Longtime Norway Paris Community Television Station Manager Steve Galvin is leaving Norway to take a job at a brand new station in Rockport called VSTV. While he will miss the local community here, he says he’s excited to try new things and focus on his creativity behind the camera.

NORWAY—While it’s hard for longtime Norway Paris Community Television (NPCTV) Station Manager Steve Galvin to dim the lights on his role at the local station, he looks forward to once again tapping into his creativity in Rockport.

Galvin told the Advertiser on Monday he was hired as the director of programming and chief engineer for a brand new TV station, VSTV, that will cover the Midcoast region, which he says is an under served area. For the remainder of this month, he will split his time between NPCTV and VSTV to smooth the transition for Norway’s Marston Street-based studio in his absence.

“I put my blood sweat and tears in building the station up and I just don’t want it to crumble,” Galvin says about NPCTV. “It’s going to be so hard leaving my peeps.”

But the partners at the new TV station made him an offer he couldn’t refuse—financially and creatively.

“It’s a good opportunity for me to do what really what I like to do and what my level of experience and talent should be doing,” Galvin says, adding he’s had two Emmy nominations for previous work he did in Maine arts programming. “I just can’t shoot town meetings week after week after week and not do something else. ”

Galvin wants to emphasis that his leaving NPCTV has nothing to do with some of the more recent issues with the station’s former board of directors and believes the new board is poised to take care of the station after he departs.

“My newest board I have now has been fantastic and I know they’re doing everything they can to see the station succeed and to retain me,” he says. “I think I’ve done my part here. I think I’ve taken it as far as I can. It’s time for somebody else to step up and time to move for me move onto different things.”

And Galvin has taken NPCTV far.

When he started more than 14 years ago as station manager, NPCTV was located in a closet in Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and there were only three shows that aired per week. Now NPCTV is on the air 24/7, with tons of local programming and some that’s imported, along with showing B films in between. There’s also the new studio facility in Norway, which includes a green room to film in and editing space.

“I’ve taken it a long way from where it was,” Galvin says. “I love serving the community here and I think local TV is really an important thing. It’s the last bastion of free media.”

But he’s ready for new things. VSTV boasts a recently built studio that Galvin estimates is five times the size of his current one, and he has all new equipment waiting for him to set up as he sees fit. He won’t be editing at his new gig, which frees him up to get out in the community, meet new people and explore the streets of Midcoast Maine. He wants to get back into doing programming on music and the arts and focus on one of his other passions—roller derby.

Galvin has been a longtime supporter of Maine Roller Derby, based in Portland, and is excited he will be near the Rock Coast Rollers in Rockland. He’s considered to be Maine Roller Derby’s “super fan” by many women in the league and has wanted to get the sport back on television like it was during its most recent hey day in the 1970s.

“Nobody else is doing that but they’re streaming it online, which is cool, but who watches that? Derby people. Not the general public, they don’t see it,” Galvin says about broadcasting the sport on TV. “I want to be the guy who brought it back on TV and I’d like to start right here in Maine.”

For his new gig, Galvin brings with him a boat load of experience in broadcasting, filming and some advertising, even though he got his degree in business management. He landed a job right after graduating college at a TV station in Massachusetts where he had a nationally syndicated music show called “On the Wire,” a hangman-style game show called “Alpha-bet,” an exercise show and a show focusing on the weird—his favorite episode was when he took a trip to Lizzie Borden’s house.

As for his two Emmy nominations, Galvin received those for Outstanding Director Live Arts/Entertainment when he worked for Maine Public Broadcasting Network as the director of musical and culture programming for its Maine Arts series.  In total, the show received 10 Emmy nominations, one of which was for the opening sequence, he says.

With his future with VSTV, who knows, maybe this time around, Galvin will take an Emmy home.

eplace@advertiserdemocrat.com