Television — it’s a staple of everyday life all around the world, and it’s available 24 hours a day. Many don’t realize how much of an impact those colored screens have had on our culture. Our great-grandparents had books, our grandparents and parents had radio and we’ve got, well, plasma flat-screen televisions.
What a long way we’ve come.
With TV’s maturation, networks have begun to take even greater measures to please their viewers. They’re trying to target specific groups of people in order to give them more of what they want.
A growing trend is TV programming specifically designed for the “average college student.” But is that what college kids want? Do students really need to see programming exclusively for themselves if other TV stations try to include them? And, more importantly, is it really possible for networks to give them what they want to see? Students disagree.
MTV has been one of the hottest TV stations in the market for 13- to 25-year-olds since it launched on August 1, 1981. And with its impact on music and popular culture, it only seemed right for MTV to launch a station designed exclusively for the largest part of its audience — college students.
Thus, mtvU was born in January 2004 as a station that is, according it mtvU’s Web site, “the definitive college network for students at universities across the country.” It’s “loaded up with music you won’t see anywhere else,” and “is everything else that makes college, well… college.” mtvU reaches more than 6 million students on more than 700 college campuses, and Northwestern is its latest subscriber. The channel was added to NUTV on Wednesday.
MTV created the spin-off station to provide college students with access to on-campus contests, nationwide college band searches, CBS News updates and never-before-heard music by up-and-coming artists. The infant network, run by college students and MTV executives, brings a wide array of music videos and shows like “Stand-In,” in which a popular public figure acts as a substitute professor for a day. U.S. Sen. John McCain returned to his Annapolis, Md., alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, in one episode to talk to students about his views on topics like terrorism and steroid use.
“It’s a channel that has been customized for college students,” says Stephen Friedman, the general manager of mtvU. “You’re not going to find something exclusively focused on college anywhere else.”
mtvU strives to provide college students with programming that MTV lacks. Shows like “The Feed” give students previews of upcoming movies, and “The Best Gamer on Campus” searched far and wide to find the best collegiate video game junkie, who won a gaming contract with Major League Gaming.
And the music programming is less mainstream on mtvU, Friedman says. “I think college students are much more open to a greater array of music,” Friedman says. He adds that as long as you’re watching mtvU, you “won’t ever see Britney.”
But college students’ interests obviously aren’t limited to music and popular culture. Athletics are one of the most important components of the college experience for some students, and with huge audiences for the Final Four and BCS National Championship Games, it would seem obvious to create a station about college sports for the college student. ESPN, the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports,” noticed this truth and created ESPNU on March 4.
Having celebrated its 25th anniversary last September, ESPN already boasts 65 percent of male sports viewers between 18 to 34. Comparing ESPN to ESPNU is “like comparing apples and oranges,” says Mike Humes, a senior publicist for ESPN.
“We only show college sports,” Humes says. “It’s not really a question of which is better than the other because ESPNU is totally different.”
According to its Web site, ESPNU includes a 24-hour television network and provides content for ESPN.com and ESPN Radio. The channel broadcasts only collegiate sporting events and attempts to introduce college students nationwide to the competition in their realm of the sporting world.
The new channel, which aired its first broadcast at an Oklahoma State football game, set out with its new sports analysts to cover an assortment of sporting events, from basketball and football to lacrosse, wrestling and softball.
While the network’s content is completely collegiate and targets current students, ESPNU analyst and anchor Mike Hall says the channel also appeals to television viewers nostalgic for their college years.
“Our basic idea was to make this a place where you could go to get a reminder of what most people consider the ‘best years of their life,’ by going back to college,” Hall has said.
Hall became ESPNU’s official analyst and lead anchor after winning ESPN’s first annual “Dream Job” contest — a competition-turned-reality show which put competitors head-to-head for a job as an ESPN sportscaster. Hall, a 22-year-old graduate of the University of Missouri, beat multiple contenders and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated On Campus in October 2004.
“We want to bring the energy, the enthusiasm, the excitement of the college scene in everything we do,” Hall has said.
mtvU and ESPNU are making strides in the capture-the-college-kid game, but they aren’t the only stations vying for the eyes of college TV audiences. TV stations at colleges everywhere — including Duke, Cornell, Yale and Columbia — have been working to provide enjoyable and relevant programming that can’t be seen anywhere else. Students at Vassar College even produced their own soap opera about campus life, “The Passionate and the Privileged.”
