Residents who regularly watch Cranbrook City Council meetings live on SHAW will now have to wait 24 hours to take in the proceedings.

Meetings will now be broadcast on SHAW in Cranbrook on the Tuesday night following a regular Council meeting at 6 p.m., starting September 13.

City staff was notified by SHAW in late August that the broadcaster was unable to continue to provide live broadcasts of council meetings. SHAW TV’s corporate arm, based in Calgary, removed the required broadcast equipment locally.

“Our understanding is the equipment served two purposes,” said Chris Zettel, Corporate Communications Officer for the City of Cranbrook. “The equipment broadcast the meeting to our local viewers, but also worked as a transfer system between SHAW Cranbrook and Calgary for production purposes. As we understand SHAW is converting to an all digital platform here, the equipment was deemed unnecessary and was removed.”

Thanks to the audio/video equipment upgrade that occurred to council chambers at city hall earlier in the year, the cancellation of live broadcasts will cause minimal inconvenience to staff. SHAW currently broadcasts the meetings of seven different councils in the Kootenays. Until mid-August, only Cranbrook and Grand Forks were afforded live broadcasts. All seven Councils are now tape delayed.

“SHAW provided my office with assurances that council meetings will continue to be broadcast, on a tape delayed basis for the foreseeable future,” said Zettel. “We have many residents who regularly watch council and we are certainly pleased to see that SHAW will continue to provide this service.”

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