On Friday night a Tweet came in with a mention of Red Deer TV in connection to a Globe and Mail story.

Thanks to Greg O’Brien, editor and publisher of CARTT.ca for the original link.

After reading the story I re-tweeted the link and then posted a second Tweet with a comment.

There is a story behind this story and here it is.

The role the internet played . . .

• Other than the obvious web based activities that led me to the story – Twitter ->Globe & Mail article, two other internet points of interest come up in the article…
• Internet intervention or web to the rescue. Two of the four Red Deer organizations mentioned in the article turned to the internet for a solution to the loss of local TV coverage.
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The loss of a TV station versus the loss of access to local news and events . . .

• There is a difference. Hamilton’s TV station was a going concern featuring local news and events. Red Deer’s TV station had lost its place in the community years ago, so saying goodbye wasn’t hard. That loss had nothing to do with the hardworking people who staffed our local station but was the result of a string of poor business decisions from Canwest-Global.

The future . . .

• Will over the air broadcast TV ever come back to Red Deer? We doubt it! By the way: Whatever happened to our local cable channel? They used to produce many local shows using volunteers from the community – the type that some regional cable companies still produce. Not sure of the why or when but one day these shows disappeared from our area.

The web will come to the rescue and provide the access to local content that the community is seeking. Those that create the news and events, the small businesses that advertise their goods and services to the local market and the citizens of the area who want to know what is going on in our own backyard. There are some segmented attempts at connecting to audiences via the web such as those mentioned in the Globe and Mail article but a more cohesive and wide spread approach is needed.

Dean