Both the Hamilton Southeastern School Board and the Fishers City Council have been live streaming videos of their regular meetings and preserving those recordings online if anyone wishes to view them later.  I recently asked myself this question – how many people are watching these videos?

I submitted requests to the Hamilton Southeastern School Board and the City of Fishers for data on how many views their videos receive.  I have yet to receive a response from the city, but the HSE Schools have responded.  Once I have information from the city, this story will be updated.

The HSE Schools had a few technical glitches when rolling out the video technology in March & April of 2019, which is normal, so I have data beginning with the May 8th, 2019, board session through the recent February 12th meeting.

Based on the numbers provided, during that period, there were 4,056 instances where a person accessed most or all of a live-stream meeting video, meaning they watched live as the meeting was happening.  Also, during that same period, there were 2,834 times an access was made to view most or all of a recorded meeting session.

School officials emphasize that these numbers do not reflect “unique visitors,” meaning one person could access a video more than once.

The most-viewed video by far was the first recorded meeting, conducted on May 8th.  This was the session when the board approved the final version of the school nondiscrimination policy.  There were 1,437 views of that live-stream.  There were 1,055 views of the recorded version of that meeting after the session ended.

The number two meeting, in terms of the number of views, was the most recent one on February 12th, when school start times and revised bus schedules were debated and finalized for the 2020-2021 school year.  There were 526 live-stream views and 124 views of the recording.

It should be noted that only regular meetings held in the board meeting room at the school administration building are live-streamed and recorded.  Board work sessions are not part of the video contract with the vendor.