A new community television channel could be coming to Olds if plans currently underway come to fruition.
Brass Media is currently looking at setting up Olds Community Television. The channel would provide local news and community events, with on-demand video available on a companion website. Dean Owen, who is leading the project, informed town council of his intentions to develop the service at council's policies and priorities committee meeting on Sept. 16.
Owen told councillors that because mainstream media is dropping out of smaller communities, he feels that community stories are not being told. He said he wants to feature non-profit groups doing good work in the community.
“We want to make it so that people can tune in at any time and get news about Olds. We need to engage the community in what they want to see. This is an ongoing process to grow and sustain it into the future,” he said.
Owen said Olds Fibre Ltd. has agreed to supply access to the channel. He is currently doing research on what content residents would like to see, as well as gauging the support of businesses to support the channel. Owen said he wants to grow with Olds Fibre, rather than waiting until it is more established.
In addition to news and other feature stories on non-profit groups, Owen is envisioning broadcasting live events such as election forums. He said the vision for the channel is to provide continuous programming. The service would take in all the communities, as well as the rural areas, of Mountain View County.
“I applaud your efforts,” Coun. Mary Jane Harper said.
“There's a unique opportunity here,” Coun. Harvey Walsh said.
Mayor Judy Dahl said she supports the idea, but added it's important to go to the public and find out what they would like to see on the channel.
“It's all about the public engagement and the people and what they want to see,” she said.
Owen said during an interview that the main interest of people that he's talked to so far has been in local politics.
Once Owen finds out what residents would like to see, the next step is to gauge the business support for such a channel. Owen said resident feedback he's received so far has been neutral on the content of the channel.
But he said people have shown interest in a segmented format with headlines and a community calendar in contrast to a full-screen channel.
“TV is a very powerful advertising medium. The big challenge is making it affordable for local businesses and small businesses, so the small businesses in our uptown couldn't afford to advertise on those big networks because the cost is prohibitive, and really, we want to get the message across that we're offering affordable advertising,” he said.
Owen said another idea might be to partner with the Mountain View Museum and produce short segments about some of the historical buildings in town and get advertisers to support that concept.
“We want to be creative and innovative in how we do things,” he said.
Part of the business model would include a pay-per-view format for segments of video.
The entire concept of the channel is important to developing a sense of community, Owen said.
“Olds is a very progressive and innovative community, and it's good to highlight that,” he said.
People are encouraged to take a short survey on what they would like to see on the channel at www.OCTV.ca.
If everything goes according to plan, the channel would launch in December 2013 or January 2014.
