Want to know what’s happening in Worthington, Minnesota? Well thanks to WGTN-TV 3, you can now check in online to see what’s happening via local TV programming. WGTN-TV 3 has been showing local programs, such as government meetings or local sporting events for a while but you had to be in the area to access the shows. The Worthington Daily Globe reports that you no longer have to be local to live local…
Thanks to a grant from the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities Program (MIRC), WGTN-TV 3, formerly only accessible for cable subscribers in Worthington, can now be accessed through the Internet.
Available at http://www.wgtntv3.com, anyone with an Internet connection can watch live coverage of local sports games, community meetings and other events covered by WGTN-TV 3.
The events will also be archived for viewing at anytime.
The benefit for snow birds and other seasonal or past residents is easy to imagine. And although it’s tough to imagine that we’ll ever see snow in Minnesota – it will come. And when it does it will be more difficult for many people to get around; viewing programs at home is more reasonable for folks with any mobility issues.
The ability to view anytime may be at least as valuable. People lead busy lives and attending local community meetings can be impractical – but imagine being able to view at your leisure. Suddenly it is possible to keep up on the Nobles County Board or Worthington City Council. And once you’re informed, it’s easier and makes more sense to get involved.
It’s also now easier to get involved on the other side of the camera – the article indicates that there may be more opportunity for local programming – and I suspect the incentive may be higher when you know there’s a chance for a greater audience. The Daily Globe reports..
“As time goes on, we’ll try to further develop other programs within the community,” Reeves said.
“We’re hoping that this will also encourage and help people become more involved with how to film,” Schnieder said. “Staff-wise, the station is limited, but maybe we can get something going with community education classes. There are a lot of talented people in the area, and we’d like to get them involved.”
It will be interesting to hear if there is an increase in civic participation and community engagement.
Most of the local community television facilities make a lot of their programming available on-line. If you go to our website — http://www.ctvnorthsuburbs.org — we have city council meetings, the North Suburban Beat, Tale of Ten Cities, Disability Viewpoints, and many others. We webstreamed our Santa Call-in program again last December. This isn’t a new phenomenon, and it makes our programming available for those who are interested in the content but who don’t live in our cable viewing area.
Cor,
Thanks for the link. The Santa program sounds like fun. I think the potential of archived local programming is so exciting. Inevitably community meetings fall when I have work or kid commitments – being able to view on my own time makes is possible to be involved in the local community. It would be fun to know how that’s playing out at the community level.
Thx! Ann