August 14, 2014: Iowa Public Television hosts a governor debate at the Iowa State Fair. Please, no questions about the blogger’s fair priorities or the practicality of wearing suits in August.
Being a Friend of Iowa Public Television doesn’t mean anything when it comes to programming — but boy do I have an idea.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the launch of IPTV. Based on this video montage of Iowa State Fair queens, IPTV has covered the Iowa State Fair nearly as long and also done significant work to preserve its archives. IPTV was an early experimenter/adopter of HDTV and has multiple subchannels in a network that spans the state.
How about taking the first week of August and using one of those subchannels to rebroadcast historic State Fair shows?
Imagine a marathon that sets up broadcasts for anniversary years — say, 5/10/etc. before the current year. Or group them thematically — say, a collection of Bill Riley Talent Search finals or the queen contests. If someone remembers they were in a fair feature or list of winners, there would be the chance to rewatch instead of the clip being shown twice and then gone forever.
This would be a great promotion of something near and dear to Iowans’ hearts — or, at least, to nine in twenty Iowans’ hearts.