Category: tvw (Page 2 of 3)

You do.

According to TVW’s 2006 Annual Report, 18 percent of their funding comes from the state of Washington. That more than $2 million state appropriation is off-set by just less than $10 million in in-kind contributions — the balance is the free access to cable air-waves the channel enjoys.

Here’s TVW’s own description of how they’re funded:

TVW is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, not a government agency. It is governed by an independent board of directors. The majority of TVW’s operating cash – approximately $2.5 million per year – comes from the Legislature via a contract-for-service through the Secretary of State. TVW receives more than $11 million per year in the form of in-kind contributions of channel space from Washington’s cable television industry.

Also included in the public contribution to TVW was $3 million for new digital equipment (beware large PDF) a couple of years ago.

I for one am super-super happy we give money to TVW. Heck, I think we should give more, maybe three times as much a year. TVW is one of the greatest things we spend money on in this state.

But, on the other hand, if they operate on the public dime, we should be able to question their silly copyright that keeps the public at arms length from what they’re doing with our money.

Here’s another point: their most cherished asset is the “gavel-to-gavel” coverage they provide of the state legislature and the state supreme court. Those cameras and audio taping equipment are housed permanently in public facilities. We give TVW more access to our public proceedings than we give any other entity. Even if we didn’t pay $2 million plus to keep TVW going, we should have a say what happens to recordings of our public proceedings.

All that said, I still understand why they’re nervous about letting go of what they consider their content. They feel like they’re beholden to elected officials, and if those electeds feel like TVW is becoming a content-supplier for attack ads, the legislature would be less likely to fund TVW.

I don’t want to point out the obvious, but those elected officials are beholden to the voting public who might have a different opinion about who should have what kind of access to TVW content.

So, if you care, contact your legislative members and let them know that TVW should liberalize their copyright.

“Sdf” at the comments over at Horsesass.org:

Emmet,..
I know for a fact (from a creditable source) that the embedding option was not pulled intentionally. TVW changed to a server based delivery technology to be able to serve a larger audience and the code for how they embed their code changed. It was a technical issue only. Embedding is coming to TVW.org soon, very soon….

Does Sdf=Scott Freeman? If so, he’d be a credible source in and of himself. And, a nice guy if memory serves.

Okay Sdf (Scott), get us some embedding. And, don’t break your back trying to get that time parameter thing working. Embedding first.

Some oldies but goodies about TVW from when I was at Washblog:

I think TVW can do better with social media
TVW is thinking about doing better with social media

My suggestions back then:

1. Put someone in charge. This is something completely different than what you’ve usually been doing. Even though you’ve had a robust website for years, it operates as if its a website for a TV network (which obviously it is). There is no interactive content, no blogs, no sharable video or audio, just streaming video that is almost impossible to capture and share. There are some podcasts (that I enjoy weekly) and I can download a slug of mp3s, but these aspects of the site are aimed at simply providing the content, not really at facilitating the sharing of it.

So, you have to think about this not as part of a a TV network, but rather as a website in and of itself. At a certain point, TVW will actually be more of a website than a TV network. I already don’t watch TVW at all. I am on a dish, and most of my TV is recorded from a DVR anyway. But, I would consider myself a TVW addict, but solely through the website. Putting someone in charge of “online communities” can be a good start.

2. Don’t put everything into a social media format, at first. Start yourself off slow, let the person in charge of your online social stuff pick and choose (and have suggested to them) content that can be put out there as shareable. And, encourage conversation online. There is a real need for somewhere in Washington State politics, outside of newspapers and blogs, for people to come together and talk. TVW has the unique and powerful potential to quickly become this place.

3. Remember the kind of double standard that already exists between the “news media” and citizens using your content. It already kind of miffs me that in your copyright you carve out an exception for bona fide news broadcasters, and as more people get used to being able to share video and audio, more people will get miffed at this double standard. More and more, we are the media.

Also, Mark Gardner can only think about this issue in terms of partisanship and a congressional race. What really is at issue here is a pretty old distrinction between “bona fide” media and the rest of us.

While some folks may want to continue to believe that there is a difference between folks who write and folks who write, there really isn’t.

Mark, you’re a blogger now. Not “bona fide.” Do you think if this was Darcy Burner saying something silly you wouldn’t want to post it. Well, maybe not, but I would want you to be able to, and I’d rather vote for her.

The quicker TVW learns the same lesson the C-SPAN learned last year, the better.

This is stupid.

A while back when TVW was changing over their site to include new sorts of media files, including flash, I figured out a way to embed TVW content. Sweet, now folks can share and push along what TVW produces, exactly as TVW intended it to be used.

Since then, TVW has blocked easy access to their flash files online, making embedding pretty freaking hard, if not impossible. I haven’t been able to find a way, and I probably won’t.

Why this is bad for citizens and TVW:

Ok, fine, you don’t want people like David Goldstein who aren’t employed by a media outlet to be using your files and changing them. But, why cut off people from easily pushing your content?

What TVW does (in the large sense) is only as good as how many people are using it. If I can’t use TVW’s content in a very limited fashion like embedding (not editing mind you), then the millions that TVW pours into its work is useless to me. And, I’m a person who is really interested in what TVW has to produce.

And, for christsakes guys, can you get a podcast to work? I’ve been subscribed to Inside Olympia through Itunes for over a year and it hasn’t downloaded a single episode.

NOPE, this doesn’t work anymore. Don’t try it.

Earlier today I noticed that TVW is now posting their content in flash, a format that allows folks to embed and share that content. Think Youtube.

Anyway, later today I figured out how to actually embed it. Seems to me that TVW didn’t want to make it very easy, but I’m going to show you how.

1. Find the content you’re interested in. When you’re at the content page, right click (this is for Firefox 2.0.07) and click “View Page Source.” Somewhere in there should be a file ending with .flv.

2. Use this code in your blog post. Replace Flash_URL with the complete url of the flash file you found in the above step.

<object width="338" height="260"><param name="movie" value="http://tvw.org/Media/FLASH/PLAYER/cinemaplayer.swf"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain"><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"><param name="flashvars" value="videopath=Flash_URL"></object>

3. If these instructions don’t work, use the very helpful instructions here.

Here is a recent Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, embedded in my blog. Oh, happy day. Instructions here.

UPDATE: The above embed uses a freely available flash player, but I just now figured out how to use TVW’s own flash play which is much nicer. Email me if you’d like instructions, or just check out the code for the movie below. You should be able to figure it out.

Or just click on the <> image on the player, it will copy the embed code to your computer.

It looks like TVW is putting its new media online with a nice flash player. But, for now at least, it looks like you can’t embed. Crap.