Newbury recently approved an expanded budget to fund some upgrades to Triton’s news station, Viking Television, or as it’s better known, VTV.

“The town of Newbury at their town meeting approved an expenditure of $80,000 from their cable subscription revenue,” said Robert Lathrop, the VTV teacher. “They have built up some reserves, and they approved $80,000 out of those reserves to fund some equipment upgrades here at the school.”

    VTV films and streams many important town events including school committee meetings, sports games, and concerts. Many of these events air on local cable, which brings some money to the town. The equipment upgrades this expenditure covers will greatly improve VTV’s ability to directly broadcast events to local cable.

    “Those [upgrades] include video and audio equipment in the library that will allow us to broadcast our school committee meetings, stream them, and also cable cast them live,” said Lathrop.

    “In addition to that, we’re getting a portable video production rig that we can take around to different rooms in the school to broadcast live,” said Lathrop. “Those would include the gym, the auditorium, the library, and out in the stadium for sporting events.”

    Triton’s current equipment allows VTV to live-edit events with a TriCaster, and upload those to its Youtube channel soon after the event.

    “The biggest motivation for the town was the ability the equipment gives us to plug in wherever we are […] and be able to send that signal live to cable television,” said Lathrop. Many events do go on the local cable, but usually not live.

    “We’ve been streaming and doing live broadcasting for years, but the towns would like to be able to turn on their TVs and turn on their cable channel and see live sporting events and live concerts,” said Lathrop. “That equipment will now allow the town of Newbury to see those things.”

“I’m so excited about the upgrades. Hopefully they will increase the quality of the episodes, and hopefully we can start taping more sports,” said sophomore Alexandra Flodman. Flodman is in her second year of VTV and is signed up to take the class next year. “ VTV has needed new equipment for a while so i’m happy we are finally getting it.

    “I think that’s actually great,” said Bridget Tucker, who doesn’t take VTV but is an avid watcher. “Instead of just being in front of the whole school they get to be in front of the whole town.”

    For the residents of Salisbury and Rowley, it might take a bit longer.

    “The towns of Salisbury and Rowley will have to do some configuring with their contracts with Comcast to be able to see that signal,” said Lathrop. “The signal will be available to all three towns but not all three towns will be able to see it until they make arrangements with Comcast.”

    These upgrades will most likely start to be used next fall.