Local Access Channel

The Urbana LAC is intended primarily as a public service to the citizens of Urbana and secondarily as a public service to the citizens of Champaign County. The LAC is broadcast on Channel 13 by CT Communications and on Channel 5 by Time Warner Cable.

The City has established an Advisory Committee to advise the City on issues regarding cable television services that relate to the City of Urbana LAC.  The Advisory Committee has come up with a formal policy and procedure (see link below this introduction).  The information here is a summary of the formal policy.

Only programming or information of a governmental, educational, or community interest shall be broadcast. The production and broadcast preparation cost is the responsibility of the submitting entity.

The City of Urbana LAC programming consists of  two types – videos with their own sound, played at scheduled times, and bulletin board announcement slides with Kiss Country FM 101.7 as background sound.  The slides cycle whenever a video is not scheduled so that something is always being broadcast.

Typically the same broadcast schedule is used every day and is as follows:

6:00 am – most recent council meeting
9:00 am – most recent council meeting
1:00 pm – most recent council meeting
4:00 pm – slot for athletic events
6:00 pm – most recent council meeting
8:00 pm – slot for athletic events
10:00 pm – most recent council meeting

Sometimes the length of the council meetings or athletic events will cause a half-hour shift in the typical times.  Other short videos, such as Urbana Leader and Climber News, are usually broadcast immediately following the council meetings or athletic events.  The current schedule can be found on this website by checking the first slide on the Bulletin Board Slides.

Local Access Channel--Policy & Procedures

Videos

Videos must be submitted by an approved entity.  The entity takes full responsibility that the video meets the guidelines specified by the Local Access Channel Policy and Procedure.  Entities not currently on the list of approved entities may request to be added to the list by contacting the LAC Coordinator or one of the committee members, who will then forward the request to the LAC Committee.

Videos may be brought to the City of Urbana Finance window.  They are requested to be submitted on a data DVD in MPEG format as described by Procedure to Submit Video Programming.  Alternatively, videos may be submitted as a playable DVD or VHS tape, but the length of the video in minutes must be provided, and there is a $25 charge for encoding. Free software is available to convert a playable DVD to the format required by the Urbana LAC.  Instructions can be found here.  Submitted items may be picked up within one month of submission.  If not picked up, items may be destroyed.  Videos will normally be published within two weeks, at the time the next council meeting is published, or within three business days if time-sensitive, and broadcast for two weeks.

Note that Powerpoint presentations are not videos.  There is software available to convert Powerpoint presentations to videos with sound, but that would be the responsibility of the submitting entity.

How to create a LAC mpg file from a playable DVD

Bulletin Board Announcements

Bulletin Board Announcements may be submitted by City residents or City community members and will typically be published within 3 business days of submission and run for up to 30 days.  Each announcement should be submitted as a Microsoft Powerpoint file with a single slide and emailed to LACslides@ci.urbana.oh.us.

An announcement submitted in any other form, such as a paper announcement, must be brought to the City of Urbana Finance Department along with $25 to cover the cost of converting the announcement to the proper format.   The Champaign Community Library has a dozen computers with Microsoft Powerpoint, USB ports, and internet connectivity.  These computers are available to create and email the announcement, thereby avoiding the $25 charge.

Types of announcements accepted include:

• Community Events
• Non-Profit or Charitable Events
• Religious events and activities that are designed to be “community events”, such as community memorial services, baccalaureate services, and community Thanksgiving services.

Types of announcements not accepted include:

• Those containing inappropriate material
• Commercial advertisements
• Those of a political nature
• Those that pertain mostly to the submitting organization

Procedure to Submit Bulletin Board Messages

Bulletin Board slide announcements can be viewed on Local Access Channel Bulletin Board Slides.