NUTV viewers are able to watch Mickey Mouse this year, but the Northwestern News Network and other student groups are still waiting to join the club.
Channels such as Disney and A&E were added to NUTV’s lineup over the summer and others, like the History Channel, got the boot. The university also added a local news channel, C-SPAN and a community-access channel based on the results of a survey sent out to students at the end of last year.
After noticing a demand for Chicago-area coverage, the university decided to replace CNN Headline News with WGN.
“When we set up (NUTV) we had planned to offer local channels,” said Sheila Driscoll, assistant vice president for student affairs. “We still have three news channels, but we’ll bring back a local channel.”
Though NUTV will feature less of Ted Turner’s fare, it still will run two C-SPAN channels on top of its normal 20 selections.
The next technological goal for NUTV is to enable the university to broadcast its own content on residence hall computers, said Cate Whitcomb, assistant to the vice president for student affairs. NUTV content currently originates with a cable provider. But sometime this year, NU administrators hope they will have a facility where they can pop a tape or CD in a machine and its contents will show up on a designated NUTV channel. Right now all that channel features is Plan-It Purple — not exactly prime-time material.
“It’s like when you check into the Holiday Inn and the first thing you see is the Holiday Inn channel,” Whitcomb said. “It’s the Northwestern equivalent of that.”
Whitcomb is in charge of the effort to improve the channel. She said that once NU is able to broadcast student material, air time will be in high demand.
All sorts of content could be broadcast on a student channel — including speeches, plays, and public meetings, said Tamara Kagel, Associated Student Government student services vice president. But Prof. Joseph Angotti, NNN’s faculty sponsor, said the student news channel in particular needs a medium to reach students.
“Our newscast is seen on WYCC-20 and can be seen all the way from Michigan City, Ind., up to the Wisconsin border,” Angotti said. “It goes to all these places except one small sliver of land that is Northwestern University.”
The Medill School of Journalism also is working on a way to broadcast NNN on the Web, Angotti said, although he is glad a channel is being set up for other student groups as well.
“If somebody is working on that, I’m just delighted,” he said. “If all of the jillions of activities that happen on this campus could be taped and played on NUTV, it would be a fantastic resource for students and this university.”
