How to Get Your Own Show on Rye TV

Ever wonder how you could become the star of your own Rye Cable TV show? 

It's really quite simple if you are willing to put in the time, energy and effort. Here's how you can make it happen based on my own experience as host, writer and producer of Rye Eye on Travel, Theatre & the Arts, one of the Westchester area's newest weekly cable TV shows and perhaps the only one in Rye devoted to this topic.

My quest for my own TV show began with a phone call to the Rye Cable TV main line at City Hall (967-7242) where I left a message on the tape for Nicole Levitsky, Rye Cable TV boss, outlining my idea for the above- mentioned program. I left a second message for her, just in case, at the Rye Cable TV studios at Rye High School (967-7106).

Nicole got back to me shortly afterwards and invited me over to the studios for a face-to-face interview to discuss what I had in mind. She liked the idea because nobody else in Rye was talking about theatre, travel and arts, and I had the professional credentials to do a show along those lines. So she gave me the green light.

The next thing I knew, I was in the Rye Cable TV studios at Rye High School, facing a bank of cameras, hearing the words: "Lights, Camera, Action," with a student cameraman giving me the mimed countdown, "Five, Four, Three, Two, One" and suddenly I was talking into the camera, saying the words of my introduction:"Welcome to Rye Eye on Travel, Theatre & the Arts. I'm your host, Michael Iachetta. I'm a Rye resident at Water's Edge. But more relevantly, I'm a former nationally syndicated writer, columnist, editor, arts critic and more with  a major New York newspaper, now retired and still traveling and writing regularly for regional and national publications. And even more relevantly, for this show we're going to talk about…"

That was almost a year ago, many shows ago, shows that focused on subjects ranging from the best of Broadway (right now "Red," "Next Fall" and "A View From the Bridge" are the best dramas and "Come Fly Away, " "Memphis" and "Billy Elliott," "A Little Night Music" and "Sondheim on Sondheim" are the best musicals ) to cruising on the world's newest, largest, most innovative cruise ship, Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, a ship that cost around $1.5 billion dollars to build, carries around 5,000 passengers and has its own Central Park, ice-skating rink, carousel, rock climbing wall, zip line ride across the top decks, wave pool for surfing, an aqua show, a theatrical production of the Broadway musical "Hairspray," something like 17 restaurants and a lot more.

Everything I talk about on the show is based on personal experience backed up by the expertise that comes from having filed stories under deadline pressure from all over the world –from Italy's La Scala to London's West End, from Broadway to the Met—as well as having reviewed more than 200 cruise ships for the travel agent industry and profiled some of the biggest names in show business, from Streisand to Dylan, Sinatra to Pavarotti, the Beatles to the Stones, Edward Albee to Tennessee Williams. Even Elvis Presley before he left the building.

And yet I needed all that experience to survive my first Rye Cable TV show taping because I walked into that initial shoot with a timed and prepared 15-minute script thinking it could be fed into a TV monitor and I could read it. Only the monitor wasn't working. So I wound up reading from  the script, promising myself next time no script, just wing it and talk as though I was telling my theatre, travel and arts story to my Rye neighbors.

But even as I was thinking that, I placed my elbow down on the desk in front of me and felt it tilting upwards for the briefest of moments, me dreading it was going to tip over. It didn't.  I tried to keep the momentary terror out of my facial expression. And somehow I survived that initial Tuesday 4 p.m. "shoot" for a weekly show that now runs several times daily on Fridays.

As it turned out, coming up with the idea for the show and shooting it Tuesdays at 4 p.m. on a regular weekly basis is the easiest part of the whole operation. Because as part of the deal, you must supply your own compact discs for editing (about $1 per disc, two needed per show, with another to be on file at Rye Cable TV in case something goes wrong), and then you must learn how to go into the studio and record and edit your own show for TV viewing, pressing what seems like about a zillion confusing video panel recording buttons (confusing at least to this print dinosaur). Nicole or one of her associates gives you about an hour's worth of editing lessons and they are on call to help you with editing your first few shows. And, oh yes, you must also line up your own TV cameramen, director and crew with Nicole usually able to supply you with a list of potential student candidates.

That's where I got incredibly lucky because three of Rye High's most talented TV students –juniors Miriam Ward, Clay Essler and Chris Reifsneider –became involved with Rye Eye on Travel, Theatre & Arts almost from the outset. The talented Miriam, an aspiring film director, handles the behind-the-scenes control room and bails me out on the editing process. Clay, movie-star good looking and a potential TV news anchor, selflessly works either as cameraman or technical director, as does the brilliant Chris, who often comes in to the studio after school after a day that usually starts around 5 a.m. as  a member of the Rye High School crew  team. So those are my "Three Musketeers" who really make the show work. They usually give me hand signals –five, three, one –that tell me how many minutes are left in the taping so I know when to wind down the show to a close with a "Ciao for now, hope to see you next week, same time, same place." 

Off camera, Nicole, a University of Massachusetts Amherst grad, has done extensive TV corporate work as well a travel-related TV show that took her to the Nepals of the  world. She is going into her 12th year with Rye Cable TV. She is just back after a year's maternity leave, and she is always available for Rye Cable TV consultations, interviews and emergencies, as is her associate, Junius Hughes, a veteran TV cameraman and award-winning independent film producer. They supervise a studio that has around 20 producers of various shows, from Rye news to cooking to the latest  UN goings on, and from City Council to School Board meetings to Rye athletic events. They do all this in a studio that has gone digital in the past year with $220,000 worth of technical improvements underwritten by Verizon and Cablevision for public TV access. And they lend out cameras so you can take your show on the road.

That's a quick look at what it takes to get on Rye Cable TV. All in all, it has been quite an educational experience for me. Try it. You might like it. And you too could become a local TV star of sorts and have your own Rye Cable TV show.

Rye Eye on Travel, Theatre & Arts airs Fridays at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Channel 76.