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I've been thinking a lot about the current state and future of #NewEllijayTelevision

For those that aren't in the know, I run a community television station with the goal of providing an alternative to Fox, Disney, and OAN for our small town. We do news, politics, music, sitcoms, and public domain archives.

The whole thing runs on open source software, from our video editor to our video on demand platform to our website, our roku app, and our cable playout.

We're broadcasting 24 hours a day online, on roku, and on cable.

I believe that operating community media is an essential revolutionary act, and I'm passionate enough about it that I wrote a book (well, a big zine anyway https://communitymedia.network )

In spite of how important I know this work to be, it's also difficult to fund and keep running, so I'm going to be talking about that.

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

Our television network is named after the community in which it operates, and some (though certainly not all) of our content is directly intended for that market.

I think that's the best way to do this in the long run, and I think it's the most likely to have an ongoing impact on our community. I also think that, once the channel is more established, it being a Local First operation will be vital to funding it.

But bootstrapping has been harder than I expected, a longer road than I wanted. I've learned a lot, and I've done a lot of reading and I think I've figure out one of our existing gaps.

We need a parent network.

Paxil

@Paxil@mastodon.social replied · last month

@ajroach42 Have you hit up foundations.? Molly Blank, Gottlieb, Woodruff, and NEA have more dough than I do.

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

Georgia Public Television is an affiliate of PBS.

WSB Channel 2 is an affiliate of NBC.

Historically, this would mean that both networks produced some of their own content *and* ran content produced by their parent network.

If the content they produced in house was popular, it might get syndicated on other affiliates of the parent network.

Such a thing doesn't exist in the world off community media, yet.

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

So I'm proposing a New Community Broadcasting Syndicate (New CBS), or less cheekily a Community Media Syndicate.

A digital first presence for all community broadcasters to share media that is broadcast ready, to share resources, etc.

It will be a parent organization from which things like NETV can syndicate, but also a name that is not so focused on Ellijay, that better tells the story of producing independent television without being so geographically limited that it prevents people who might otherwise be interested in support us from feeling like they can or should.

Ideally, this organization would operate less like PBS or CBS or NBC and more like a News Wire, but that's a conversation with some nuance that I don't think I'm fully ready for.

Patrick Georgi

@patrick@retro.social replied · last month

@ajroach42 Are you thinking of a parent org in which member orgs share media or a more open community (e.g. a media pool with materials licensed CC-BY-SA, perhaps with some limited exclusivity, for everybody to use and contribute* to)?

How much reciprocity is required for such things to work (e.g. is it okay if a small channel somewhere merely reuses other members' materials for a year because they can't ramp up transmission infra _and_ production at the same time)

* ignoring legal issues around giving everybody the ability to put data on a public system for now.

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

@patrick Media pool with CC licensed materials + an understanding of non-legally binding reciprocity. (That is to say, if you use our stuff to bootstrap your network, please contribute back to what we're doing.)

and a suggested donation for various kinds of media and various kinds of uses (IE, you can use this for free but if you're able we'd appreciate $5 to this mailing address or whatever.)

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

Practically, for #NETV right now, it wouldn't change much.

I don't know of any other community television stations. I know of some public access stations, but that's a different kind of animal in a couple of ways.

But it would give us a second homepage and window into the world that was a little less Ellijay centered and a give us a good reason to spin up a second Roku channel that might improve discoverability.

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

But my hope is that, for the long term, it would encourage more community stations. It would provide resources and education from which community station could be launched.

Generally, I think, it will help people who are encountering what we are doing for the first time to understand what it is that we're doing.

I think we'll start with a Start your own television station zine.

The VHS Wizard 🦝📼🧙

@thevhswizard@retro.pizza replied · last month

@ajroach42 I know this is a loaded question, but... how complicated is it to do what you're doing? Asking for scalability for others that would like to potentially... join the network at some point in the future.

It's me, I'm "others".

Things right now in my life are insane - two septuagenarians with dementia to take care of, plus a Junior in High School... but I am also fully aware that in a couple of years things could be very different.

I used to work in tv, I worked a couple of for public access tv stations and a low power for profit UHF tv station in the 1990s, and... I miss it. I would love to try and replicate what you've got going here closer to where I live. I'd also love to get back into the production side of things, I miss making things.

George B

@gbargoud@masto.nyc replied · last month

@ajroach42

I'm sure you've thought of this already but have you reached out to people with YouTube channels to see if they are interested in syndicating some.of their old episodes onto your channel?

Andrew (Television Executive)

@ajroach42@retro.social replied · last month

@gbargoud Indeed.

It gets complicated, but that's where @workingclassmusic entered things. We also syndicate some Cathode Ray Dude videos.

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