Prior to the Internet, PEG stations and Community Media organizations benefited from substantial US cable subscription – station revenues were funded by subscription surcharges. Today, an increasing number of Americans are “cutting the cord” and relying on the Internet for video, information and entertainment. Cable viewership is expected to continue to decline in the coming years, threatening both revenues and viewership.
However, Community Access TV stations have the opportunity to bring these viewers back and attract new ones by providing all of their video, news and other content online to a fully-featured website. Many stations achieve more total views than they enjoyed with a primarily cable TV strategy due to the potential of the websites to attract viewers in demographics that traditionally have not paid attention to PEG stations.
Working with the PEG / Community Media industry since 2011, Polar Design understands the unique challenges and opportunities that PEG / Community stations face and how to optimize their online presence to maximize ROI. Most Community Media stations already have a wealth of content that could be used to attract viewers through search engines and social media, but it is typically archived on proprietary devices or only made available through other companies’ players and websites. Polar Design’s solution features a full video playback integration which connects to the Video Playback System and automatically publishes pages on the station website from the channel level down to the episode level. Updating video and schedule content onto the website used to take hours of staff time but BCAM’s VOD catalogue and schedule take no time to update as the content is integrated.
Additional online features that can help build engagement and revenue among PEG stations include equipment rentals and scheduling, DVD purchases, class registrations, and micro blogs – blogs run by program producers.
Polar Design’s services for Community Access ranges from completely customized websites like BCAM.tv to templated websites with our Community Media Platform. Feel free to contact us for a no-obligation assessment of your online communications.
