In 2005, the City of Denver shut down the city's Public Access TV station and issued a Request for Proposals for a new model that could sustain Public Access TV in Denver without any operating support. The Open Media Foundation visited with organizations across the nation to devise a model that would leverage the best in emerging technologies and web2.0 Business Models in a way that could put the control of Denver's Community TV station in the hands of the community. OMF's new vision for community-powered TV got startup support from the City of Denver, building a set of tools that empowered community producers and viewers in a number of ways, from channel scheduling to equipment reservations and more.
Although the software was open-source, OMF made many mistakes in the development process that prevented the tools from being easily used elsewhere. In 2008 the Knight Foundation provided a grant for Open Media Foundation (then Deproduction) to update the Drupal modules used in the automated, user-driven operation at Denver Open Media into a generalized solution that would work for other stations with a variety of workflows, working towards a national network of community media stations cooperating and sharing the best content from across Public Access. In early 2009, OMF began implementing a beta version of the tools at Denver Open Media and six other public access stations that agreed to partner in the project. The initial beta partners were: Amherst Community Television, Boston Neighborhood Network, channelAustin, Davis Media Access, Denver Open Media, Portland Community Media, Urbana Public Television.
The Beta-Test completed in 2010 and proved to be a valuable learning experience. While the tools were developed to be incredibly flexible, that flexibility brought with it two negative side-effects. First, the tools required a skilled Drupal developer to install, customize, and maintain. Even though the OMP tools proved to significantly reduce workload in other areas, few stations are prepared to re-staff or re-train in the way the OMP required. Second, while the software was designed to put more control in the hands of the community, its flexibility allowed stations to tweak the software to fit their old workflows rather than tweak their workflow to fit the software. By 2011, the OMP software existed in two separate forks, neither of which were entirely aligned with the original goals of the OMP, and neither easily accessible for low-budget stations.
In 2012, OMF partnered with Warecorp, Archive.org, TightRope Media Systems, and TheUptake to re-build the Open Media Project tools as a cloud-based service that would eliminate the need for re-staffing and ongoing technical maintenance. Stations with the resources required to customize and implement the software on their own are still free to do so, but now the tools are also available as a cloud-based solution through an annual fee.