Our History


The Community Media Center is recognized nationally as a PEG center or Public, Education and Government station. There are approximately 2,000 centers across the country that are the result of local governments requiring cable companies to assign a small portion of their channel capacity to represent local communities' interests and desires in exchange for the use of the public's right of ways.

This important telecommunication resource is administered for the public, local service organizations and non-profit institutions by a non-profit Board of Directors representing the community. The media center allows local channels and the public to share resources and provide affordable access to broadcast local television and new media via the Internet.

Channel 19 - Carroll's public access channel - started in 1989 in a small studio in a bank building on Main Street. Then it moved to the basement of Carroll Community College beneath a gym and weight room.

In 2003, the CMC incorporated as a non-profit organization and became independent from the County. A founding governing board raised the funds and produced a plan to build the new 6,000 square foot media center.

In 2004, the CMC took a major stride with the completion of the new facility on Washington Road across the parking lot from the Carroll County Career and Technology Center (CCC&TC). The media center partners with CCC&TC in job shadowing and community project internship programs.

In September 2007, the Board of Directors developed a new Strategic Plan for the CMC. This plan has laid out ways to insure not just the continued viability of local community connections but for innovative ways to provide for robust programming content across multiple delivery systems such as the Internet.