Province 5 Television County Meath Ireland

http://www.p5tv.com/

Province 5 Television, formerly Navan Community Television , is a community access television station,  established in May 1991. It broadcasts on the Chorus platform relaying its programmes to over 2,500- 3,000 homes in the Navan area. In 1991, an amendment to Cable Management Ireland’s cable licence providing for community access programming was granted by the Minister for Communications in May on a pilot basis for 1 year. This amendment allowed transmission of community  programmes on the Navan cable system. Navan’s licence was indefinitely extended in 1992 again by Ministerial Order. 

Transmissions began on the 12^th May 1991 and has been on-going since then.

The Station is presently managed and operated by volunteers who produce 1-2 hours of community access television programmes each week. Each programme is broadcast 4 times daily, for the entire week. Province 5 Television also operates a community “Text Service” 24/7 on a dedicated “community tv” Chorus channel.

Members of Province 5 Television come  from all walks of life and freely give their time in all areas of programme production.  The station produces a varied selection of programmes ranging from Documentaries, News and Current Affairs, Irish language,  Music and Entertainment, Education, Sport and a number of these programmes are signed for the deaf and hard of hearing. Programmes are recorded  on Wednesday and Thursday nights and are now broadcast each night on Navan’s cable system, Chorus.

The original training of the group was organised and led by Kevin Mac Namidhe through the Centre for Adult and Community Education department in St. Patrick’s College Maynooth. The group first attained certification in Local Television Broadcasting which was followed with a Diploma in Community Television Broadcasting.

Today, in-service training is given at regular intervals to members throughout the year. Topics covered include television production , technical operations, scripting and presentation. Members are fully trained to professional level.

Apart from making weekly programmes for Navan, the group also made a series of 10 magazine type programmes for the community of Swords /Malahide in 1993 which was aired by the Chorus network in that region.

Other volunteers are long-term participants in the community station at both programming and management level. All those involved are keenly aware of the need for a community television service in this area.  P5tv received its Community Content Licence from the BCI in July 2006 and began Broadcasting on 7th December 2006 .