Transparent. Close to the people. Innovative: Rats-TV of the town of Monheim am Rhein as live stream.
The town of Monheim am Rhein has been streaming council and committee meetings live since the beginning of 2018 – and is thus serving the wishes of its citizens for enhanced transparency and participation in political events via a digital web service.
The initial situation
Desire for greater participation by expanding the web offering to include live streaming
The town of Monheim am Rhein sees its website as an important instrument for information, communication and interaction with citizens. At www.monheim.de, interested parties will find a wealth of information, as well as extensive and practical online functions relating to the organisation and handling of municipal services.
More political proximity: Live Streaming for the citizens of the town of Monheim am Rhein.
As a platform for interaction, the town’s website, which is central to the town’s communication mix, also represents a special point of contact for the process of political participation. Citizens should benefit from enhanced political transparency, as well as the additional access possibilities to information in the sense of political participation.
The expansion of the website to include the reliable live streaming of board- and committee meetings, as well as a video-on-demand service was, therefore, an important, modern building block that could be used to deepen the ties that had previously been built up in the political process. In this way, this component should sustainably promote the interest of the town, expand the political participation of its citizens and increase the comprehensibility of political decision-making processes.
The challenge
A contemporary full-service solution for the live broadcasts of committee meetings
Approximately 30 different meetings per year were to be broadcast live – with different stakeholders and via several stationary cameras on-site. Data protection concerns and consideration of the rights to one’s own image and sound had to be taken into account for this. In addition, there were certain requirements for the video’s direction: different cameras had to be able to switch quickly to accommodate the different seating positions of the various participants and to ensure that the names and functions of the people were shown.
As an experienced full-service provider, G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky managed the reliable provision of all necessary components of the live broadcast – consisting of the two parts: on-site video production and responsibility for subsequent video streaming.
The solutions