Hometown Tales

"Hometown Tales" began as a Public Access Television Program in the New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania area in 2002. It was created by a producer from New Jersey, Gene Fitzpatrick and a writer from New Mexico, Bryan Minogue. It soon expanded into a popular podcast, [BBC] radio program and website.

"Hometown Tales" focuses on urban legends, folklore, historic oddities, ghost stories and local culture from towns all over. [site] All this is done with a light hearted twist and friendly exchange by the hosts. Gene Fitzpatrick plays the role of the skeptic while Bryan Minogue is frequently fearful of the paranormal stories. In an analogy to sports broadcasting, Fitzpatrick tends to be the play-by-play announcer while Minogue adds commentary.

The television program resulted in nine 30 minutes episodes which still air on many cable access channels like Patriot 8 from Patriot Cable in Somerset, NJ, Cablevision of Morris and others. Many of those segments have been re-purposed in a vidcast feed as well as on the Hometown Tales website.

When Podcasting hit the scene, Hometown Tales began producing a program to support the TV show. It was one of the earlier podcasts on the scene [Podcast Alley] and peaked in the Top 10 of most popular podcasts on Podcast Alley. For a brief period of time the program aired on Sirius Satellite Radio as part of Dawn and Drew Presents. Even though the program was used by Dawn and Drew during their block of air time on Sirius courtesy of Adam Curry's Podshow, Hometown Tales was never actually contracted by Podshow now know as Mevio.

Both Fitzpatrick and Minogue are also former colleagues of the marketing agency, DVC.

References

*BBC Lists "Hometown Tales" as Top Podcast. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4679771.stm]