UC System Launching 24-Hour Television Broadcasts

Tapping into one of California’s most vaunted universities is now just a click of the remote control away.

This month, the University of California became one of the first universities anywhere to take to the airwaves, creating a 24-hour television channel. The UC channel, or UC-TV, airs nationwide via satellite to a potential audience of about 3.4 million.

“Our channel gives the university the chance to share its extraordinary collection of talent with the rest of the country,” said Lynn Burnstan, acting director of UC-TV. “We’ll be bringing some of the world’s most accomplished scientists, poets, engineers and artists into people’s living rooms every night.”

Right now, no one is mistaking the upstart channel for CNN, but with campuses throughout the state, including Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Diego, UC-TV does have incredible resources from which to draw. The station has begun broadcasting faculty lectures, dance recitals, research symposiums and special guest appearances to subscribers of EchoStar’s Dish Network.

One recent afternoon featured a long panel discussion on mayoral politics in San Diego. A single, sometimes shaky, camera panned across a table from one speaker to another without a single edit or narration. But later, an eight-minute documentary profiling the life of Robert C. Dynes, UC San Diego’s chancellor, looked slick enough to run on A&E.; The piece included animation, graphics and outdoor footage synchronized with narration and music.

UC also has plans for the channel to benefit K-12 teachers. It will air programs on subjects such as global warming, women’s rights and African American issues, which teachers can turn into lectures. Some will include exercises to spark classroom discussion.

In November, the Federal Communications Commission required broadcast providers to turn over 4% of their channels to public service stations, enabling UC to compete for viewers with the big boys. But as a public service channel, UC-TV accepts no advertising and costs the university $10,000 per month, a fraction of what commercial stations pay to lease a channel. (Other public service channels are operated by Brigham Young University and Northern Arizona University.)

More universities might consider creating public service channels, said Monica Pilkey, who helped EchoStar select its public service programmers, if it weren’t so difficult to come up with 24-hour programming worth watching.

“There is a definite benefit to public service programming, especially for professionals who can continue career learning at home,” said Pilkey, director of Educating Everyone, a foundation based in Sarasota, Fla. “But how do you create a year’s worth of content when your entire operating budget is less than what it costs a network to produce a single episode of a hit show?”

For UC-TV, whose annual operating budget is $1 million, the answer is to rely on its successful San Diego station. UCSD-TV has been up and running for seven years and reaches a million homes through two local cable networks. The station will provide technological equipment and archive material while the university’s main channel has a chance to get on its feet. The UC channel also will benefit from the relationships that its San Diego station has developed with organizations such as the San Diego Opera, which funded 10 programs last year.

Northern Arizona University plans to use its public service channel to raise revenue by offering 50 courses for credit on the Dish Network each semester. The university will broadcast lectures on the satellite and collect assignments from individual students through the Internet. Burnstan, however, said UC has no such plans for its channel.

“The channel is really just an extension of the university’s commitment to community service,” Burnstan said. “It’s important for us to share the wealth of activity on our campuses and be a part of any community dialogue on relevant issues.”

UC-TV can be viewed on channel 9412 of the Dish Network. It also can be checked out on the Internet at https://www.uctvonline.org. The station currently airs programming in four-hour blocks from 3 to 11 p.m. Burnstan said UC-TV will expand to 24-hour service in the next few weeks and will explore the possibility of joining other cable providers throughout California and nationwide.