Don’t change that channel

Early last week, I stopped by RFOC (“real” food oncampus), for a quick bite between classes. I got my fine cuisineand took a seat at a booth within viewing distance of one of thenew televisions. I sat down hoping to enjoy some of SMU TV’squality programming (channel 7 for those that don’t know),but instead I got to watch Brown Bag for the 17th time.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Brown Bag, and consider itone of Meadows’ finest events. It’s awesome to watch inperson, and hey, I even watched a rerun of it on SMU TV. But whenit’s playing on a continuous loop, it gets a little old.

SMU TV is a fantastic opportunity for our community and for thebroadcast journalism students in Meadows. I just think that we haveyet to take full advantage of it.

The Belo Foundation donated $5 million to SMU’s journalismdepartment of which $3 million went straight to SMU TV. For thislofty price tag we got a fantastic state-of-the-art digitalnewsroom and studio, but I’m not sure we’re using it toits full potential.

Turning to channel 7, all that I see are reruns of Brown Bag,Mr. and Mrs. SMU, some news, some sad and depressing footballcoverage, the weather, a few student-produced programs and lots ofpropaganda for SMU. Our present programming is a good start, but itdefinitely needs some improvement.

I think more people would watch SMU TV if they mimicked showsfound on other stations. I would love to wake up in the morning,tune to channel 7, and find a brief, yet informative, news andweather update for the day. Students would definitely be moreinformed and more people might get involved in Student Senate if webroadcast the senate meetings regularly, like they do onC-SPAN.

The coverage and footage for Brown Bag and Mr. and Mrs. SMU werefantastic. Let’s do this type of reporting for other campusevents. I know that SMU records the Tate lectures and studentforums. Maybe such events can be played on SMU TV so that studentswho couldn’t attend have the opportunity to view the lectureslater.

While we’re at it, lets not make SMU TV overly serious andall about news. Let’s run a weekly show or two. There are acouple of shows that I am dying to see on TV. I want an “SMUCribs” show. An inside look into President Turner’shouse would definitely draw the crowds. Follow this up with alittle reporting about how much money university presidents shouldmake (thank you DC Ed Board) and you’ve got a show.Let’s have students submit tapes and make a show called,”SMU’s Funniest College Videos.” All you need isa little editing, and you have one hilarious program that will drawa substantial audience.

I don’t know how pleased the administration would be, butI would get a kick out of SMU “Jackass.” Can youimagine watching someone pull party boy on Thomas Kincaid during aSenate meeting? I am talking about definite must-see-TV.

I have heard from many other students that want to seeSMU’s version of “Punked.” Mild-mannered,harmless pranks played on students, faculty, the president and deanof Student Life would round out this show.

Now that we have comedy covered, let’s shift into drama.You don’t have time to produce a dramatic show? See if thetheater department will let you film its plays and then show themon television a few weeks after the show is over. It wouldn’thurt its ticket sales and might bolster attendance to shows.

After all of these new shows, catch SMU’s attention, thejournalism division should team up with the advertising departmentand get local businesses to run ads for pizza joints and coffeeshops; preferably to be produced by our advertising students. Theprogram would make some money and give the advertising departmentsome valuable experience at the same time.

SMU TV’s moniker is “You’d better watchyourself!” I agree. SMU TV, take a step back and watchyourself. You’d see that while you are doing an excellent jobon some things, it just gets old when you play them over again.Give it a fresh start and let’s put some new, informative andexciting student shows on. It will only benefit everyone in theend.