Fox to launch TV history series

We read a short AP news story in the Black Hills Pioneer today that caught our attention.

Fox News Channel has announced it's unveiling a new 10-episode television series entitled "Legends & Lies: Into the West," whose executive producer will be Bill O'Reilly, the high profile and often controversial host of his own series, "The Factor."  The new series is scheduled to debut on Sunday, April 12.

The Associated Press observes that cable networks like CNN and Fox "...have been moving aggressively into the non-fiction realm because they're not dependent on news events to succeed and can be repeated frequently."

O'Reilly has teamed up with Martin Dugard to author a series of best-selling books, including "Killing Jesus,"  "Killing Lincoln," "Killing Kennedy," and others.

Not everyone is enamored with the historical accuracy of O'Reilly's books, but few can dispute their enormous popularity with the public.

We found interesting contrasts in how this new series was unveiled by a few media outlets:

News Release (Fox News Channel)

Black Hills Pioneer (AP story)

Investor's Business Daily (Business Wire)

Huffington Post

Media Matters

Variety

New York Times (AP story)

Oahe TV: Pierre depends on it

While attending the 2009 South Dakota State Historical Society History Conference in Pierre last month, I noticed a young man videotaping the various speakers and struck up a conversation with him.

Patrick Callahan is a “one-man show” for Oahe TV, operated by the City of Pierre. It was a serendipitous meeting, since just the evening before – while sequestered in a room at the Kings Inn – I watched a Pierre City Commission meeting on Oahe TV, an “access” channel provided by the cable television franchisee.

What impressed me about the broadcast was its professionalism. This was not a one-camera, high school production (with apologies to high schools and C-SPAN, which can and do produce some outstanding material with a single camera). The City of Pierre contracts with Callahan to run Oahe TV and can be rightfully proud of this service, which provides a close-up view of city government and school board activity in the Pierre and Fort Pierre communities.

Think of it as a local C-SPAN-type service.

Callahan says the city uses part of the cable franchise fee paid by Midcontinent Communications to run Oahe TV. It’s about an $83,000 line item in the city budget, but Oahe TV also contracts out to folks like the State Historical Society convention and other events to help off-set costs.

That’s a small price to pay for the resources delivered by Oahe TV. Not only are their informational programs available on cable television, they’re archived and available on the worldwide web. Take a look at their website at www.oahetv.com. It includes a comprehensive local weather site, too.

From time-to-time, I’ve happened across a “Government Channel” on Knology Cable in Spearfish. I’ve never seen anything but Rapid City meetings televised, and many of those have been poorly produced – bad audio or video, or both. Pierre does it well, and Mayor Laurie Gill says "the community has come to depend on it."

Spearfish Ward 2 councilman Paul Young tells me there's been some discussion about such a service in Spearfish over the years, but nothing has ever come of it. It seems to me it would be a valuable tool in helping make city government more transparent and accessible.

The City of Spearfish is already pretty progressive. It has developed a great City Park, and numerous neighborhood parks provide most neighborhoods with a delightful place to picnic and let the kids play. We’re particularly fond of the five-mile bike/walking path that abuts Spearfish Creek. Perhaps the greatest testament to the wisdom of city fathers in building the path: it is used extensively.

Making city government more accessible and transparent through a service modeled after Oahe TV in Pierre would be another valuable asset for Spearfish. Like the bicycle path, it, too, would be used extensively, and we’d be a better community for it.

More "customer service" from Cable TV

The same cable television folks whose installers and repairmen usually showed up late – if at all – for service calls are looking at ways to expand their reach into online video content.

They’re working with TV networks to try to find a profitable way of putting cable TV programs online – but available only to people who have cable subscriptions. Details are still a little fuzzy, but it appears they want to score a knockout against hulu.com and other budding services that offer content for free.

And the Wall Street Journal quotes Comcast CEO Brian Roberts as saying that cable subscribers could access content online – content that transcends programming that’s now available for free.

Advertising apparently would still be a critical part of the formula, but I suspect the cable folks have a plan that would hike cable rates for subscribers who would like access to this “free” online video. News reports indicate this new "service" could be rolled out later this year.

The business model for this new scheme isn’t abundantly clear at this point, and it may become even fuzzier by the time it’s rolled out. I suspect access will come “free” at first, followed by incremental hikes for subscribers whether or not they have internet access.

Remember the days of free, over-the-air broadcasting?