Eve TV, Eve Community Internet Radio stations and you.

I may be posting out of term and those with superior knowledge are very welcome to correct me if I'm wrong but I think my views are shared by a lot (not necessarily all) readers of this site and judging by posts on Eve-O perhaps there too.

There are quite a few forum posts bemoaning the fact that Eve TV is no longer a live broadcast from certain events, notably FanFest and the Tournaments. And while I understand the financial considerations that surely must apply I still can't shake off a feeling that when Eve TV was new, it was run by and for players and seemed to be more fully integrated into the community.

Since then, and this is where my knowledge is shaky admittedly, and since merging closer to CCP it seems to have degraded a bit. Now that's a strong term but I mean it only to reflect that content isn't live anymore and as such that particular community aspect has degraded. I still think that the team involved deserve much kudos for even contemplating the idea and what they have achieved is fantastic. I applaud each and every one of them!

But now we don't get the groups of players watching it in various corps, exclaiming on teamspeak/ventrilo/eve-voice or various chat channels on how cool something is, or how rubbish that result was etc. The content is great but the community aspect has faded a bit. Instead we have downloads available that make events seem less special than they are and more isolated. Do you know what I mean?

One of my fondest Eve TV memories was when I watched the 2006 Fanfest presentations and thoughts were running through my head of how cool the whole concept was of a game inspired TV channel broadcasting directly from Iceland! A more engaging memory was when myself and the corp were cheering, laughing and drinking while watching the 2007 Tournament live.

Maybe we all don't know the big picture, maybe the considerations are not only financial and volunteer staffing may have become an issue too? Maybe production values have shot up and post processing has become more important? Either way, imho I preferred the older, community embracing format much more and long for the return of that. I do not wish to rock the boat, I think I just want to understand more.

On a similar note, we have a plethora of Eve internet radio stations run by fans. I ran one myself and was extremely lucky and honoured to be allowed to record the presentations for broadcast during 2007. (Thank you CCP!)

I read with interest that the Tournaments were likely to be streamed via Vivox directly into Eve Voice by CCP, similar to how the CCP Live Dev blogs are received by players.

Whilst this is a good thing, this precludes Eve Community Stations from having that scoop as it's already broadcast by CCP. Thus, disconnecting them from that particular aspect of the community - unless they somehow patch Eve-Voice into their streams broadcasting under their own licensing agreements and I wonder if that will be allowed? Seems like it might be a way forward anyway?

I'm aware of music licensing issues that can raise their ugly heads when broadcasting music worldwide through Eve Voice so perhaps that is why the decision has been made to preclude Community Stations from broadcasting into Vivox directly? e.g. Eve Radio voice channel and a channel for each other station. Perhaps so, and the right decision in that case otherwise CCP (and the stations) could become embroiled in legal shenanigans which wouldn't be a good thing at all.

For example, a UK based internet radio station is only licensed by the PPL to broadcast in 39 counties, excluding the USA. USA based stations have different conditions as do other locations. A UK based one can, of course, purchase USA licensing but then you've essentially doubled costs before you even look at streaming costs.

Off the top of my head I have no solutions, I am throwing this out there to see if anyone else has any ideas and to spark discussion on what we, the players, can do to help reintegrate the player community aspect of live video and live audio back into Eve.