The 11-year Austin Music Network experiment

Like many Austin bands whose videos it aired, the 24-hour local music channel didn't break through

When you write for the features department of a newspaper (“the women’s pages”), you don’t get respect from the rest of the newsroom unless you do some real reporting. I didn’t have to look hard for that type of story- the Austin Music Network came looking for me. The controversial access channel devoted to the live music scene was a year old when I joined the Austin American-Statesman in 1995. It was the bane of my beat, covering telecommunications subcommittee meetings at City Hall. I don’t know how full-time reporters do it.

To most remote control commandos, Channel 15 was just a flash of light, sound and color on the access TV straightaway they raced through in search of cop shows, sitcoms and familiar faces. But that blip became the focal point in a late ‘90s fight between those who saw a 24-hour local music channel as an invaluable resource that set Austin apart, and those who held it up, like a $300 screwdriver, as an example of frivolous government spending.

In the middle was the City Council, which approved almost $5 million over 11 years to fund an Austin Music Network that was watched by slightly more people than their Thursday meetings on the city’s access channel.

People had been complaining about the "there's no programming like no programming" philosophy, and cost of the Austin Music Network, since about a year after it debuted on April 1, 1994 as a city economic development project. What did the city get for its money?

It was hard to tell. Defenders claim the network was understaffed and that expectations should be lowered unless the budget increased. Detractors said it was unwatchable. Both groups had a point. But as the only channel of its kind in the country, AMN reinforced Austin's reputation to the world as a city that truly valued its musicians. The heart was in sync, even if the video sometimes wasn’t.

"The Austin Music Network is the licensing fee that the city has to pay to call itself 'the Live Music Capital of the World,' " said Kevin Connor, the radio deejay who chaired the Austin Music Commission during the 2003 fight to save the network. But critics (AKA taxpayers) called the channel’s cheap, locally-made videos an embarrassing waste of money. For every professionally-made, major label funded video, like this one by Kacy Crowley or this by the Wagoneers, there were 10 that were enjoyable only to the band and its parents. That anybody could have their video played on Ch. 15 was a wonderful thing to some and an outrage to others.

AMN was created to drive viewers out to local clubs to see live music. But that didn’t seem to happen, as anyone who witnessed dwindling crowds for such Austin heroes as Lou Ann Barton, Billy Joe Shaver and Jimmie Dale Gilmore would attest. In the slumping late ‘90s, the only local club acts that could consistently pack ‘em in were the Scabs of Bob Schneider and KLBJ-FM pets Storyville, Monte Montgomery and Vallejo. Live band videos, like this one of Soulhat, did not translate the excitement of seeing them at the Black Cat.

AMN’s most useful show in the early years was “Check This Action”, but after the network went from six hours a day to 24 in 1996, there were 23 1/2 more hours to fill every day. Someone counted 17 repeat videos for every new one aired.

Quite a few had their shot to turn AMN around, including Eddie Wilson of Armadillo fame and SXSW co-founder Louis Meyers, but professional TV is hard for a glorified access channel and the plug was pulled in Sept. 2005.

Vowing to run channel 15 with no city funding, Connie Wodlinger’s Music & Entertainment Television got the contract in ‘05 and interviewed 250 hopefuls for its veejay team. With about a dozen investors, including Time Warner, which took a 15% stake, “ME TV” improved the quality of content in it’s $14,000 a month studio in the old Cinema West building on South Congress. But after three years, several million dollars, and Bobby Bones as on-air talent, ME didn’t make much more of a ripple than its city-owned predecessor. In 2008, the staff was laid off, except for a couple folks to push “play.” There had been nothing but failure on Ch. 15 for 14 years.

"We had a somewhat charmed existence in the beginning," said Ronnie Mack, AMN’s first general manager in ‘94, who said the idea to designate an access channel for music came from board members of ACTV. They sold it to City Council, which earmarked about $200,000 to the Austin Music Network that first year. That was a bargain for all the good national press.

By its third year, however, the chorus of "great concept, poor quality" had the City Council scrambling for a way to save it. AMN program director Ester Matthews, a former assistant to ex-Councilman Max Nofziger (the network's key backer), was the scapegoat, but she had been hired for marketing and promotions, not programming. She was thrust into that role in October '95, when AMN was on the air only six hours a day. When it went to 24 hours in ‘96, the lack of expertise was glaring. ''We've never had a general manager from within the industry... (who) has the skills in radio and television to pull it together,'' Austin Music Commissioner Carlyn Majer said in a 1997 meeting.

"Where's that one person out there who can turn this thing around?," Mayor Pro Tem Gus Garcia asked.

Television producer Rick Melchior, who’d created an all-music channel in Atlanta, seemed to be the right hire in September 1998. Melchior commercialized the station, created segments like “What’s the Cover?” and “rock.alt,” and projected that AMN would be self-sufficient within three years. But in his first year the network had expenses of $788,000 against $75,000 in advertising. Melchior had overestimated the community’s support of local music. In the late ‘90s it was more about the touring acts. Still is.

Eddie Wilson’s nonprofit Kenneth Threadgill Music Project got the next crack in 2000, moving the network to portable buildings behind his Threadgill’s restaurant on North Lamar. Wilson hired former radio programmer Woody Roberts, his friend since the Armadillo days, and went through another $1.5 million in city funding over the next two years. Although there was new energy- and lotsa new videos, hurray!- eyebrows were raised when the expenditure report put Roberts’ salary at $75,000 a year, more than double what Melchior made. Wilson reported that Roberts worked six months for free, but all anybody saw was “75K,” a bad optic since the network raised only $4,225 through sponsorships and benefits that year.

"I knew it would be a constant battle when I took this job," said Roberts in 2002. "I did a little math the other day and found that the average length of time that a person has managed the Austin Music Network is 21 months. I'm at 21 months now." He made it to 22, voluntarily stepping down to cut costs.

Austin music fans found themselves as conflicted as a dentist watching porn. They knew the network was a great idea for Austin musicians, but couldn't put their hearts into supporting the crooked-teeth programming that reflected so little of the excitement of live music in town.

The troubled network’s final destination was a rent-free, city-owned building near the old airport. It was a suitable location for a venture that carried a lot of baggage and never took off.