Two weeks after MSU’s Residence Halls Association, or RHA, launched its new RHA-TV “On Demand” service, organization officials said the feedback from the campus community has been mostly positive.
The feature — RHA-TV “On Demand” — allows students who paid RHA’s $25 semester tax to access nearly 30 movie titles via the Internet whenever they want, with no additional charge, former RHA President Emma Perot said. The service is available at rha.msu.edu.
“We spent the last year figuring out how we could expand and improve,” Perot said.
“When this was presented as an option I thought it was going to be a really great option for getting programming out to people.”
Students are able to access titles from the previous 45-day RHA broadcasting period, Perot said. Perot said the free trial period for the program will last until the end of the spring semester.
Scott Bishop, director of RHA-TV, said the idea to bring the service to campus was a result of lukewarm reception to the current streaming service, RHA-TV “On-The-Go.” “On Demand” allows users to start and stop movies as they please, whereas “On-The-Go” is a continually streaming channel.
“Last year, we implemented ‘On-The-Go’ … and we had a mediocre reception,” Bishop said.
“We asked the company that we contract through, they had just released an on-demand feature that let users watch at whatever time they wanted.”
German freshman Elizabeth Rowley said even though she had never used RHA-TV “On-The-Go” or watched the television programming, she would use RHA-TV “On Demand” because it was convenient.
“If they advertised, I think I would use it,” Rowley said.
“It would be a nice little perk.”
The movies will rotate every broadcast period and only can be accessed through on-campus IP addresses, Bishop said.
“We are staggering the content from the previous month to keep from competing with ourselves,” Bishop said.
“If “Wedding Crashers” is on channel 11 or 12 in March, it would be available on-demand in April.”
Bishop said RHA still is working out the kinks — some IP locations have not been able to access the service — and if RHA decides to keep the program for next semester, it would cost $5,000 per year.
Bishop said if the organization opts to continue the service, a tax increase would not be used to pay for it.
“We are receiving feedback through our executive board and a Facebook event we created,” Bishop said.
“Additionally, anyone who uses the service can e-mail me (at tv@rha.msu.edu).”
Social science sophomore Allison McGreevy said she would use RHA-TV “On Demand” because it would give her a chance to watch something other than what was on RHA-TV at the time.
“If I can go watch a movie that I can pick, then yeah, sure,” McGreevy said.
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“I don’t always like what they are playing; sometimes it seems like they are playing the same movie all the time.”
