News

Host Beverly Mosher  (left) listens as Lunch Bunch members Paula Robinson, Nancy Aceto and Nancy Greenblatt discuss local restauraunts.  

By Ron Hayes

The show starts promptly at 8 a.m. as a cameraman holds up four fingers … three… two … one …
    “Good morning, Briny Breezes!”      
    And so begins another broadcasting day, live from BBC-8 world headquarters.
    As media empires go, Briny Breezes Cable is something less than imperial. The station airs only January through March. The morning show lasts only a half-hour, with repeats at 12:30 and 6 p.m., and only the 600 or so residents of this quaint mobile home community can find it on their cable channel 8.
    But what BBC-8 lacks in fancy graphics, reach and audience demographics, it’s made up for with endurance. Next year, the channel will mark 25 years on the air.
    Jack Taylor was there at the birth in 1988.
    “We’d just gotten a cable system, and Chuck Stimets, who was an engineer, asked if I had a camcorder to see if we could hook into the system,” he recalls. “We had no idea what would happen.”
    Taylor fetched his Panasonic VHS Recorder and shot some footage of a neighbor lady hanging out clothes. Stimets wired the camera to the cable and, lo and behold, a neighbor lady hanging out clothes appeared on the screen.
    The residents of Briny Breezes have been hanging out on BBC-8 ever since.
    The old Panasonic camcorder has been retired to a top shelf in the studio, but Taylor is still active, leading a crew of about 25 volunteers.

Camera operator Jene Marman (far left) takes direction from floor manager John LeGrow during filming.

    They work with three cameras now, and the daily programming is preserved for posterity on DVDs instead of videotapes, all neatly catalogued by date.
    “The corporation pays nothing,” says control room technician Chuck Foland. “But we’ve raised about $4,000 from residents’ donations to buy new cameras.”
    Of the 25 volunteers, about six are on-air anchors, rotating each morning to host a variety of guests. In February alone, BBC-8 said good morning to Chief Ray Carter of Boynton Beach Fire Rescue; Reid Scott of the state Attorney General’s Office, speaking on child abuse; and representative of FAU’s Geriatric Center on “Becoming an Informed and Effective Patient.”
    On Feb. 10, the host was Beverly Mosher, a 60-year resident, who welcomed the Lunch Bunch, a quartet of residents armed with local restaurant reviews. But first, a few words from General Manager Steven Best.
    “Even though the pool’s open, the heater’s down since yesterday morning,” Best told no-doubt disappointed viewers. “I’m hoping to get the part today.”
    The big news, however, was the post-Super Bowl theft of a TV from the community clubhouse. “I’m having all the doors and locks checked,” Best reassured residents.
    This is the sort of news that wouldn’t make news outside Briny Breezes; but inside, it’s the secret of the channel’s success. Local news, by locals, for locals.
    And now, the locals who lunch.
    Paula Robinson, Nancy Aceto, Charlene Murray and Nancy Greenblatt are “The Lunch Bunch,” four friends who paid their own tabs at three area restaurants and returned to tell about it.
    50 Ocean, the new second-floor eatery at Boston’s-on-the-Beach, was “really, really good, excellent.” Especially the warm gorgonzola steak salad and harvest salad with white vinaigrette.
    Lemongrass, a restaurant serving Asian cuisine on Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach was “good.”
    “It wasn’t the best tuna roll I’ve ever had,” one diner opined. “The tuna was a little bit tough. And the servers could have filled my water glass a little more often.”
    The big hit was Patio Delray on George Bush Boulevard. The parking was excellent, the chicken lentil soup delicious, and the owner couldn’t have been nicer, even swapping the half-sandwich/half-soup for a half-salad.
    “Absolutely wonderful,” they all agreed.
    Good Morning, Briny Breezes is supposed to sign off promptly at 8:30 a.m., but now it’s 8:35, and no one seems especially upset as Mosher squeezes in a final thought for the day.
    “Doing little things well is a step toward doing big things better,” she says.
    “I got that from a Chinese restaurant,” she confesses once they’re off the air. But it’s also a good description of BBC-8.
    Highland Beach provides live broadcasts of its commission and advisory board meetings on the county’s Channel 95, and occasionally runs public information videos.
    South Palm Beach offers its residents a scroll of local meetings and cultural events, also on Channel 95 and available throughout town, except in the Barclay condominium, which doesn’t carry Comcast cable.
    But only little Briny Breezes produces a daily show in season, while also broadcasting a nightly movie, corporate board meetings, regular Sunday church services from the auditorium, and the occasional special, such as a candidates forum before the Feb. 29 board of directors elections.
    Can the time be far off when BBC-8 starts covering a live New Year’s Eve ball drop? From the clubhouse roof, perhaps?
    “Nah,” laughs chief engineer Lee Godby. “Midnight comes at 10 o’clock here.”