EVENTS: Cleveland to welcome Great Lakes Week Summit, WVIZ/PBS will broadcast

We are supporting and participating in the Great Lakes Week Summit and Great Lakes Restoration Conference starting September 11, discussing the challenges and opportunities facing Lake Erie and our entire Great Lakes region.

You can still register to attend, and you can also follow more than 25 hours of programming thanks to a partnership between WVIZ/PBS ideastream and Detroit Public Television.

Here’s the official release and program guide from WVIZ/PBS:

DETROIT PUBLIC TV AND WVIZ/PBS ideastream®
COLLABORATE TO DELIVER ON-AIR, ONLINE AND ON-DEMAND ACCESS TO 
“GREAT LAKES WEEK” SUMMIT
International Meeting Held in Cleveland to Look at the Future of Great Lakes

CLEVELAND (August 29, 2012) – Detroit Public Television (DPTV) and WVIZ/PBS ideastream announce a content and community engagement collaboration to provide the public with a high level of access to the Great Lakes Week summit, which will discuss the future of The Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Week summit will occur in Cleveland, Ohio, September 10-14, 2012.

Great Lakes Week encompasses significant conferences hosted by the International Joint Commission; the Environmental Protection Agency; the U.S. Areas of Concern Program; the Great Lakes Commission; The Healing Our Waters® – Great Lakes Coalition (representing 120 organizations); and Environment Canada—all leading organizations that deal with Great Lakes issues. Thirty million people in North America live in the Great Lakes Basin.

With coverage entitled “Great Lakes Now,” DPTV and WVIZ/PBS will broadcast, webcast and produce other content from the conferences and make it all accessible via their television channels and Web platforms. The content is designed to appeal to everyone, from the general public to industry experts.

To make coverage of the events as accessible as possible, all content—live and/or recorded—will be offered, at no cost, to any public or commercial news organization in North America.  Also, embed codes are available to news websites to stream coverage, free of charge.

Scheduled sessions of interest include a discussion of the impact of algae blooms on Lake Erie, a look at certified clean beaches and other efforts to protect swimmers and an update on the Asian carp situation in Lake Erie.

This year, the partners plan to broadcast and/or webcast:

• A daily half-hour recap of activity each day on September 11, 12 and 13 (airing in Northeast Ohio on WVIZ/PBS at 7:30 p.m. and also on The Ohio Channel, a digital television station available in Northeast Ohio on Channel 25.2 and on Time Warner Cable Channel 990 at 9:30 p.m. on those dates).
• More than 25 hours of live coverage of conference sessions, featuring speakers and panel discussions (airing in Northeast Ohio on The Ohio Channel).
• Great Lakes Now streamed content, available to viewers starting on September 10, 2012 at ideastream.org and greatlakesnow.org.

Veteran journalist Christy McDonald is primary anchor of the coverage. ideastream’s Rick Jackson will also serve as anchor periodically through the week.

“We are continuing our commitment to this important content for a second year because of what public research shows us,” said Rich Homberg, President and General Manager of Detroit Public Television. “Ninety-seven percent of people in the Great Lakes Basin believe the Great Lakes are important to their lives, but only 4 percent say they have a personal responsibility to protect the Great Lakes. That’s a disconnect we want to help bridge, with our partners, through the power of media.”

“WVIZ/PBS ideastream is happy to be working with our colleagues from Detroit Public Television on this important project,” said Jerry Wareham, President and CEO of ideastream. “Through our ongoing community ascertainment called ‘The Listening Project,’ we are well aware of the important role that the environment, and specifically Lake Erie, holds in the hearts and minds of our citizens.”

During 2011’s Great Lakes Week in Detroit, 24 television stations in 22 major markets in the U.S., reaching millions of households — plus Canadian outlets and several online news platforms — broadcast DPTV’s coverage. The 2011 coverage received an EDGE Award from the Association of Public Television Stations. Great Lakes Now television coverage in Southeastern Michigan will be available on over-air Channel 56.2, Comcast Channel 287, Bright House Channel 155 and Charter Channel 432. The daily half-hour recap will be available on DPTV’s main channel, WTVS-TV Channel 56.

The Great Lakes Now coverage of the 2012 Great Lakes Week is made possible with support from The Erb Family Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Cleveland Metroparks and the International Joint Commission. Inquiries about Great Lakes Week events should be directed to Jordan Lubetkin at (734) 887-7109 or lubetkin@nwf.org