Back porch video

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"Back Porch Video" was a music video show started in 1984 by students from the three main high schools in Dearborn, Michigan, USA. It began at a time when MTV was still in its infancy, and was carried live on the local cable television franchise, Group W Cable (a division of Westinghouse.) The personality behind the push for starting the new program was Russ Gibb, the media-arts teacher at Dearborn High School.

Hosted and crewed almost exclusively by high-school students, the program was originally aired live every Saturday night starting in the summer of 1984 for 4 hours (9pm-1am) on one of the local origination channels featured as part of the 50 or so channel line-up. The program featured hosted segments, skits, home-made music videos, local news directed at a school-aged demographic, and of course music videos supplied directly by record companies from all over the country.

The show was a success for two reasons. One, it gave many viewers the chance to participate in a live program by taking call-in requests for videos, and by really taking advantage of the then-new medium of cable television's ability to create programming specifically aimed at one particular community. But more so, it was a success in that it gave hundreds of students the chance to participate in the making of a "real" television program, something that would have been impossible before the advent of local cable television.

Many of the students involved went on to careers in the media arts, including Dino Kovas, one of the stars of the short-lived television program "The New Monkees" in 1986.

The show went through many transformations, eventually ending its run in the mid 1990's.

[edit] External links

• http://bpv.alternatephase.com Back Porch Video Archives, featuring video clips from the early days of the show
• http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=backporchvideo YouTube channel featuring many clips and music videos from the show.