LYNN — Lynn Community Television (LCTV) has received the 2025 Hometown Media Award from the Alliance for Community Media Foundation (ACM), a nonprofit organization committed to access to electronic media for everyone.
LCTV’s winning project, “2024 Beyond Walls Street Art Tour,” came out on top in the student division and was produced by co-op students Keylli Corado and Kimberly Esteban from Lynn Tech. The awards program was established to honor and promote community media, community radio, and local cable programs that are distributed on Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) access cable television channels.
Proceeds go to the ACM Foundation, which is exclusively used for facilitating, preserving, and promoting education in community media.
LCTV’s Director of Operations, David Riley Jr., shared his excitement for the recognition.
“Earning a Hometown Media Award is a huge honor for our community media center. This win confirms that we are producing some of the highest quality content in the country, not just the North Shore,” Riley Jr. said. “It’s also amazing to me because it was the students that won, proving once again that Lynn Tech and this city produce talent that shines at the national level.”
Beyond Walls has been working since 2017 to activate public spaces to strengthen communities through art, with their large-scale murals being the most recognizable aspect of their work.
The Lynn Tech Co-op program has been an integral part of community media in Lynn for 20+ years, according to the press release. Every year, the organization receives two students in their final year from Lynn Tech, who work for the organization instead of going to shop. This provides students with practical experience in the field, while also providing them further instruction than they may be able to receive in the classroom.
“LCTV is always proud of the work these students produce, and immediately the work Kim and Keylli produced was of great quality. When it came time to submit to the Hometown Media Awards, we wanted to make sure to highlight their work, and out of 3 submissions, theirs came out on top,” the organization said in the press release.
Nearly one thousand entries are submitted each year, and are evaluated on several factors resulting in over 100 award winners. A panel of over 150 judges from the industry evaluate the entries. Awards are then presented to the most creative programs that address community needs, develop diverse community involvement, challenge conventional commercial television formats, and move viewers to experience television in different ways.
“The Hometown Media Awards celebrate both the excellence of work and the diversity of media that appears on community channels being produced around the country. The ACM Foundation is proud of their achievement and of how they represent their communities in their work,” President & CEO of Alliance for Community Media Mike Wassenaar said.
