Video History Project

Chronology

Open Channel

Date
1971

Open Channel, New York, founded by Thea Sklover; Director of Programming, Lee Ferguson.

Organization for development of public access; produces community programming, conducts workshops, school programs and organizes talent pool of film and television professionals to produce public-access programming.

Cite this record

"Open Channel." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/open-channel.

Download RIS citation
Summary

Open Channel, New York, was founded by Thea Sklover with Lee Ferguson as Director of Programming; the organization was for the development of public access. It produced community programming, conducted workshops and school programs, and organized a talent pool of film and television professionals to produce public-access programming.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 16 May 2011

Related records

  • Open Channel Chronology

    Open Channel, New York, organization ends

  • Open Channels Chronology

    New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) funds Open Channels, under direction of Thea Sklover. Funding for a cable project.

  • Public Access Celebration Chronology

    Public Access Celebration marked the first anniversary of Public Channel programming on cable television in Manhattan; individuals, video groups, City agencies, the New York State Council on the Arts, Sterling Manhattan Cable and Teleprompter Corporation cooperated to produce an informational event for the general public. Survival Arts Media participated and helped produce a report that was published in January 1973.

  • PARTICIPATE Chronology

    PARTICIPATE's Directory of Public Access Cable Channels and Related Video Resources in New York State published with New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) funding

  • Community Video Project: Descriptions (1972, 1977) Groups

    Community Video Project, founded in New Paltz, NY, counted Steven Kolpan among its founding members and produced a one-hour cable show, Community Mix, on Channel 12 in the early 1970s; New Paltz had about 7,500 residents at that time. CVP promoted grassroots community programming focused on individuals and civic affairs and opposed commercialization and commercials on Channel 12. Kolpan listed videotapes for purchase and exchange documenting video feedback, video distortion, oscilloscope images and audio experimentation; Captain Video in New Paltz distributed tapes on new and old technologies. The group was profiled in Radical Software V2 N1 (1972) and cited in Jonathan Price, Video Visions: A Medium Discovers Itself (1972, 1977).

  • An Open Letter from the Media Equipment Pool Groups

    Videofreex proposed the Mediabus to the New York State Council on the Arts to travel the state introducing people to video; the Council expanded the idea into regional equipment pools and in June 1971 awarded a grant, with the Rochester Museum and Science Center sponsoring the Mediabus and providing a house's first floor for a Rochester Media Equipment Pool. The Equipment Pool acquired hardware and people who could use and teach it (software), ran workshops and short-term loans for documentation, instruction, drama and abstract electronic feedback. The group articulated an ethic of television emphasizing producer control, consent and immediate playback, and assigned legal liability for cable programming to individual producers to guard against broadcast-style censorship.