By Juan Soto
Bayside is about to get an excellent Christmas present.
An effort is underway to launch the more modern Bayside Live TV, a hyper-local Internet channel to highlight places and events in the northeast Queens neighborhood.
Although the video channel is already operational (baysidelivetv.com), its promoters will soon unveil a more sophisticated 3.0 version.
“Bayside is the market for a new breed of television,” said Gregg Sullivan, head of the effort. “Bayside will become the test market.”
Sullivan, with experience in both local and network news channels, said the idea is to create a “micro market station” similar to what NY1 did “when they started.”
One of the innovations included in the new version of the channel is the input it would have from viewers, residents, community advocates and high schools and junior high school students.
“Neighbors and students will be able to create content by filming with their iPhones,” said Sullivan, a former executive director for the Bayside Village Business Improvement District.
“This is a way of reconnecting the community to the media infrastructure,” Sullivan said.
He pointed out the video channel will be supplemented with a smart phone app, social media, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
But the project does not stop there. Sullivan is more ambitious. He wants to expand the philosophy behind the TV station until there is an Internet channel for the whole borough of Queens.
“We don’t need to get a channel on cable,” he said. “The idea is that each community, Whitestone, Bayside, will have its own local channel,” said Sullivan at Monday’s Community Board 11 meeting.
Although the project would need at least 11,000 viewers to get a cable slot, Sullivan insisted that was not the goal of the local television project.
“There is no need for big TV markets now,” said Sullivan. “Everybody is moving to Internet.”
He pointed out that profits from the endeavour will be donated to the Bayside Historical Society.
Deputy Inspector Jason Huerta of the 111th Police Precinct spoke at the CB11 meeting and alerted community members to telephone scams whose callers trick them into buying money cards for them. They fall prey to these scams involving Green Dot Money Pak cards. Residents receive phone calls claiming they are collecting debts from either a utility company or the Internal Revenue Service.
And CB11’s Education Committee members said they have met with Daniella Giunta, the new superintendant for School District 26, covering Bayside and the surrounding area. The committee’s chairmen Laura James and Alim Gafar, said Giunta plans to complete visiting all the schools in the district by the holiday vacation to get suggestions about the current needs of the academic institutions.
Reach reporter Juan Soto by e-mail at jsoto@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4564.
