AUBURN — Twin Cities residents eager to keep up live with their City Councils via their iPhones or iPads are learning they are out of luck because of budget concerns.

Phil Larlee, station manager of Great Falls TV, said residents can still view streaming video of live Lewiston, Auburn and Lisbon government meetings on their desktop computers, whether they are PCs or Macs.

“But there was a carrier on the service we use that we can buy that provided an additional feed for people that use Apple handheld devices, like iPhones and iPads,” Larlee said. “So, due to budget cuts, we discontinued that portion of the feed because there were very few people actually using it.”

Larlee said the iOS carrier, a part of the Telecast package offered by New Jersey-based Televue Corporation, cost an additional $1,000 per year.

“Our budget has been through some major cuts, serious cuts, by both cities,” Larlee said. “We had to make some cuts this year, that was one of the cuts we decided to make.”

Great Falls TV is the local access cable channel housed on Auburn’s Central Maine Community College campus. It provides programming for three channels on Time Warner Cable: local government programming on Channel 7, community programming on Channel 11 and educational programming on Channel 22.

A live feed of the Channel 11 programming and an archive of previously aired shows is available for viewing on demand at the station’s website, greatfallstv.net/webstream.htm.

The online video viewer requires a Web browser capable of running Adobe Flash, and that leaves out most smartphones unless additional software is installed. The Televue Corporation’s iOS carrier was an additional service, but Larlee said he does not know if many local residents have used it.

“We’ll wait for the end of the fiscal year to see where our budget ends up, and if it’s feasible, we can reinstate it,” Larlee said. “But it’s hard to do for just a small handful of users.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link