A Message from the Director
Hello everyone, welcome to the Hadley Media webpage on the town website. I'm truly honored to be your Media Director in serving such a vibrant, unique, and welcoming community. Questions? Concerns? Ideas? Want to contribute? Create your own show? Feel free to reach out to my office at 413-584,1203 or alamarche@hadleyma.org. My door is always open, below is my Annual Report for 2022.
2022 Annual Report:
First and foremost, I would like to thank the Hadley community for welcoming me and letting me be a part of your community. I feel very lucky to be working in a vibrant, unique, and welcoming community. I also want to thank all of my fellow department heads for letting me be a part of the Town of Hadley team. I’m very delighted and inspired to be working with many great people including some who have been serving the town for many years.
Now, getting down to business. Back in July and August of 2022, many of us know about the abrupt departure of both former employees of Hadley Media, with media coverage being delayed for some time. Which meant I had some rebuilding and restructuring to do since day one. It took some time, it came with some technical nightmares and a lot of going back to the drawing board. Even though we still have a long road ahead, I am happy with the progress so far. Almost immediately, I started live broadcasting sports and increased our meeting coverage tremendously. This was done by implementing different technologies that we’ve since acquired and have already had.
I’m pleased to welcome our new Production Assistant, Abi Morton to the department, along with intern Cassidy Fyden from Hopkins Academy. Even though they have been here for a short amount of time, I’m impressed with their positive energy, willingness to learn, and their can-do attitude. I want to thank Superintendent Anne McKenzie and Ruthann Fitzgibbons for identifying students to take on internships at Hadley Media. I’m happy to start my tenure with the Town of Hadley to institute a partnership with the schools, which I hope will continue to grow.
This is just a slither of the accomplishments since I came aboard, and I hope to report many more moving forward. At this point, I would like to provide a five-year comparison of our YouTube Channel analytics from 2018 to 2022 along with January and February of 2023.
YouTube Analytics
Funding is going to be crucial in the coming years due to the reduction in cable revenue from Charter contributed by cord cutting, which is a nationwide issue. In July of 2022, streaming entertainment hit 50% of all entertainment consumption for the first time in the United States. You can tell by the chart below which explains how funding and subscribership has been looking over the past six years. Numbers since 2011 can be requested by contacting me, my contact information will be in my signature. I would be more than happy to set up an appointment with any resident who wishes to learn more about funding Hadley Media and how it will and could be funded in the future.
Currently, our sole source of funding is from Charter Cable Revenue, this does not include internet revenue. Since TV-5/Hadley Media has been incepted, the budget was 100% Cable revenue without tapping into the general fund. Even though some years, revenue has gone up, subscribership has gone down. At this point in time, I do not expect to see any increases in our cable revenue coming into the department anytime soon. In the coming years, expect conversations to happen to discuss the financial health of the department and modernize how we are funded so this valuable service continues for many generations to come.
I appreciate everyone reading this and if anyone ever has any questions, please feel free to reach out.
Respectfully Submitted,
Alexander D. LaMarche
Director, Hadley Media
413-584-1203