Rogue Valley
Local producers now have the opportunity to distribute their content anywhere on Earth
By: Charles Douglas
As my learned colleague Brandon mentioned to you in his recent essay, the younger generation here in Southern Oregon and across the country is radically shifting the means of content delivery in the mass media.
The very term “mass media” is coming into question given the overall decline in viewership, not just of newspapers and broadcast networks, but now of the traditional cable news giants as well. While cable television’s audience has shrunk in size, the very process which is undermining the economic model of local newspapers and broadcasters is, strangely enough, making the work of local independent media makers more unique and more valuable.
In other words, the very crisis facing the establishment media is YOUR opportunity to forge new connections with diverse communities and garner new interest in, and support for, your programming — but ONLY if your content is interesting, engaging and relevant.
The other piece of this, naturally, is meeting the media consumer where they are comfortable, and for Generations X, Y and beyond, this will be on-line. To put it bluntly, the Internet is the future of media, and roguetv.org is already there with live streams of all of our channels.
You may have noticed that for some time now, RVTV has also been offering our local government partners the ability to host their productions, whether public meetings or special programs such as “Ashland Town Hall” or “MPD: Your Police, Our Community,” as on-demand content for Internet users anywhere in the world to watch.
I’m proud to announce that as of the beginning of 2013, locally produced Public Access content will be on an equal footing. Partnering with us is the Internet Archive, an awesome non-profit dedicated to assembling an Internet library available to everyone in the world on an equal footing and without censorship. They’re working with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian to preserve data for generations to come.
Archive.org also hosts a Community Media Archive, partnering with my former associates at Access Humboldt, with Denver Open Media and with PEG access stations from Seattle to Maine to SoCal. You can find them all at www.archive.org/details/community_media
…and now Rogue Valley Community Television is there too! We have a new program submission form available at the station, and from here on out, when you submit NEW, LOCALLY PRODUCED programs to air on Channel 15, you will have the option to have us upload your program, short film, PSA or other video content to our RVTV Public Access Archive at www.archive.org/details/roguetv
We already have all of last weekend’s studio productions loaded up, along with a submission from a local producer which came in just the other day. These shows can be played with a flash video player and they can also be downloaded in multiple formats – there’s also Creative Commons licensing rights which can be attached to protect the producer’s work, the details of which we’ll go over in a future essay.
I hope you’re as enthused as I am with the successful implementation of this new service. Please e-mail me at douglasc@sou.edu with any questions you have, and stay tuned as we roll out more improvements.
P.S. Next week will disclose more details on the re-launch of this facility as the Digital Media Center and dovetailing with that will be the re-launch of the Public Access Advisory Board to better engage the producer community and ensure the survival of RVTV as a resource of, by and for the community. Advance inquiries are welcome if you might be interested in serving on this Board; please e-mail Brandon at givensb@sou.edu if you’d like to volunteer.