How it all began...

Action Video Entertainment was founded in January of 1992 by three men who had met in a broadcast communications class at College of the Siskiyous in Weed, California. Bill Janis, a professional computer graphics designer with his own business Depth Defying Graphics; John Googins, a full time railroad engineer for the then-Southern Pacific Railroad (now Union Pacific) and John McCarthy, an employee at King Videocable of Mt. Shasta (now Northland Cable Television) came together to form what would become a broadcast video production phenomenon.

The first project ever done by A.V.E. was back in August of 1992 when they videotaped and edited the Siskiyou Golden Fair's Destruction Derby. It was a successful start to what would be the sports broadcasting wing of the small company. McCarthy actually was videotaping and broadcasting Mt. Shasta High School basketball on King Videocable's Channel 3 long before A.V.E. was ever a thought. Local sports became the main focus of A.V.E.'s business, but there were more projects they would do.

In 1993, one year after the start of Action Video Entertainment, Janis left the company. But in 1994, a young ambitious upstart named Mike Summers (also a former broadcast communications student at College of the Siskiyous) joined the company working behind-the-scenes, then later began doing play-by-play fill-in duty for McCarthy. In 1995, Mike would take over the sports arm of the company and would become producer that year, then the associate producer in 2000. McCarthy would eventually leave in 1997, leaving Googins as the only remaining member of the original Action Video Entertainment to still be there.

The company changed its name to Mount Shasta Productions in 1995, but was still operating as A.V.E. during that time until the name was changed back three years later. The local cable company had an identity crisis as well. In 1995, King Videocable was sold to Continental Cablevision, then merged with US West Communications and became MediaOne (now Comcast) in 1997, and finally the Mt. Shasta system was purchased by Northland Communications Corporation to join the Northland Cable Television system in 1999. Though all of that, Action Video Entertainment was always on Channel 3 until 2005 when production ceased in Siskiyou County.

There was one attempt to bring a local video news magazine show to Channel 3. It was called In Focus: Siskiyou Magazine. Despite positive responses from viewers, lack of financial support forced the show to be cancelled after five episodes. There are plans in the works to resurrect the show. Action Video Entertainment has had a successful venture with Northland Cable Television in providing live televised broadcasts of the annual Mt. Shasta 4th of July Celebration and the Cool Mountain Nights Labor Day car show and dance on Channel 3 just about every year until 2004.

Action Video Entertainment only dreamed about putting programming on an actual television station for years. That dream came true in August of 2002 when Redding, California, television station KGEC-TV Family TV 26 (a FamilyNet and now MyFamilyTV affilite) began airing our programming which started with the Lions All-Star Football game. The station aired the entire game. A.V.E. finally found a home in the Redding area. They would leave KGEC in 2003.

In 2004, A.V.E. launched its own website (as you can see) - AVEtv.net, which now flies under the banner of MikeSummers.org. The site is up and running thanks to our domain host, Shasta.com. In 2005, A.V.E. was acquired by Mike Summers shortly before he moved to the Chico area to begin work at KCVU-TV FOX 30 (now KCVU-DT FOX 20), KRVU-TV UPN 21 (now MyTV NorCal), and KUCO-TV Univision 27, all owned and operated by Sainte Television Group. Since then, A.V.E. has been in a rebuilding process. Current plans, as of press time, are to relaunch In Focus: Siskiyou Magazine as a regular seasonal program and air it on public access and broadcast television, even bring it back to Northland's Channel 3. Reruns of the original show can currently be seen on MySpaceTV. A.V.E. also has its own MySpace page at MySpace.com. It short, the future of Action Video Entertainment looks bright. With your support, we can continue to provide the finest broadcast-quality video production anywhere in southern Oregon and northern California.