JAG Sharing Programs & Knowledge

by Jesse Lerman, President/CEO, TelVue

It was a welcome change to finally be back in person at the Eastern Video Expo 2022.  One of the big benefits of in-person events is how much easier it is to engage when it comes to feedback and collaborative-based discussions such as User Groups.  So we were excited to be hosting the JAG Shared Server User Group to kick off the in-person conference day.  The JAG Shared Server is one of the many great perks of being a JAG Member Station, making it easy to share programming within the JAG community and find relevant local programming for your station.  Here are some interesting statistics from JAG Shared Server:

• There are approximately 1,000 active programs shared, most relevant locally to NJ communities.
• Nearly 3,000 programs have been shared historically.
• Affiliates have downloaded shared programs nearly 20,000 times historically.  This means many programs are downloaded by multiple affiliates.
• Over 40 Series have been Syndicated.  Series are great for Episodic programs allowing Affiliates to subscribe to the Series to automatically receive each new episode without having to License each show individually.   

We were unsure what the turnout would be like for an 8:30am User Group, after a two-year gap from anything in-person.  We were thrilled to see so many JAG members (and J! perhaps thinking about a Hawaii Media Exchange?) present bright and early, ready to learn all of the tips and tricks to get the most out of the JAG Shared Server!

We kicked things off with a high level overview to make sure everyone knew the basics both from a Syndicator’s (uploader) and Affiliate’s (downloader) standpoint.  This included basic uploading, metadata tagging and downloading.  After that, we dove into advanced topics that garnered a lot more discussion, including tips and tricks and time-saving workflows.  Key topics were:

• Getting the most out of Series to make it easier to share Episodic programming.  Multiple attendees shared that they would like Syndicators to organize their programs as Series to make it easier and more automatic to get each episode.
• How to turn on Email Notifications to receive a nightly email summary of new programs available.
• The various Reports that are available to both Syndicators and Affiliates, plus JAG Media Exchange Group Reports.
• How to customize your End User License Agreement (EULA) that Affiliates digitally agree to the first time they download any of your programming.
• Tips on how to manage storage usage, including setting up deletion rules to automatically free up space.
• How programming without captioning can be automatically captioned so Affiliates receive ready-to-go programs with captioning.
• HyperCaster integration to save time and fully automate:
  • Downloading shared programs with metadata via Distributions.
  • Scheduling of downloaded programs using TBDs and Series Scheduling. Attendees were interested in how to automate this both for local NJ-based JAG programming, as well as Democracy Now! shared on the global media exchange.
  • Sharing programming including as Series with HyperCaster Content Workflow Rules.
  • Searching for programs downloaded from the JAG Shared Server on the HyperCaster.  Many attendees were not aware of the HyperCaster Advanced Search feature and ability to filter by JAG Organizations.

The JAG Shared Server User Group was highly engaging and was a big success.  Attendees shared best practices from a member station’s perspective, and often explained things better than we could!  We also received feedback that additional “getting started” documentation would be helpful for new members who are on-boarding.  Stay tuned;  we’ll be back in touch with that and more!  Thanks to all who attended the JAG Shared Server User Group, and on behalf of the TelVue team and your JAG Shared Server technology partner, it was fantastic to collaborate in-person again!