WSTO News — WSTO TV

Derek Westby

WSTO TV wins four awards at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest 2024.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

STOUGHTON, WI: WSTO TV wins four awards at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest 2024.  Stoughton’s Community Media Center, WSTO TV won an Achievement Award and three Merit Awards in the regional competition open to community media centers in the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas.  All of the programs that WSTO TV submitted won an award.

There are three levels of awards including Excellence, Achievement and Merit with around 25% of 179 total submissions not receiving any awards.  WSTO TV is very proud of the awards received this year.

Achievement Award: WSTO TV’s lone Achievement Award went to Fresh Faces: Eat at Joe’s which was produced in February of 2023 and was the inaugural episode of the Fresh Faces series on WSTO TV.  Fresh Faces is a program designed to introduce new businesses to the Stoughton Community.

Merit Awards: WSTO TV won three Merit Awards for the City of Stoughton Curbside Leaf Collection PSA, Discover Downtown Stoughton: Water Street Tavern, and Stoughton Merchants Baseball vs the Lake Mills Grays from 6/18/23.

“We are very proud of the content we produce for our viewers here in the City of Stoughton and it took a great deal of debate to narrow down the submissions to only four,” remarked Derek Westby, who oversees the staff of WSTO TV.  “WSTO TV produced almost 200 programs for TV, Social Media and Internal use in 2023, many of which we considered submitting.  We look forward to the quality of content we will be producing in 2024!”

WSTO TV Staff will be attending the Best of the Midwest Media Fest Banquet on May 16th, 2024 in Eau Claire to collect the awards.

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Click the image to watch on YouTube

Click the image to watch on YouTube

Click the image to watch on YouTube

Click the image to watch on YouTube

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TDS Moves Stoughton Channels to 980 & 981 Effective 8/31/23

For Immediate Release:

TDS TV Moves Stoughton Channels to 980 and 981 on August 31st.

The staff at WSTO TV were notified by TDS Telecommunications Inc., Director of Content Management Kristi Ramsey that effective August 31st, 2023 the Stoughton Channels will move from Channel 12 and 20 to 981 and 980 matching the channels that Spectrum has assigned each channel. TDS will continue to carry the channels in high-definition but the move will make it more difficult to find the channels as they will no longer be amongst the larger broadcast channels such as NBC15, WKOW 27, PBS Wisconsin, FOX47 and Channel 3000.

With just 35 days notice the window to notify viewers of the change is difficult. WSTO will continue to populate our SmartTV and Smartphone apps with local content for those that find that easier to view content as well as our YouTube Channel.

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WSTO TV wins TWO Merit Awards at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest

WSTO TV continues the tradition of producing award-winning community media pieces bringing home two more awards from the Best of the Midwest Media Fest.

Wisconsin Community Media hosts the Best of the Midwest Media Fest open to any media producer or community media center in the area covered by Wisconsin Community Media and the Midwest Region of the Alliance for Community Television including Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. With over 190 entries from this area WSTO TV is proud to announce that they won two Merit Awards for productions created in 2022. Wisconsin Community Media considers a Merit award as a “Bronze” level award with Excellence being “Gold” and Achievement being “Silver”

The first program awarded was one of the many Shop Local Promos created to help draw people to shop in Downtown Stoughton for the holiday season. This program was edited by Derek Westby with camera work by Spencer Meier. This video is available on YouTube as well as on all of our apps in the Shop Local category.

The second program awarded was produced in cooperation with the Stoughton Area School District for Veterans Day 2022. The video was created with only a few weeks notice to provide Stoughton Area School District Students a glimpse into the stories of Stoughton Area Veterans. Several area veterans were interviewed and collectively told a story. This project was recorded and edited by Spencer Meier with the assistance of Abbey Sharp of the Stoughton Area School District. This program is available on YouTube as well as on our apps. Long-form interviews are of each veteran are also available. This was a very special project and WSTO is very proud of it.

WSTO TV staff will accept the awards at the Best of the Midwest Media Fest Banquet and Show on May 4th, 2023 in Madison, WI.

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WSTO TV Launches SmartTV and Mobile Device Apps

To keep up with the changing technology WSTO TV launched a full array of smart apps to allow a much wider viewership on WSTO TV. WSTO TV worked with TelVue Corporation to launch a WSTO TV app for nearly every device. Those interested in local events, local government or local businesses can watch WSTO TV on the SmartTV Platforms of Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV and Android TV as well as any mobile device that is either Android or Apple iOS.

The applications feature a simulcast of our over-cable channels as well as on-demand content such as government meetings, school and community concerts and local interest programming. WSTO TV’s new programs are also available on the apps including Council Catch-Up, Discover Downtown Stoughton and Fresh Faces.

For more information check out the How to Watch section of our website.

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WSTO TV and the Stoughton Information Channel are now on TDS TV

WSTO TV and the Stoughton Information Channel are now on TDS TV in full HD! WSTO TV is located on TDS channel 12 (1012 in some areas) and the Stoughton Information Channel is on TDS Channel 20 (1020 in some areas) also in HD.

TDS is a communications company headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. WSTO Staff are excited to be broadcasting on this network as they are allowed to use modern equipment sending high-definition signal and broadcasting in high definition on channel numbers that are easy to find.

WSTO TV and the Stoughton Information Channel will continue to broadcast on Spectrum Channels 980 and 981 as well as live streaming online in HD at https://www.wsto.tv/live into the future. WSTO also is planning on developing smart tv applications to make it easier for non-cable users to watch WSTO on their televisions in their living rooms. As they say in the industry, stay tuned!

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WSTO Restructures Broadcast Channels

The Stoughton Community Media Channels have been restructured. Video content produced by WSTO Staff will air exclusively on WSTO TV (Spectrum 981 / TDS 12) making way to launch Stoughton’s Information Channel on Spectrum 980 and TDS 20.

This change in the channel lineup reflects the discontinuation of sports coverage and the need to get information out to the citizens of Stoughton. Many community media centers throughout the state now include dedicated information channels.

The Information Channel will house information about city services, city career opportunities, local and non-profit events going on around Stoughton.

This channel is open to all non-profits in the City of Stoughton’s municipal boundaries free of charge.

For more information on this new channel contact Spencer Meier, Media Manager at smeier@ci.stoughton.wi.us or by calling WSTO at (608) 873-7523

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