What's New at Channel 3?

By the end of the summer, Central Louisiana should have a bright image to show travelers planning their trips or groups planning meetings and conventions.

After two years of struggle and delay, the Alexandria/Pineville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau voted at a special called meeting Tuesday to hire a Texas firm to complete a promotional video.

The 10-minute video will be primarily used as a lure for tourists, but it will include a one-minute segment touting the area as a good place for people to spend their retirement years.

The retirement segment will enable the bureau to get $10,000 of the bill for the video paid by state funds.

The work will take several weeks and must be completed by Aug. 31 in order to receive the state money.

Though it had the second highest price tag among five proposals, Channel Three Productions of Richardson, Texas got the job because of its technical quality.

The other four companies were from either Rapides or Grant Parishes.

The production company will be paid $14,900 to prepare and edit the video and to make 5,000 compact discs and 500 VHS tapes.

The video will be sent to groups and individuals who request it when considering visiting or meeting here.

About 80 percent of the video work has already been shot under a separate contract with KJA Communications of Alexandria.

While the final vote on the contract was unanimous, it took more than two hours to reach a consensus.

Three of the area firms made personal presentations to the board Tuesday, and Channel Three made a presentation by speaker telephone. Jigsaw Advertising of Colfax, which had the second-lowest proposal at $12,155, withdrew its proposal.

The long meeting included a 15-minute executive session in which members discussed previous relations with KJA, one of the four area firms that submitted a proposal but did not get the contract.

KLAX-Television's proposal was rejected due to its lack of experience in preparing medium-length videos.

Murdock Productions of Dry Prong had the least expensive proposal at $11,150.

Board members said they wished they had arranged a joint agreement for the video with city and parish governing bodies for and the Chamber of Commerce.

They were told that the bureau will own the master of its video and could conduct a joint project in the future.