In the 10 years of filming inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola and producing a series of award-winning films, director Jonathan Stack has worked with many inmates in a variety of circumstances and has witnessed the transformative power that storytelling has had in many of these men’s lives.  Now, in partnership with Louisiana State Penitentiary and the Louisiana Department of Corrections, Highest Common Denominator Media Group is embarking on creating the first prison-based television station in the nation to give inmates that chance to tell their stories.

Currently, a small, closed-circuit station in the prison broadcasts church services and occasional events to the prison population.  HCD Media Group will bring world-class training, programming, experts, and technology, and build a 3,000 square foot, state-of-the-art broadcast facility, to be called “Angola Studios”.  LSPTv will be run by a trained inmate staff and HCD Media Group will select storylines and supervise inmate filmmakers in production and post-production, guiding the creative process.  The final product will be packaged for internet audiences.

Some featured programming may include:  Fathering Behind Bars; Conflict Resolution; Social Responsibility: Getting Better and Getting Out; Life on the Outside: How to Make It; Getting Along/With God: Religious Relations in Prison, as well as judicial/educational programming, and sports and entertainment, featuring Prison Boxing, Prison Rodeo, Prison Football; and Prison Bands and Prison Talent (“Angola’s Got Talent”).

Click here to read the Ebonyjet.com interview with HCD about LSPTv.