Richmond Hill will soon livestream council meetings

Cost has been deterrent

Richmond Hill Liberal
March 31, 2014
By Kim Zarzour

By the end of April, you will be able to watch and hear your local government’s decision-making in real time.

Richmond Hill’s committee of the whole meetings and council meetings, usually held Monday afternoon and evenings, will be available via livestreaming starting in late April.

Councillors and town staff have been grappling with the idea of broadcasting meetings for four years, but high costs have been a deterrent. Advances in technology and an increasing availability of externally hosted solutions have made livestreaming more financially viable, according to a staff report presented in February.

Staff have recently been video and audio-recording meetings and posting them a day or two later to the town’s website. Under a new arrangement, proceedings can be viewed live at RichmondHill.ca

To enable video coverage, the town purchased a high quality remote-controlled video camera at a cost of $1,000, studio editing and production software for $500, two cable drops were installed for $300 and a used computer was repurposed for the project.

Eventually, an additional camera would need to be acquired at $1,000 and staff will work with students with York Region high schools or post-secondary institutions on a volunteer or internship arrangment for production and operation.

Ongoing costs for the year, using livestream.com, will be $999.

The decision to livestream was delayed for a month after Ward 1 Councillor Greg Beros inquired about a less expensive option using the same host, livestream.com, for $399.

Staff reported back to council March 17 that at the reduced rate, livestream.com retains the rights to post promotions by the host or advertisers.

The more expensive rate allows the town to retain “absolute control” over the account and on-air time and an ability to embed promotions for upcoming town events, the report said.

Richmond Hill is one of the few remaining municipalities in York Region not providing a live-streamed option to watch council meetings.

The Region of York meetings will begin streaming live May 15.

Markham offers live audio streaming of council and committee meetings. Vaughan just launched a new live video streaming of council and committee meetings. Aurora broadcasts council meetings via Rogers and is undertaking an in-house pilot project to upload live video to YouTube for council and committee meetings. Newmarket provides live videostreaming via a hosted solution which uses a mix of internal and external resources. Stouffville just began a pilot project to broadcast six regular council meetings the next day on a local radio station.