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Democracy the star of the screen as Tandem grows streaming business

A Christchurch company with a long history in media production and an early adopter of YouTube is on a growth drive among organisations that have a message to beam to the masses.

Tandem Studios got into live streaming of events four years ago, picking up a deal to stream and produce a video archive for the New Zealand Parliament at inthehouse.co.nz. It’s since amassed more then 20,000 videos in that library, with the videos collectively viewed more than three million times.

Its next big assignment was the Christchurch Earthquake Royal Commission, which managing director Dave Dunlay says notched up 500 hours of continuous footage.

Streaming makes financial sense for local and central government and other organisations, and democratises participation, Dunlay says. “The aim is to make it more accessible and easy to find and share. It’s also to make sure it’s cost effective for the council and it doesn’t have to be really expensive for them to do on an ongoing basis.”

The company could add courts and organisations holding AGMs or making special announcements to it client list, says Dunlay.

Tandem Studios uses its own LaBon software to stream events and create video libraries. Dunlay adds it’s in talks with other local councils about streaming their meetings and wants to move into Australia next year.

Although there’s an expanding number of tools to facilitate video streaming, Tandem Studios consults with organisations from initial set up on their budget and the cameras they need, doing everything from shooting to editing and production.

“Putting content online is affordable and transparent and it’s how more and more people around the world want to access information,” he says. “In New Zealand we saw the power of such online video content earlier this year when hundreds of thousands of people globally watched the third reading of the Marriage Amendment Bill.”

Tandem Studios began as a music recording studio in 1974 and Dunlay saw an opportunity for growth in online video when he bought the company in 2005. By August of that year it had posted its first YouTube videos.

It also does streaming for councils in Wellington, Hawkes Bay and Taupo and recently won the tender to stream Christchurch City Council’s meetings and did the first stream on 24 October.

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