Lanesville TV (Channel 3) was a pirate television station in Lanesville, New York, United States,[1] set up by the Videofreex collective. The station used a transmitter donated by Abbie Hoffman to broadcast its signals. Member Bart Friedman compared it to later public access television stations.[2] The group referred to Lanesville TV as "probably America's smallest TV station."[3]
At the time, Lanesville's population was too sparse to afford a cable television system. The station made its first broadcast on March 19, 1972, initially running half-hour weekly programs at 7pm on Sundays, before moving to Saturdays later in the year, as a result of a viewer poll.[4] In 1976 the station was featured in WNET's Video Television Review, outlining its operations.[1] Its programming consisted of "narrowcasting" local events.[5]
Broadcasts closed in February 1977,[6] with five members of the collective continuing to work for Videofreex after its closure;[4] the collective was disbanded the following year.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b "Greetings From Lanesville". Media Burn Archive.
- ^ a b Michel, Karen (22 March 2015). "Decades Before YouTube, Video Pioneers Captured Turbulent Era". NPR. Archived from the original on 27 March 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
- ^ "About the Group". Videofreex.com Digital Archive 1969-2019. Archived from the original on 29 December 2022. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
- ^ a b "Lanesville TV". Video History Project.
- ^ Boyle, Deirdre (1997). Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Teesdale, Parry (1980). "Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Report: A Micro-TV Service in the United States" (pdf).