September 26th, 2006 11:00pm

By Tamara Miller and Alex Miller

They're the local cable channels we tend to skip over on the way to "Grey's Anatomy" or the Broncos game. Some of it is decidedly low-tech, while other programs look pretty slick for local TV.

Then again, this is Vail, where even the county government has lots of money to throw at its very own channel, eco-TV. Also in the local lineup are two resort-oriented formats, TV8 and Plum TV, as well as Channel 5, a humble nonprofit that specializes in government meetings.

Four stations may sound like a lot for a county of around 50,000 that's mostly rural, but media tends to follow money, and Plum and TV8 are most certainly commercial ventures in a growing market. According to Craig Struve of TV8, the channel did record business last year and is moving into a brand-new studio facility in Avon that cost well over a million dollars.

While Plum and TV8 are direct competitors on the resort side, eco-TV and Channel 5 are primarily government access channels aimed at getting the word out about local government doings. Channel 5 has been around for years, eking out a living as a nonprofit and offering valuable - if yawn-inducing - coverage of town council meetings from Vail, Avon and Minturn. The new kid on the cable block is eco-TV, set to go live sometime in the next few weeks.

To Lewis Canfield, Plum TV's general manager in Vail, the growing number of local TV outlets locally is being played out in markets all over the country.

"It's an interesting time to be in local TV," Canfield said. "Cable TV was the beginning of specialization - golf and tennis channels, sci-fi and the like - that chipped away at broadcast. Doing local really well is just an extension of that."

Plum TV was started just a few years ago, when Nantucket Nectars founder Tom Scott cashed out of the juice biz and launched the first Plum affiliate on Nantucket. Scott's vision of local TV focuses exclusively on markets where the views are spectacular and so are the real estate values. With Colorado outlets in Vail, Aspen and Telluride and the East Coast represented in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the Hamptons, Plum TV plans to add another couple of resort locations in the coming year, Canfield said.

Maui, anyone?

Happy Valley TV

Unlike Plum TV, TV8 was born locally, the brainchild of former Vail Associates chief George Gillett - himself a veteran of the TV business. TV8 is affiliated with Resort Sports Network - a Maine-based outfit that claims to reach 100 or so resort markets nationwide - but its prime directive is promoting Vail and Beaver Creek.

"The target market is the guests," Struve said, adding that hard news isn't in the mix. "We're going to give the guest what they need to know to go skiing and enjoy themselves."

Even though TV8 is a division of Vail Resorts, Struve said it has to maintain its own bottom line while still serving the needs of the mountain.

"The goal is to make a profit," he said. "If you want to grow, you need to bring in revenue.

On that score, TV8 delivers. Struve said the channel has had four straight years of record profits, recently building a new facility in Avon he said cost "over a million dollars."

While TV8 focuses almost solely on information for visitors to the Vail Valley, Plum TV delivers a more eclectic slate. Like TV8, there's the obligatory morning show with weather, ski conditions and the like. But Plum tosses in a few more general-interest programs on business and politics under the assumption that people who own homes in Vail or Martha's Vineyard are interested in such things even while on vacation.

Struve called Plum TV's lineup a "hodge-podge" and questioned the value of programming he said people can see elsewhere.

But while Plum TV may show an interview with Donald Trump, it also gets down-and-dirty locally by taping and broadcasting high school football games - something Canfield said Plum does in all its markets.

"It's the greatest thing to do for local communities, and it's been very successful," he said.

Canfield also said Plum TV is starting to recognize the appeal of particular topics across its respective markets. Affordable housing, he said, is an issue as relevant in Vail as it is in the Hamptons.

"The themes in all of our markets are similar," he said, naming things like clean water, the environment, responsible development and the local scene versus the tourist scene.

Local politics

When it comes to local, though, it's tough to beat Channel 5 - unless the notion of watching a four-hour town council meeting doesn't appeal. But even if the audience is limited, the channel gets the majority of the revenue from the towns whose meetings it covers, and it plans to use that base to expand its programming lineup.

