TV studio enhances web presence, wins awards
Lights. Camera. Action. Stewart Manor residents can host their own television shows or work as crew for a local community television channel.
For almost two decades Floral Park has been home to Four Village Studio (4VS), a local community television station serving the villages of Bellerose, Floral Park, South Floral Park and Stewart Manor.
The community station airs a variety of programs hosted by residents, a community billboard that provides updates with events in Stewart Manor and its own weather station. However, according to Operations Manager James Green, this is not the only goal of the studio.
“Our highest calling is not what the general public sees,” said Green.
According to the lead man of 4VS, the studio provides educational opportunities for high school and college students that is “invaluable” in terms of experience.
The studio, which can be seen on channels 18 and 28 to residents of the four-village area runs solely on these young volunteers who assist as crew members on programs that are shown Monday and Thursday nights from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. No tax dollars are added to Floral Park residents because of this volunteer staff.
Although they are not paid financially for their efforts, members of the studio staff are rewarded with an extended educational opportunity, according to Green, which could not be replicated in any schools in the area.
Those who worked as volunteers of 4VS have went on to careers in ESPN, NYRA, Cablevision and other areas of television.
“We know that we’re making a difference in people’s lives career-wise,” added Green.
Most recently, the 4VS website has been redesigned and enhanced to allow many new features to be accessed online. By visiting, www.4VS.org from anywhere, anyone can connect to see the community billboard, which is updated almost every day. Viewers to the site can also check out recent 4VS programs and real-time weather readings taken from Floral Park Village Hall.
“This has been a long-planned upgrade that took almost a year to accomplish,” said Green. “The site was rebuilt entirely in-house by staff members, with most of the credit belonging to Veronica Venturi.”
Green said, “I’m most pleased with the fact that, if needed, we can now generate emergency information to residents via many mobile web-enabled devices, even when power and cable television are down.”
The community-based studio has also been an award-winning studio for nearly every year its been in existence, according to Green. Collecting more than 30 awards in its history, 2014 once again proved to be an extremely successful year.
The Alliance for Community Media, which hands out awards to all areas of the Northeast including the New England and New York recently announced the winners for this year’s festival and 4VS was a big winner.
Submitting six shows for consideration, 4VS nabbed two first place awards and three second place awards against more than 500 entries of competition.
What makes this accomplishment particularly remarkable for the Floral Park studios is that many other studio in the New England and New York area run on big budgets with fully-paid staffs, according to Green.
“The quality of our programs, specifically technically is actually higher then we have any right to be producing,” he said.
The recognition of the staff’s hard work is something that proves to be “humbling, yet prideful,” according to studio’s headman and motivation for everyone to carry on through the hours and hours of production and editing time.
With a staff of 45 to 55 volunteers every year, 4VS has managed to air more than 1,200 programs in its history and about 80 shows a year. After almost 17 years of being part of 4VS, Green is still surprised by the amount of people who stop and give positive feedback on the programs, billboard and even music they heard on the station.
“In many ways, we think we are a reflection of the community,” said Green.
Stewart Manor residents have the option to visit the studio or volunteer by emailing 4VS@4VS.org or visiting www.4VS.org.
