Renaissance Channel to provide live election night coverage

Release Date: 7/29/2002. Expired: 8/1/2002

Dickson County cable subscribers will have the opportunity to watch live television coverage of local election results for the first time ever.

The Renaissance Channel, Comcast channel 19, will present results of the Aug. 1 county general and primary elections live beginning at 7 p.m. election day.

“This is what local access is all about,” said Mark Denney, chairman of the Local Access Committee, the city’s governing board for programming on the local channel.

“There is great interest in this year’s elections, with an open county executive seat and the reduction of the county commission by half as well as the other local races,” said Bob Spencer, assistant executive director of The Renaissance Center which serves as the origination point for the Local Access Channel. “With the capabilities of our Multimedia staff and our-state-of-the-art, fully digital television studio, we believe we can offer unique opportunities to the people of Dickson County to get live television coverage that includes instant election results.”

Election night coverage will be anchored by Spencer, an attorney and former newspaper publisher who serves on the Dickson City Council, and Chris Norman, former editor of The Dickson Herald who is now senior marketing director for The Renaissance Center. Through a direct computer link to the Dickson County Election Commission office in Charlotte, the Renaissance Channel will be able to receive precinct results as quickly as they are posted in Charlotte and incoming numbers will be presented on the air by LeAnn Polk, director of events for The Renaissance Center.

“This will be a first for Dickson County, having the chance to get near-instant election results on television,” said Spencer. “With the success of the recent County Executive Candidate Forum, we want to continue to expand the Renaissance Channel’s role as a community service for the people of this area.”

The Aug. 1 election coverage will mark only the third live broadcast in the 15-year history of the Local Access Channel. The Renaissance Center broadcast live from its 1st Anniversary Celebration in August 2000 and last month carried live a forum featuring the four candidates for county executive that was sponsored by the Dickson County Chamber of Commerce, The Dickson Herald, WDKN-AM 1260, the Dickson County Republican Party and the Dickson County Democratic Party.

Election night coverage will begin at 7 p.m. when the polls close and the results of early voting are released, then continue until all of the county’s precincts have reported. The program will be available to Comcast cable television subscribers in Dickson County on channel 19.