MINNEAPOLIS—When opting to replace its old automation and playout system, Michigan’s Orion Neighborhood Television (ONTV) chose the Cablecast Community Media platform from Tightrope Media Systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the upgrade allowed the station to deliver timely content to its community faster and more efficiently.
ONTV’s legacy system was failing and the station was looking to move on from its franchise fee funding model, according to Executive Director Ian Locke. With Cablecast, Locke said ONTV was interested in its scheduling tools and ability to incorporate short-form promos on channels and bulletin boards that would help enable new funding models. “It checked all the boxes,” Locke said.
Cablecast’s Auto-Schedule feature automatically produces recurring time slots, which ONTV uses to easily update its education channel, according to Locke. The system’s multiformat playback capabilities also eliminate the need to transcode incoming clips, offering native playback and the ability to play video captured at non-broadcast frame rates. Integrated online publishing workflows from Cablecast have helped ONTV’s mobile and web offerings.
In addition, ONTV is using Tightrope’s cloud-based Screenweave OTT service to automatically bring live streams and VOD content to the Roku OTT platform.
“I had worked with our previous vendor’s system for over 20 years, and moving to Cablecast was refreshing,” summarized Locke. “It frees our time to work on other things and has the flexibility to adapt with us as our needs evolve. We feel comfortable that our future is in good hands with Tightrope and Cablecast.”
For more information, visit www.cablecast.tv.
