Case Studies > Olelo Community Media
Olelo Expands Access to Locally Produced Programs
Olelo provides a convenient and flexible alternative to cable television through live and on-demand streaming with Granicus
Problem
Olelo wanted to improve public access and update its website to be a more user-friendly, community-content driven resource. With countless hours of broadcast footage, they needed to find a way to archive content without maximizing their bandwidth and producing poor quality programming.
Solution
In bringing Granicus to Olelo, the agency was able to archive thousands of videos, distribute live and ondemand programming through their website, making all webcasts keyword searchable and available as video and MP3 audio files.
Benefits
Olelo consistently ranks as a top performer of all Granicus clients. They have archived more content than hundreds of other Granicus clients, and received more hits to their live content in 2009 than any other Granicus user.
Client Profile
Agency Type: Public Access Channel
Population: 900,000 (Island of Oahu)
Client Since: 2006
Olelo Community Media broadcasts community-created and driven content. The agency promotes hands-on learning of video creation and production throughout the island of Oahu, offering courses at seven locations throughout the island. Olelo’s mission is to “facilitate communication through electronic media technology for community empowerment”.
Olelo needed to expand public access and retain hours of community-created programming
Since 1989 Olelo has provided PEG access service to the island of Oahu. In 2005 they wanted to take public access to the next level. They realized that the internet was becoming the preferred communication medium and wanted to adapt their channel to meet a growing public demand.
Unsure if viewers were effectively receiving information via television, Olelo hoped that a new website would not only increase its web presence but provide a user-friendly site with access to educational and community-driven content. “We wanted a website to be proud of that included an additional outlet to show community content,” recalls Chris Lam, Olelo Community Media’s Information Systems Manager.
At the time, Olelo had six stations they ran through PEG channels. “We were cable broadcasting live but we did not have the option to provide on-demand access to programs. We wanted something that would allow us to better retain programming,” continues Herman Lau, of Olelo Community Media IT Department. Olelo struggled to keep up with, organize, and locate content. With countless hours of video footage, they needed a place to maintain archives and make them publicly available, without adding the costly expense of increasing their internal bandwidth. Lam and the Olelo staff decided to look for a solution that would allow them to consolidate six access channels into one location, eliminating the need to purchase additional storage and distribution space.
Olelo provides a convenient and flexible alternative to cable television through live and on-demand viewing of programs through their website
Olelo turned to Granicus to provide the storage and distribution of its content over the Web. “With Granicus, both live and on-demand streaming was offered in one package, plus capturing and encoding. This gave us a lot of options and allowed us to easily do some of the back-end work ourselves, which we appreciated,” recalls Lau. Olelo uploaded public access recordings and quickly compiled a vast library of thousands of governmental and community-focused programs.
On-demand programming has been broken up into eight categories, from Arts and Entertainment to Education and Youth, to issues of social and political impact to sports. All programming has been organized by date with keyword-searchable functionality and available as a video and MP3 audio file.
The content for these programs have been created, edited, and produced by members of the Oahu community and sent to Olelo Community Media to be encoded and uploaded into the Granicus system. “It’s been great to provide a means for our community to create content and distribute it over the internet,” says Lam.
“The more we worked with the system, the more we realized how this technology would influence our community. We were able to provide them with access to programming like never before,” says Lam. In addition to archiving content for six access channels, Olelo purchased Granicus encoders, allowing them to live stream from multiple locations. With this technology, Olelo has provided its residents with an around-the-clock traffic feed and four live streams that broadcast community networks throughout the day.
Olelo ranks #1 for most archived content among all Granicus clients
Olelo has achieved record-breaking success, archiving more content than any other Granicus client. By January 2010, Olelo had archived over 6,400 webcasts to their network. Within a thirty-day period, they uploaded over 500 webcasts through the Granicus system and have consistently ranked as a Granicus “Top Performer” in this category.
Not only has Olelo made this content available, the public has responded in resounding numbers. During 2009, more than 400,000 viewers logged on to the Olelo site and watched live broadcasts of public content. Because of this staggering number, Olelo ranked as the number one most live viewed client of 2009. By expanding its reach beyond cable television, Olelo has enabled audiences to participate in local, educational and community programming over the Web, anytime and from any location.
“Being in Hawaii is like being in a small town, there’s a community-feel to it. It’s a people-driven community, and our content is community-driven. Through Granicus, we are providing a voice for our community and way for them to access it. The results we have seen have been extremely rewarding,” says Lam.
Olelo provides thousands of easily accessible educational, cultural and community-driven programs live and on-demand through their website..