1st Place: Our Town Eau Claire
2nd Place: 48-Hour Video Project
3rd Place: City council meetings

Despite a rash of setbacks in the past year, the Chippewa Valley’s community television station (CTV) is still serving you as it always has. Changes in state law slashed its budget and Charter Cable moved the station to channels 96 and 97. But the programming you like is still there, including your top choice – the vintage promotional film Our Town Eau Claire. Technically speaking, CTV didn’t even produce the film (a guy named Robert M. Carson did in 1953), but CTV is the only place you can see the old timey footage of a 1950s Eau Claire, complete with superficial local history and gratuitous plugs for local dry cleaners and restaurants. You voted screenings of the various 48-Hour Video Projects into second place, which features local amateur moviemakers who, in the span of a weekend, shoot and edit a short film on a specified theme. Your votes slotted CTV’s relentless two-camera gavel-to-gavel coverage of local city council meetings into third place. – Mike Paulus