Drive-by awards ceremony is the new norm for recognition ceremonies during COVID-19
By ONME News
The COVID-19 pandemic is making people think differently on how to orchestrate their organization's annual events --often unique and compromising but accomplished in their efforts.
This year, the Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC) conducted their awards ceremony through a drive-by celebration to abide by the recent California, intense COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing mandates.
The CMAC Member Appreciation Awards in the past has been awarded to members during the CMAC Fest and Member Appreciation Holiday Party. This year's CMAC party will be held on Zoom Dec. 19, 2020 instead.
CMAC, governed by a 13-member volunteer board of directors, is a membership-based, 501c3 non-profit organization created to help citizens, schools, non-profits, public agencies and others better connect with the community through the use of media. It opened its doors on April 13, 2012. CMAC operates three television channels on Comcast and AT&T U-verse, and streaming on Roku, Apple TV, and cmac.tv.
Each year, CMAC recognizes outstanding members for their producing and volunteering efforts; this year, ONME's executive producers Julia Dudley Najieb and Lennice Najieb were recognized as the 2020 Producers of the Year.
Congratulations to the ONME Network Executive Producers!
Currently the ONME Network provides three-hours of original video podcast programming daily on CMAC offline TV channels, reaching audiences throughout the Central Valley in Fresno, Tulare, Kings, Madera, and Merced counties. Programming ranges from news and education to edutainment from a Black perspective through CMAC, Comcast Channel 93 and AT&T Uverse Channel 99.
Before CMAC television, the ONME executive producers featured Black news programming only once a week for a half-hour a week on two affiliate TV channels, CBS and NBC; the TV presence was to assist with pushing people to the new 2015 refurbished online TV network catered to Central California residents. The process certainly did not happen over night, as Black people had to adjust to going online to watch Black news podcast programming that was not on YouTube--the ONME Network programming stopped its significant YouTube presence in 2015, focusing on building up video content on their own online, serving platform.
CMAC was the most cost-effective answer to reach the mass Central Valley TV audience and Black communities in a short amount of time--the ONME executive producers joining CMAC in 2018 allowed for more quality community programming and Black podcasts to be trialed, produced or showcased through the ONME Network on CMAC, ONME expanding its programming repertoire.
Its been a long time coming for the ONME executive producers since its humble beginnings in 2005 on radio, with two-hour recorded and filmed show, Valley Black Talk Radio -- the original and first Black podcast in the Central Valley with founding show hosts Woody Miller, Mel Sanders, Wally Porter and Julia Dudley Najieb.
Currently the online ONME Podcast Network features licensed and original California-related news, information and edutainment podcasts from a Black perspective, 24/7 through its online linear ONME TV network, on-demand ONME Podcast platform and through online ONME PAN partners located throughout California. It also provides audio podcasts for third-party subscribers of: Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Google Podcast, Castbox, Podcast Addict, JioSaavn, Podchaser, , Listennotes.com, and Spreaker; also on OTT apps Roku and Amazon Fire.