Nevadan at Work: Got an act? Low-power TV channel owner has air for sale

At least once a month, Wyleaner Springfield makes the rocky, winding drive up Black Mountain to dump programming into the server attached to the television transmitter she leases.

Ideally, she would buy a commercial satellite dish with much more bandwidth than her Internet connection and handle everything from her office. But standard equipment at conventional TV stations is a distant luxury at Springfield's KEGS-TV, Channel 30.1, the low-powered and low-budget station she launched in October.

"I'm doing this the hard way," Springfield said. "But nothing good comes easy, at least that's what they tell me. I try to stay positive. I hope and pray that this flourishes."

The station goes under the banner of the SOTH TV Network, named after a dormant recording label she owns called Songs of the Heart.

But nobody would ever confuse it with ABC. The network is now mostly Springfield, who does not draw any pay due to skimpy cash flow, and about a dozen other people who pitch as volunteers in areas like programming and advertising.

Springfield acknowledges that few people have yet heard of her channel and its mix of infomercials, decades-old black-and-white reruns and occasional local programming. Only viewers subscribing to satellite service DirecTV or owning a digital antenna, the 21st century answer to rabbit ears, can get the signal.

The frequency and the transmitter are one of 18 across the country owned by Mako Communications of Corpus Christi, Texas. It had sat dormant until it was converted to a digital signal last year.

Springfield's route into broadcasting meandered at least as much as the road up Black Mountain. As the daughter of evangelists, she moved frequently while growing up. As an adult, she has been a pest exterminator, a school office worker, a gospel singer, a casino change girl, a Mary Kay saleswoman and homeless. Her main encounter with television came as the host of her own show on a different low-power station Mako owned.

"Some people come up to me now and say, 'When does your show come on?' " she said. "I have to tell them it's not a show, it's a channel. It's a whole 'nother ball game."

Question: Your background is all over the map, literally and figuratively.

Answer: I know. I'm an all-around American girl.

Question: How did that lead you into TV station management?.

Answer: I have been in entertainment for a very long time. Back in 2001, 2002, 2003, I had a television show called "The Wyleaner Show: Where the Rubber Meets the Road." That's my first step into television. Being an entertainer has always put me in a position to be in front of somebody.

My plan initially in 2008 was to bring my show back to the air. But since the channel it was on had gone off the air, I let it lie dead for a while. But I still wanted to bring the "Wyleaner Show" back and I started doing some research.

When I started networking and talking to different people, the opportunity just presented itself and I basically made the decision that I should try this, having my own channel and not just my own show.

Question: How much up-front investment did this take?

Answer: I would say under $50,000. Even for me to put this channel into Cox (Communications') cable lineup, it would cost me $1 million or more.

Question: The costs is much less than for a regular channel, but still quite a leap of faith when you don't have any broadcasting background.

Answer: What I decided to do what bring people aboard with the expertise to assist me. I am not alone. You can't be successful unless you surround yourself with successful people, of course.

Question: How do you divide your time?

Answer: I am spread so thin. I am (spread) so thin it's like the skin of my teeth. I'm on the phone, making calls, trying to sell airtime. If I need to kick in with program, I can do that. I built my own website. I do some of everything.

Question: Are you breaking even now?

Answer: No.

Question: About how much a month does it cost to run a low-powered TV station?

Answer: I takes $4,000 to $5,000 a month, but that is basically a minimum to cover keeping the signal on the air. There are other things involved, but that's the big baby.

Question: How do you cover that?

Answer: I'm paying for it with my own money and the help of my husband, friends and family. You know you find out who really loves you when you need some money. You find out who your friends are because when you start asking for money, folks start backing away.

Question: What does the programming cost you?

Answer: This particular programming I am airing now is all public domain, so it doesn't cost anything. "The Lucy Show," "Dick Van Dyke," "The Beulah Show," all those old, old, old shows. Otherwise, the programming is infomercials.

Question: About half of your programming is infomercials. What is the value of them?

Answer: They give me the program and I air it. When someone buys from the informercial, I receive a commission from the sale. That's how they all work. What I could do, if I wanted to, is air 24 hours of nothing but infomercials. I don't have to put anybody's programming on there.

Question: That sounds a lot easier than finding other programs.

Answer: I spend hours trying to find even public-domain programs, then download them into the system, encode them and then move them over. That was not something I click and it's done. It is a lot less stressful just to air 100 percent infomercials and call it a day. But the bills still have to be paid, and the bulk of the money is not going to be paid off of infomercials. But the infomercials are good for filling up the gaps in the schedule.

Question: What is your plan to improve the programming?

Answer: Ideally, the way the channel will work is if I sell all of the 30-minute time slots for $200 to $400 a week depending on the time and day, although some of the rates now are lower. I know SOTH TV is new. It's not Channel 13. But still, its television and you are going to get the exposure for your production, your talk show, your reality show, your children's show, whatever you put together.

My thought process is that this is the entertainment capital of the world and I know we have oodles and oodles of talent here. There should be no reason that there are not people out there with products they are dying to get on the air.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at
toreiley@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290.