| Department of Communication in charge of channel 99 |
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| Written by Lataisha Jackson, The Shorthorn staff | ||||
| Thursday, 05 November 2009 09:34 PM | ||||
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Channel 99 was turned over to the Department of Communication this semester, and it is working on putting student broadcasts on the air. The channel is a public access station offered to the university by Time Warner Cable. Still-image campus slides play while UTA Radio broadcasts, but organizers said they hope to add student TV broadcasts. Specific programming will be decided after it is operational. Previously, the University Communications office was in charge of the channel. Communications Vice President Jerry Lewis said he started looking at options two years ago. “I was wondering if it was the best use of our resources,” Lewis said. Most campuses have academic departments over the television stations, he said. “The Department of Communication was the natural and first choice,” Lewis said. “I’m glad we could find a perfect home for it.” Student experience and university promotion are two channel purposes, said Andrew Clark, broadcast sequence coordinator and communication associate professor. “We want to give them the opportunity to be marketable when they go out into the work force,” he said. A time frame as to when the university will broadcast programs is not available. “I would like it done as quickly as possible,” Clark said. “But we want to make sure it is done right.” Interpersonal communications senior Rodney Wright said he lacks confidence in the university’s ability to obtain entertaining programming but agrees with the benefits of on-air broadcasts. “It will help with experience for broadcast students,” he said. TV reporting classes will produce the broadcasts. This semester they produce news broadcasts for www.utanews.com. “This will be the first time they broadcast on traditional TV,” said broadcast news professor Glenn Hubbard. The university would keep up with the communication field by upgrading, said Michelle Leverett, broadcast communication senior and UTA Radio station manager. “It’s about convergence, that’s where the media is going,” she said. “We are jumping on that band wagon.” The broadcast studio and the UTA Radio station upgrades required to switch systems. “The first step is overhauling the equipment and switching over from analog to digital,” Clark said. The equipment in the broadcast studio has been obsolete for a decade, broadcast engineer Joe Carter said. “Back in the day, probably the ’70s and ’80s, this was a state of the art studio,” he said. The department has received funding for new equipment to move to high definition, which includes a digital video switcher to change between cameras, digital teleprompters and monitors that can incorporate computer graphics during viewing. The department is in the process of buying high definition cameras and designing a network infrastructure for importing and exporting data. “The new equipment will make programming easier,” Carter said. Views: 351 | E-mail
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