‘The Franklin Show’ wins national award

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP/FRANKLIN — Michael Seltzer’s “The Franklin Show,” a Bloomfield Community Television Show, recently received a 2025 Hometown Media Award from the Alliance for Community Media Foundation.

Seltzer, a Franklin Village Trustee, hosts “The Franklin Show.” Inspired by David Letterman and the fictional Jiminy Glick, played by Martin Short, “The Franklin Show” is a talk show that features guests — often local ones.

“My goal when I decided to create the show was to do something off-beat and entertaining and unique,” Seltzer said.

Seltzer described the show as fun, fast, entertaining and campy. The show started last fall, and so far, there are 26 episodes. Some of the guests featured on the show include former radio personality Ron Tavernit; Max Brown, the production manager for “The War and Treaty”; and author and photographer Linda Solomon.

“It started out as a way to promote the village that I love, but it’s evolved,” Seltzer said.

In addition to the various guests on the show, Seltzer is also joined by his Maltese, Franklin. Seltzer adopted Franklin in 2016 after seeing him at the Labor Day Round Up in Franklin. Even though Seltzer and his wife were not planning on adopting a pet at the time, Seltzer said he and Franklin bonded immediately.

According to Mike Wassenaar, the president and CEO of the Alliance for Community Media, about 1,500 applications come in for the Hometown Awards each year.

“The Hometown Awards go out to organizations and individuals that produce significant programming for local communities across the United States,” Wassenaar said. “There are about 1,700 organizations that produce community-based programming on public educational government channels throughout the United States, so it’s significant recognition.”

Bloomfield Community Television is a provider of government and community access programming. Residents of Bloomfield Township and nearby municipalities can watch “The Franklin Show” and other shows through Comcast, AT&T and WOW.

“The media that’s created on channels like those in Bloomfield (Township) is profoundly local, and it represents community voices, which you don’t have in most mainstream media, particularly on television,” Wassenaar said.

To learn more about “The Franklin Show,” visit thefranklinshow.com.