"What we want to do is become more of a hybrid station with programming that's entertaining," said T.J. Brown, president of the board of directors for Channel 5. "Once we develop some revenue, we want to create a local show in the morning with local weather, traffic, sports and news."

Although Brown and station manager Jon Donofrio wouldn't put an exact date on when their morning show might begin, they hinted that it may be going live sooner rather than later.

What's baffling to them is why Eagle County decided to launch its own station when they could have partnered with Channel 5 for local content.

"I really wish we could have joined forces," Brown said. "I went and presented that to the county administrator."

But next he heard, Brown said, the county was moving ahead on its own, saying it had $200,000 in franchise fees from the cable companies.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "And by the way, $200,000 isn't going to cover cameras, three people on staff, the equipment, the studio and all that."

Justin Finestone is Eagle County's communications director, brought in earlier this year from the Phoenix area largely, it appears, for his experience in television. He won a local Emmy for his work broadcasting the meetings of the Maricopa County supervisors' meeting. The key to making government access TV watchable, he said, is to make it look good.

"Our goal is to produce informative, professional programming so that when you flip from Channel 9 to Channel 18, you don't see a big difference in quality."

An advance look at some of the shows in production bears Finestone out: They look good - superior to anything you'd expect to see on a local government channel. To be fair, Brown said he'd be on a higher level, too, if Channel 5 had "a whole lot more money."

Finestone said eco-TV will have a monthly magazine-style show called "Inside Eagle County" featuring the county commissioners, as well as three new talk shows each month. County commission meetings will be broadcast live.

Despite the seeming similarities, Finestone said he doesn't see a duplication of services between eco-TV and Channel 5.

"We are Eagle County specific," he said. "We aren't out to compete with them."

But while Brown said he got no response from the county, Finestone said he's open to working with Channel 5 and hasn't heard from them. That point is academic now, though, since eco-TV is set to launch on its own.

It remains to be seen whether county residents will skip "Battlestar Galactica" for the "Arn Menconi Show" or "Survivor: Guatemala" for Eagle County commissioner meetings. Finestone said his experience points to more interest than one might think.

"We got a lot of comments in Maricopa County," he said. "If we ever went offline, the phones would light up."

Who's watching?

There are no stats yet for how many people might watch eco-TV. TV8 says it reaches a subscriber base of about 18,000, but doesn't offer any idea of how many of those people are watching other than to say that the channel is the "most used source of information for ski-related activities." Plum TV claims to reach an audience of 97,500.

Some locals asked about whether they watched any of the local channels said they routinely skip past them. But others, like Mike Hardaker of Avon, said they watch them often.

"Mostly I watch them in the winter, like seven days a week," Hardaker said. "I really like Plum - they've got great programming. But TV8's great as well."

Hardaker said he likes the fact that TV8 now has the MTV high-definition show so he can watch all the live concerts. In winter, he said he flips back and forth between Plum and TV8.

"Both of the morning programs are good, real informative," he said, adding that he doesn't watch Channel 5.

For some advertisers, especially those targeting tourists, local TV is an essential part of their marketing mix. Howard Leavitt, who owns the Media Safari advertising agency in Avon, said it works best in winter, when people are lingering longer in their hotel rooms getting ready.

"Local TV loses a lot of its strength in the summertime," he said.

Comparing TV8 to Plum TV, Leavitt said the former has a more established track record as well as some shows that work better for his advertisers. But Plum has more affordable rates, he said, - at least for now.

"It's a really nice alternative to TV8, with some different programming," Leavitt said. He added that he thinks the TV side of the local media market is a long way from saturated - unlike other areas such as print and radio.

If Leavitt is right, there may be room for yet more local cable channels - and there are rumors that another is on the way. That's good news for a guy like Leavitt, whose business relies on helping clients negotiate the local media market.

For the rest of us, well, choice is good, right? But as Leavitt points out, TV and a community full of active, athletic people aren't exactly a match made in heaven.