And NU has gone along with the trend by forming its own public access station, NU Channel (NUCH1). The station competes against major prime time shows like “American Idol” and “The O.C.,” trying to provide interesting shows and newscasts that will capture the NU audience.
NUCH1 is fairly new — the staff met for the first time during Fall Quarter 2003, and they launched the station earlier this year. NUCH1 has combined itself with the Northwestern News Network and Studio 22, a student-run film production company, to give students more than just a few highlighted notes on a black screen every hour — the previous norm for the budding channel.
With NUCH1, students can view NNN’s nightly news, a nationally renowned biweekly newscast produced by Medill students. It also offers documentary-style programming through Studio 22 and individual student features, created entirely by NU student talent.
Students also can tune in to NUCH1 for coverage of Medill’s Crain Lecture Series, documentaries on Tom Brokaw and AIDS in Chicago, and SportsNight — NU’s own version of ESPNU.
“It offers an opportunity (for) entertainment as well as a means of communication that we didn’t have prior,” says Catherine Whitcomb, assistant to the vice president of student affairs and one of six NUCH1 advisors.
Some might ask what purpose NUCH1 serves, since students can watch a myriad of shows on NUTV’s other stations. According to Whitcomb, NUCH1 offers the ability to “communicate through each other’s video productions and talents.”
“It’s totally different,” Whitcomb says. “NUCH1 will always be much more thought provoking. It’s going to involve people, and that’s why students will watch.”
While trying to offer students diverse forms of entertainment — from music videos and sports to documentaries and student newscasts — media outlets are constantly trying to create programming to draw in viewers. But are they really giving students what they want? Students who are often rushing to classes and extracurricular events might not make time for television — especially when they barely have time to eat.
Friedman says mtvU deliberately makes its programming shorter to accommodate students who are constantly on the go and don’t have time to watch an entire 30-minute episode.
“All of our programming is no longer than three or four minutes,
” Friedman says. “For us, it’s very important to be a channel that’s different.”
The very recent arrival of mtvU at NU has left students with little time to form opinions on the channel, but some students at other schools say they don’t understand the relevance of stations like mtvU and what they contribute.
Siobhan Goodwell, a student at the University of California at Los Angeles, says she sees mtvU on every television at her local gym. She says she finds the most time to watch television when working out, but even then mtvU does nothing for her.
“It’s not absolutely necessary,” says Goodwell, a sophomore studying history and environmental studies. “It’s pretty much the same thing as MTV. The only difference is all of the (video jockeys) are college-age.”
Some students at NU say they agree with Goodwell on the uselessness of new college-oriented stations. Karen Tang, a Communication senior, says these new channels could be entertaining to students, but not to the extent that they’re significantly different from their parent stations. “If there’s more music, then it might offer something,” Tang says of mtvU.
But some students at other schools say they enjoy the availability of college-focused stations, and some even say they prefer them to the regular stations they’ve been watching all their lives.
Britney Scaggs, another student at UCLA, says she is an avid television watcher and that she enjoys watching mtvU in the dining halls and sports centers on campus.
“I think it’s cool to have around,” says Scaggs, a freshman studying political science. She says she doesn’t prefer MTV content over that of mtvU –or vice versa — but that she does like mtvU’s shorter programming, which is more conducive to her busy schedule.
“It’s better for me,” Scaggs says. “Some people don’t like it, but it’s better than nothing.”
College students may have mixed feelings about national networks targeted to them, but NU students almost unanimously praise the creation of NUCH1.
“I think NUCH1 is important,” Tang says. “You get to see your own peers on it.”
Ashley Ludgood, a Medill freshman, also says she finds NUCH1 enjoyable. “(NUCH1) is a good opportunity for students,” Ludgood says. “They’re doing a good job of displaying talent here at Northwestern.”
Since large networks increasingly are targeting the college contingent, where will that leave us in a few years when we’ve graduated? The trend in college-focused programming is part of a larger trend — targetting a variety of different demographic groups. Black Entertainment TV has been around for years, TNN recently changed to Spike (“The First Network for Men”), and Viacom is toying with the idea of creating a channel exclusively for gay and lesbian programming.
Television will continue to evolve, but at least you can rest comfortably — for now, in your pajamas at your desk in your dorm room — in the notion that it’s all centered on you.
Medill freshman Alexis Jeffries is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].