Maine: Community Television Partnerships

The Maine Arts Commission (MAC) has begun partnership with community television stations throughout the state to produce captioned videos that are added to the state government Web site. The videos promote the arts through visually accessible media and increase awareness of the agency’s programs and services while advocating strongly for the arts. The three videos produced so far are the most viewed within state government. As an expansion of this partnership, MAC is encouraging grant recipients to consider using these resources to document their projects. Community television stations can provide video crews that record an event at very reasonable rates. They also have equipment to edit an artist’s or organization’s material into a more usable presentation. The Portland Arts and Cultural Alliance (PACA) did just this to record two public art lectures funded through a grant from MAC as part of a statewide public art lecture series. The Commission then worked with both PACA and the Community Televisions Network to produce a six-minute advertisement for the remainder of the lecture series.

This partnership provides greater awareness of the Maine Arts Commission and of the arts in Maine; provides artists with resources of which they may not have been aware; and provides community television with more arts programming. Some community television stations offer training on their equipment for artists wishing to learn filming, editing and broadcasting techniques. As organizations move into an era of on-line social networking, the Maine Arts Commission is providing an affordable avenue through which material can be easily taken from the public TV environment to organization Web sites, YouTube channels, Facebook accounts, blogs and other emerging media outlets. For more information, contact MAC Communication Associate Darrell Bulmer.