The History of Buckeye TV
and Student Media at Ohio State
The history of student media at OSU
can be traced back to the 1950s and even earlier, when
The Ohio State University began to broadcast AM, FM,
and television signals from its campus studios in the
electrical engineering deparment using the call letters
WOSU. The president of Ohio State at the time clearly
stated that the WOSU stations were not student laboratories
for the broadcasting sciences, but would serve as public
relations and community outreach apparatus. Lacking
an outlet for student media at the largest university
in the country, the students did not have a broadcasting
voice for many years.
Various attempts were made over the next decades to
start student radio broadcast stations and all met with
the same result: the lack of an over-the-air broadcast
signal doomed these stations to broadcast short-range
tranmissions not available off campus. The stations,
known by call letters such as WOSR amd WMLH all faded
into obscurity.
Student radio eventually reformed; first as KBUX and
eventually reaches its current state, "The Underground"
student radio. The Underground is "radio"
in name only however, as they do not have a on-air signal
nor will they have any opportunity in the future to
receive a broadcast signal. They stream an audio signal
over the Internet and on the on-campus cable television
system, UNITS. The station, however, has repeatedly
stated to OSU management that they are not interested
in being a profitable entity and feel that they are
not able to generate revenue in their current internet/cable
only state, leaving them reliant on Undergraduate Student
Government funding sources.
On the TV front, in fall 2001, four undergraduate students
began to meet in the Ohio Union to discuss starting
a different form of student media -- a student television
station. Plans were made and the students each took
on an area of the station: Frank Sasso as the first
General Manager, Jarrod Weiss as Director of Marketing,
David Plantz as Director of Programming, and Paul Forsgren
as the station's first Chief Engineer. The students
were able to gain financing from the university's Residence
Hall Advisory Council in the amount of $12,000 and were
able to secure studio and office space from OSU's Vice
President of Student Affairs, Bill Hall. In addition
to these donations, the station was able to secure channel
space and master control equipment from the on campus
cable provider, UNITS, as well as technical support
and consultation on equipment. Liz Applegate signed
on as the station's first News Director, and Neil Sika
became the first Sports Director. The students were
assisted in their initial efforts to build the station
by Daniel Boord, a video production professor in the
OSU Department of Theater who served as the station's
original adviser and donated various pieces of production
equipment. Boord moved on to the University of Colorado
in spring 2004 and the station has been advised by Janet
Parrott since then.
The station was able to begin broadcasting for the first
time in winter 2002 and in late March, the station was
officially "on the air" on the UNITS cable
system as Channel 19. From there, the station purchased
rudimentary production equipment such as DV cameras,
a switcher, and an audio board. The first production
in OSU student television history, "BUCK-iLIVE
News Update", was produced soon after the station
first went air. More programming followed, as a public
affairs show "Straight Talk Live" and various
other programming began production. OSU's Theater Department
contributed a drama/sitcom "Kollege" and its
Film and Video Society started a working relationship
with the station that continues to this day.
As the station entered fall 2004, many changes both
on-air and on the technical side of operations had been
made. The older UNITS-donated master control system
had been replaced by an all digital, fully automated
MPEG-2 video server playout system. The studios and
control room equipment had been upgraded and replaced.
Teleprompters were ordered, and installed in the early
months of 2005. Programming quality increased in the
winter of that year as the underperforming daily newscast
was dropped and replaced with a weekly news-journal
style show, Buckeye News Weekly. The station's sports
department began to work to produce higher quality analysis/highlight
programming and the station began to work with the athletic
department to use in-house video productions as possible
sources of live sports programming.
In spring 2005, it was announced
that Buckeye TV would cease to be a student organization
and would instead become a student laboratory for the
media arts and sciences, housed under the jurisdiction
of the Department of Theatre, College of the Arts. The
station was to become the laboratory component of a
new minor in Media Production and Analysis, set to be
created in spring 2006. In addition to the station
becoming an academic program, Buckeye TV is beginning
to work with WOSU.TV, Ohio State's public television
affiliate, to produce programming viewed on the student
station and WOSU's digital multicast channel, WOSU.
Plus, this programming, produced in WOSU's studios,
will be of broadcast quality and will constitute the
first student productions ever aired on the WOSU station's
on-air signal. Buckeye TV's future appears bright and
the future of student media and broadcasting on Ohio
State's campus will only become stronger in the coming
months.
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