All posts in “TVO”

Digital Activism: SMG on The Agenda with Steve Paikin

October 15, 2009 / 1 Comment / Posted in: Blog

Tonight our very own Leona Hobbs will be on The Agenda with Steve Paikin on TVO, Channel 2, at 8pm EST. The topic? Digital Activism. Leona will be part of a panel discussing the limits of digital activism with three other experts; Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum, Evgeny Morozov, contributing editor to Foreign Policy and operator of Net Effect blog and Megan Boler, Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Theory and Policy Studies, at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the UofT.

The Agenda with Steve Paikin is current affairs program that engages with its audience. You can submit show ideas online, contribute to live discussions from home or comment on one of their regularly updated blogs or Facebook group. The program is available on demand for audio or video download in the podcast section of the TVO website. So, if you’re outside the broadcast area and can’t tune in live to see Leona in the hot seat, feel free to check the episode archive.

TVO launches Social Media Press Releases with Digital Snippets

August 6, 2009 / 1 Comment / Posted in: Blog
TVO Digital Snippets

TVO Digital Snippets

We are excited to announce that TVO has just launched a series of four social media press releases (SMPRs) on the Digital Snippets platform. While we can’t claim to have been the first to develop SMPRs, we believe that the Digital Snippets platform takes a different approach by supporting a continuous narrative with influencers along a theme rather than a static media release with multimedia assets attached.

TVO has begun with four releases on the topics of Digital Innovation at TVO, Education Resources for Parents, Helping Kids Become Better Learners, and Using Media for Citizen Engagement. Each of these four topics will feature ongoing feeds of content from TVO.

Digital Snippets are modular press release platforms that allow companies to tell evolving stories – not static ones that are over the minute they hit the web. Our client Ford has been using the Digital Snippets platform for their SMPRs for almost two years now and have acheived great success with their SMPR content used by digital influencers in over 5000 posts (for more information on Ford and Digital Snippets see the presentation from Web 2.0).

Congratulations, TVO!

Polkaroo, Public Brodcasting and SMG

January 5, 2009 / 7 Comments / Posted in: Blog

Doug meets Polkaroo

Back in November I had the pleasure of attending the opening of TVO‘s (some may know it by its old name of TV Ontario) new state-of-the-art digital production facility. Honoured at the party was TVO’s founder, the Honourable William G. Davis. In fact the overhauled studio was named after him.

It was a great party and I got the full tour of their new capabilities. While it was definitely fun watching The Honourable Dalton McGuinty (Premier of Ontario) get grilled virtually by 10 year-old kids on on his environmental record, the highlight for me was definitely meeting an old childhood friend Polkaroo (pictured above).

The part that really interested me is how much the folks at TVO are embracing social media. Not only have they enlisted us at SMG to develop their social media strategy and we are already beginning to implement some projects, but the technology of the new studio itself speaks of their commitment. TVO is already doing some great work in integrated web and TV distribution, real-time interactivity with the audience and pushing the boundaries of the TV medium to be more accountable and inclusive with the audience.

I must admit the bulk of my experience with watching TVO was about 30 years ago watching episodes of Jeremy the Bear, Fables of the Green Forest and their killer Doctor Who marathons (and yes, I did donate). However, TVO has changed a lot over the years and has some really excellent kids content now that I am a parent and thought-provoking content relevant to me now. Thankfully I can still catch most of it online, since I now live in Alberta and don’t get the TVO broadcast signal.

TVO is in an excellent position to take advantage of future social media opportunities and we at SMG are proud to be working with them.