Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Small Town News: KPVM Pahrump’ On HBO, A Docuseries About A Quirky Local TV Station In The Nevada Desert

In 1997, Vern Van Winkle had the crazy idea of starting a local TV station in Pahrump, Nevada, a town of around 37,000 people about an hour west of Las Vegas, in the desert close to the border with California. He felt there was a need to cover the news in the small town that was lacking from the stations in Vegas. KPVM (Channel 25 on your digital dial, 12 on cable) has been giving Pahrump its undivided attention ever since. Eighteen months ago, the goings on at the station started getting filmed by a documentary crew. Read on for more…

SMALL TOWN NEWS: KPVM PAHRUMP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A dog sleeps outside an office. In that office, KPVM founder Vern Van Winkle sits in front of a model of the KPVM complex.

The Gist: It’s January, 2020, and Van Winkle is excited about a project he’s been trying to get off the ground for years; he is renting space on a transmitter tower so he can add an antenna that will broadcast KPVM in Las Vegas, with over two million potential viewers. The idea is to get more advertisers, and generate more revenue for the station, which operates on a shoestring. His wife Ronda, who runs the business end, reminds Vern that as soon as he flips on that transmitter, he’s going to be $5,000/month in the hole for rent.

How do we know that? Well, the news director, Deanna O’Donnell, who has been there from the beginning, pretty much does everything. She’s an anchor, a reporter, an editor, a camera operator, and she also washes the dishes in the breakroom and feeds the chickens and dogs. She’s got a sardonic sense of humor that matches her constant anxiety that everything is going to fall apart at any second. “I complain to my bosses and harass them, and I try to keep Vern from talking about Trump,” she says.

Vern is gung ho about developing new programming, especially to fill the digital sub-channels that are somewhat dormant already, and he wants to cover every subgroup, including a “gay lifestyle” channel (his words, not ours). When perpetually positive co-anchor Eunette Gentry pitches an idea about “the commute” between Vegas and Pahrump, the already overworked Debbie calls it a “pipe dream” because she can only see the work for that night’s broadcast that needs to be done. And normally-chill lead editor R.J. Camacho storms out of the meeting and building because his work is backing up.

But the big day arrives: The antenna shows up. With help from his antenna-climbing technician, Vern goes out to the transmitter site. He is so excited, he starts to cry on the phone to Ronda. So he’s on his way, right? Not so fast, says a little thing called the coronavirus.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? WKRP In Cincinnati, if the radio station were a TV station, and if it was real life. In fact, real life might be funnier than the fictional version.

Our Take: The format of Small Town News: KPVM Pahrump, directed and produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, is somewhat akin to a show like Buried By The Bernards, where it feels like some scenes are set up or recreated.

There’s some on-set banter, for example, between Deanna and Eunette (who says she has “resting smile face”) where Deanna jokes that she’d have to work at the Chicken Ranch in order to get the money to fix her teeth. The more we get to know Deanna during the series, the more we believe that could have been spontaneous; she’s just that funny and quick on her feet. But at the first viewing it feels like it was something she said earlier that the directors told her to say to Eunette on set.

But, for the most part, the show has a more fly-on-the-wall feel to it, mainly because the characters that populate the station don’t need egging on to be entertaining. The second episode begins in September, 2020, with the pandemic having delayed Vern’s plan to expand to Vegas. A new lead editor is in place, but he, too, is looking to leave. Because the pay at the station is so bad, there’s a lot of turnover, and Deanna gets tired about always starting from square one every few months or years with a position.

Vern’s conservative politics will be addressed, especially when the Trump campaign goes through Pahrump, and we’ll also get to know a couple who were hired together: John Kohler slots in as the weatherman, who writes fake jingles and makes sure to wear shorts under his suit jacket, and his wife Missey, who is an anchor and reporter but is pressed into duty as an editor.

The half-hour episodes go by quickly, and you can’t help but become enamored with all of these characters that populate the station… Yes, even Vern, whose efforts to get Eric Trump to notice his hat don’t put him in the world’s greatest light.

Sex and Skin: Nothing, except for John Kohler’s bare belly as he gets into his pool.

Parting Shot: Vern looks at news footage about the coronavirus. Then we cut to him outside saying “Nothing’s easy.”

Sleeper Star: Deanna O’Donnell needs some help at that station; stat. And we were enamored at the fact that she got truly upset at the fact that Eddie Van Halen passed away.

Most Pilot-y Line: Vern celebrates the new antenna by saying “that’s 2.6 million new viewers.” Um, Vern, how many people in Vegas are getting their TV via antenna? Or are we missing some information here?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Small Town News: KPVM Pahrump is funny as heck, but it also shows just how tough it is to run a news-driven local station, no matter how small the area it covers is.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Small Town News: KPVM Pahrump On HBO Max