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ShareLAWRENCE, Kan. — When Joe Comparato needed more space for TheCoolTV, the fast-growing, all-music-video network he started in his Lawrence recording studio, a building off 23rd Street became available.
In classic start-up fashion, he and his band of young hipsters skipped the remodeling step and just moved in. As a goof, they decided to leave the old sign in front that read “Diamond Cabinetry.”
“People would come in, still thinking we were a cabinet shop,” Comparato says. “This guy brought in this beautiful piece of maple and said, ‘I was hoping you could mill this. How long will it take?’”
Chief engineer Charlie Lamb happened to be standing there when the woodworker walked in. He explained that this was now the home of TheCoolTV and that, from a nerve center in the middle of the country, TheCoolTV was piping 24-hour music videos to dozens of cities. It was just like the MTV we grew up with, only better, more locally focused and featuring live performances that artists allowed TheCoolTV to film at top concert venues.
Best of all, Lamb said, you wouldn’t need cable to watch TheCoolTV; it was a free TV station that broadcasters were starting to carry as a secondary digital station. It would soon be in the Kansas City-Lawrence market. Then, all you’d need was a pair of rabbit ears and a digital TV set or converter box and you could watch TheCoolTV.
Comparato says, “And at the end this guy said, ‘That’s great. So … if I leave this with you, how long will it take to mill?’”
People like to say that MTV isn’t MTV anymore. But Comparato, a University of Kansas grad with 25 years in the video and music production business, argues that the original idea behind MTV wasn’t sustainable.
“MTV was cookie cutter,” he says. “They decided, ‘We’re going to start in New York and program this music channel, and everyone’s going to like it because we say they will.’ You can’t do music that way.”
TheCoolTV takes a different approach. It is a chain of 71 local TV stations, and growing, that draw on a common core of content — basically, it’s music radio with pictures. A lot of the content, however, isn’t music video provided by the labels. It’s concert video produced by TheCoolTV, or rather Cool Music Network. That’s yet another of Comparato’s businesses, out of which the TV idea sprang.
In the back of the cabinet shop is what remains of the Cool Music Network, which is being folded into TheCoolTV: a roomful of CDs, DVDs and flash-drive wristbands containing digital files of live performances by the bands.
“You can leave the show with a copy of what you saw,” Comparato says. “Our motto is connecting bands with fans.”
A few years ago, Comparato and his three business partners realized that there would soon be a demand for new digital TV stations and that this would be a natural use for the concert videos. Bands and labels quickly signed on, hoping it would be another way to connect with fans.
The catalyst was the impending 2009 government-mandated switchover from analog to digital TV. Most viewers know that DTV made high-definition programs possible, but it also meant broadcasters could put multiple stations on the same signal and demand that local cable companies carry not just the primary station but the secondary ones as well.
With names like Qubo, Bounce and This TV, these secondary stations offered time-tested formats like retro TV and classic movies.
Most of these new stations offer little if anything that’s local (other than the commercials). TheCoolTV, however, is tailored to each city where it’s carried. Each affiliate has its own playlist that reflects TheCoolTV’s research into the community’s musical tastes, favorite genres and hometown bands.
“We control a national television network out of this room,” Comparato says as we walk into the modest control studio on the second floor. The company has developed proprietary methods for compressing video, transferring it to servers and monitoring every Cool outlet from Lawrence.
TheCoolTV’s format is simple: Two chart-toppers an hour, plus classic videos and live performances. There are some regularly scheduled retro and genre blocks.
“‘80s-at-8’ is by far our most popular music block,” he says.
There are also hip-hop and metal shows and a half-hour of viewer requests every evening.
The reach of TheCoolTV is 52 million households and growing — about half the U.S. It sounds impressive, but TheCoolTV, like most secondary channels, continues to fly beneath many viewers’ radar.
Partly that’s because the number of cable channels is already mind-boggling, partly because there are lots of options for watching music videos and partly because TheCoolTV does not make its programming available on the Internet.
It has not been a tabletop-smooth takeoff, either. TheCoolTV was dropped in Milwaukee after the host station there filed a lawsuit. In Kansas City, where TheCoolTV signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal to be a founding partner of Livestrong Park, it was unable to find a 24/7 home and had to accept a sublet from KSMO.
Bobby Totsch, the general manager of KCTV and KSMO, says he likes TheCoolTV but wanted to use its programs to plug holes in the KSMO schedule, mostly overnight and on weekends.
The secondary channel (62.2) went instead to Bounce, which features old movies and football games aimed at African-Americans.
Officially, Comparato says he’s delighted to finally be on the air in his own market and is confident that the KSMO experiment will lead to its own channel for Kansas City.
From time to time other people walk into this cabinet shop — industry people, visiting town and curious to know more about TheCoolTV.
“We do this from the unlikeliest place in the country,” says Comparato. “I always get asked, why are we here? And I have a standard answer: Because it’s where the Free State Brewery is.”
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WHERE TO WATCH
The easiest way to see TheCoolTV locally is to set your DVR for “Cool TV.” In some cities, TheCoolTV airs as a 24-hour secondary channel on digital TV. Go to thecooltv.com and click “How to Watch.”
