Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Media Bridges Announces Closure

Media Bridges, the public access venue for Cincinnatians on Time Warner Cable is calling it quits. Originally funded by cable vieweres like you, that support ended due to the original agreement or Time Warner just weasling out - I forget. The city provided funding for awhile & they did some fundraising but Cincinnati had to withdraw funding due to budget constraints. Now their fundraising efforts have fallen short & they're throwing in the towel.
With outlets like blogs, YouTube, Vimeo & such, local access TV is kind of an anachronism, I guess but Media Bridges also offered some training & gave people a chance to use a control board with 3 cameras, mics , titles & telephones to do live shows with live calling - yes, a chance to fly by the seat of your pants. The archival nature of blogs & video don't exactly provide for that live experience and, while the info is out there, it's nice to have a teacher you can bounce questions off of.
oh well - wonder if Ed Rothenberg will figure out YouTube….

UPDATE: Fishwarp clarifies how cable companies lobbied state governments to allow the cable companies to weasel out of paying for local access here

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