It started pretty simply. The Maine show "Second Act" was being produced, but had lost the sponsor for distributing the DVD’s, so an alternative was needed. That was the first step.
Then there were other Maine shows that needed distribution as well. Soon it became the "Rockport Distribution Initiative", duping and mailing DVD’s for a number of Maine shows.
But that got to be lots of work and lots of expense, so we tried electronic distribution. The time seemed to be right. Download speeds had increased and lots of content was available. Very quickly the DVD’s were outmoded and electronic distribution via an FTP site took over completely. Soon most of the stations in Maine that showed outside content were participating.
And then it turned out that there were stations and producers outside of Maine who also wanted to participate. To automate the process and to make it more useful, a web site www.pegmedia.org was created on top of the FTP site to be the entry portal.
The PegMedia.org site was not intended to be the end all site for PEG distribution. It’s a simple implementation. There are several other sites around the country under development and the PegMedia site might consolidate into one or more of those down the road. But for now, it’s working, it’s growing, and it seems to be pretty effective.
If you’re community station, we welcome you to take a look at www.pegmedia.org and join if you’d like. It’s free to stations and producers. And if you know of other stations in Maine or elsewhere who might be interested, please help get the word out.