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News

Web TV will stream proceedings National Assembly for Wales to help e-democracy

eLINIA is to host the latest generation of live streaming of proceedings from the National Assembly for Wales, at http://www.senedd.tv/. Members of the public and Assembly staff now have unrestricted access to plenary sessions and committee meetings, plus a searchable archive of debates which will be added to daily.

Barcud Derwen, the UK's largest broadcast service provider outside of London, is responsible for delivering the broadcast infrastructure within the Assembly and will run the streaming application to provide an average of 35 hours of content a week.

Rhun Roberts, new media manager, Barcud Derwen, said: "We've been the host broadcaster for National Assembly Wales since 1999 and see huge potential in extending our service to a new audience, via the internet. Working with eLINIA has allowed us to concentrate on what we do best, in the knowledge that the service we deliver has a robust, flexible foundation."

eLINIA's fully resilient, Gigabit internet infrastructure will support the service, delivering flexibility to account for spikes in traffic during key debates by allowing thousands of visitors to view content simultaneously.

The Cardiff-based, managed services specialist will also support a searchable archive which will be populated over time to allow viewers to search for specific content and view it on demand.

Digital tagging of content, provided by Barcud Derwen, allows users to search by topic, date, or by Assembly Member. All meetings are tagged and sorted by agenda item, and links back to the transcripts of the meetings are also provided to allow users to view any items of interest in the easiest and quickest way.

Peter Black AM, Commissioner for the Assembly and the Citizen, said:"The Assembly is committed to using the most modern and inclusive methods available to help people understand, engage and participate in Welsh democracy. E-democracy has a number of benefits: the potential to engage with people who may not normally take an interest in the Assembly; services such as senedd.tv makes watching the Assembly's proceedings much more accessible to people, not just in Wales but all over the World."

The launch of the service is the latest phase in the Assembly's e-democracy initiative to encourage citizens to engage with the democratic process in Wales.

The National Assembly for Wales launched a brand new, content rich website, last year which is also hosted by eLINIA. New features of the site, launched in May 2007, include virtual assembly tours, video biographies of Assembly Members, e-petitions, discussion forums, email alerts and an interactive constituency locator map.

James Carnie, technical architect, eLINIA, added: "As the role and influence of new media continues to grown, we will provide National Assembly Wales with the flexibility and peace of mind it needs to give citizens access to the information they want, when they want it."

To view live streaming from the National Assembly for Wales see: www.senedd.tv

Source: Public Technology