also allowed students to write a beat with an accompanying music video.
This summer, KCM will host Sabrina Santiago for Super 8 film community workshops for youth and some adults. KCM also has a digital media artist in residency who offers a program utilizing digital media telling story through art.
KCM recently finished an experimental photography project with the Boys and Girls Club. Oaks said that “youth programming is the thing I think we get most excited about because we really want to see youth put their phones down and pick up Polaroid cameras or do book binding, build magazines.”
The Community in Knoxville Community Media
I asked about relevancy in an era when anyone can create and post online. The answer, as with so many stories these days, was community. Oaks said, “I think why we are relevant is because we’re a community center where people can gather and bounce ideas off of each other and experience real community. I think people are becoming isolated. And to have a place like this where you can get some real life skills training in equipment, but also life skills training in person to person communication, which just doesn’t happen anymore.”
Oaks illustrated this idea with a story about his early days with KCM/CTV. Wrestle Talk was in production one evening, members of Women in Film, a group focused around the LGBTQ+ community, were filming, and a Baptist church was also working. The three groups with very different cultures had food and created a potluck in between productions. Oaks said that they were all talking and listening to each other while sharing food. He added, “I don’t think we have that in this country anymore where people listen to people’s stories and people talk to people face-to-face about things. And they might not always agree, but…they have community in common. And I think that this community access center, my hope is that it could become that vital community center again that it once was. So that’s why I keep pushing for it.”
Another invaluable service I’ve used often is gavel-to-gavel coverage of government meetings. With most other reporting, you may get sound bites or quotes, but KCM covers meetings from start to finish, providing transparency in local government. KCM gets calls from lawyers, commissioners and councilpeople looking for specific meetings. KCM airs, then archives publicly-accessible meetings. KCM has also developed relationships with nonprofits and is working on building relationships with Knox County Schools for an educational component.
As Knoxville Community Media approaches their 50th anniversary in December, we (the people) also face the possibility of losing this critical, local voice. Tomorrow, I will cover why. Oaks told me that KCM could be facing their “swan song.” This is a critical moment in their existence, one which you can help influence with your voice.