The North TV family is still in shock over the sudden passing of Marge Kraskouskas two days before Christmas.
Marge was a longtime member of our board of directors and a past president. Before joining the board, she had served as the selectmen’s liaison to North TV.
It made sense since she was instrumental in the forming of North TV in 2006.
A year earlier, Comcast was seeking a 10-year renewal of their license. The company made it clear that they wanted to wash their hands of local programming and allow the town or a designee to operate channels 9, 15 and 98.
Marge wouldn’t allow them to simply walk away. As one of the selectmen’s representatives to the cable negotiating team, she insisted the company properly fund cable access. The new license and others that followed guarantee that 4.5 percent of the gross revenue the cable giant earns in town fund the local channels.
The equipment used by Comcast employees to produce local programming at the time belonged in a museum of television history and not in a studio. Marge let Comcast know that if they wanted to continue to operate in North Attleboro they were going to properly fund the cable access corporation’s capital needs.
Marge and the cable negotiating team held their ground and the cable giant agreed to provide over $370,000 in funds to upgrade the studio and equipment. Those funds were used to purchase and equipt the van North TV still uses 14 years later.
When Verizon entered town, they had to match that 4.5 percent and the additional $37,000 for every year of their license.
The license renewal with Comcast was signed in October of 2005 and North Attleborough Community Television was incorporated a few months later with town residents Bob Cote, Sherry Rhyno and Patricia Lush making up the first board.
I was working at the time with Marge at the Hockomock Area YMCA; she was the vice president of human resources and I was the marketing director. It was how I knew the organization was looking for an executive director.
Cote, Rhyno and Lush eventually hired me and the rest, as they say, is history.
The formation of North TV didn’t end Marge’s involvement, however. She made it a point to attend almost every meeting the board held since 2006. Marge was our Lou Gehrig.
When funding allowed us to add positions, she pushed for the addition of fulltime Education Channel and Government Channel coordinators. Marge wanted North TV to provide 24/7 programming on all three of our channels – a rarity in local cable access.
It was, therefore, fitting that the 2017 Alliance for Community Media’s annual conference was held in Boston. A couple of months earlier, we were informed that North TV was the recipients of the ACM’s National Award for Overall Excellence in Governmental Access…our industry’s equivalent of winning the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture.
Marge and John joined the North TV staff at the awards presentation. While the rest of us were enjoying appetizers and a few drinks, I observed Marge working the room talking to my peers across the country. I chuckled knowing she was challenging them with questions on how they operated and the type of programs they produced.
I thought of that when I read Jim Hand’s article the day after Marge’s passing and Ed Hurley’s recollections about being interviewed for the president’s position at the Y.
“It went great until I was interviewed by Marge,” he told his wife about the tough, probing questions she had asked.
The thing I’ll remember most about that evening, however, is when one of the evening’s hosts Jimmy Tingle lost his place and skipped over our category. Marge spoke up and let Tingle and the rest of the people in the ballroom know that North TV hadn’t been recognized.
Each of Marge’s 10 children told a similar story when I met them during the calling hours a few days after her passing.
I walked out of the funeral home that night and realized that when she corrected Tingle more than two years ago, she was simply defending us the same way she would one of her children.
It is why we’ll always consider Marge Kraskouskas the mother of North TV.
