New streaming channel launches to give viewers a peek into city council meetings

The creation of Hamlet was a profoundly personal effort for Sunil Rajaraman.

In 2022, he ran for a city council seat in a small town in California. Although he didn’t win, the experience dramatically shifted how he viewed the community — and local government as a whole.

“I was trying to become a better candidate,” he told TechCrunch. “I wanted to understand how my city actually functioned — what decisions were made, why they were made, who said what. And I just couldn’t figure it out. It felt like a complete black box, almost intentionally difficult to understand.”

Following the COVID era, many towns began recording their public meetings and uploading them online. That sparked an idea for Rajaraman: create a company that helps people make sense of what truly happens in local government. Later in 2022, he launched Hamlet to bring that idea to life.

“We use AI to analyze thousands of hours of city council and planning commission meetings and convert them into insights people can actually use,” he explained. He believes video provides more accuracy than traditional meeting minutes, noting, “Minutes are someone’s interpretation of events. The video doesn’t lie.”

Initially, he thought Hamlet would operate like a media organization. But as real estate developers and political action committees began reaching out, he realized that businesses interacting with local governments also needed clearer visibility into council activities.

For enterprise clients, Hamlet tracks agendas, sends alerts when important topics arise, summarises long meetings, and allows users to search the video archive — including to see when and how competitors are discussed in public sessions.

To date, Hamlet has raised roughly $10 million in venture capital from investors such as Slow Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Banana Capital, and Kapor Capital. “We want to become the Bloomberg of this space,” Rajaraman said.

Introduction of Hamlet TV

On Friday, Rajaraman announced a significant expansion: the launch of Hamlet TV, a streaming channel designed to inform everyday citizens about what happens in government meetings. The channel is now live on TikTok, YouTube, Apple TV, and Instagram, highlighting key moments from council, commission, and school board proceedings.

Rajaraman noted that his team has reviewed thousands of hours of government video on behalf of clients.

“We’ve seen meetings last more than 15 hours without a break,” he said. The team began curating humorous clips from these sessions, realizing that comedy could help spark civic interest. “If you show people procedural content, they won’t care. But if you show them the funny moments, they’ll watch.”

One memorable highlight involved someone appearing at a city council meeting dressed as a cockroach to complain about a pest problem. But humour isn’t the biggest surprise, he said. “What stands out most is how important these meetings are — and how few people actually see them.”

He pointed to an example in which Tucson’s city council rejected Amazon’s $3.6 billion data centre project earlier this year. The decision followed months of discussion, yet only a handful of people likely understood the full context because so few watched the meeting footage.

Rajaraman’s Background

This isn’t Rajaraman’s first entrepreneurial journey. He previously co-founded Scripted, served twice as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Foundation Capital, and ran The Bold Italic before selling it to Medium.

He acknowledged that Hamlet TV is unlikely to generate substantial revenue. Its purpose, he emphasized, is civic engagement — getting people more involved in how their communities are governed. He also plans to offer Hamlet’s tools to local journalists free of charge. “Data is useful, but context is everything,” he said.

What’s Next for Hamlet

The company aims to expand its partnerships across government affairs teams, renewable energy developers, and advocacy groups.

“Democracy works better when people are watching,” Rajaraman said. “We’re trying to make watching possible.”