British student television

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A programme being filmed by the University of Glasgow's Student TV Station, GUST.

Student television in Great Britain sees students from universities and some colleges independently producing content in a set-up similar to a small TV station.

Content is not generally broadcast across traditional media, only a select number of stations own cable broadcast networks and dedicated studios. Most Student television stations use the internet as their primary way of distributing content; either on a dedicated website, the university's pages or on video sharing sites such as Youtube and the Scholar Channel. Student television encapsulates a variety of different programming styles and techniques, from large stations funded by their universities and broadcasting into university accommodation and buildings, to a single student uploading vlogs to the web.

Some of the British student TV stations are affiliated with the National Student Television Association (NaSTA), which as of October 2009 had 30 affiliated member stations from around Britain^[1]. The Association hold an awards ceremony once a year to reward the best work submitted by the member stations across a number of categories.

History

Some student television stations in Great Britain pre-date the founding of some national broadcasters like Channel 4 and Five. Glasgow University Student Television was founded in 1964 ^{[2][dubious – discuss]} and was the first Student TV Station in Great Britain^{[citation needed]}. YSTV, of the University of York, followed in 1967^[3] and was the first in England^{[citation needed]}, Wales would not get its first until 2005, with GlamTV of the University of Glamorgan^{[citation needed]}, QTV of Queens University Belfast was the first in Ireland^{[citation needed]}.

During the 1980s many stations collapsed, for one reason or another unable to maintain production, the reason for this varied but the key underlining reason was as with all student groups they depend on the voluntary contribution of students as this is an unstable factor year to year, the skill required to run such a complex operation were lost as people graduated. However with easy to use digital technology and the growth of media courses many of universities have seen a return of station some are relaunches of old stations such as at the University of Leicester^{[citation needed]} whereas others are completely new as with the University of Plymouth^{[citation needed]}.

Prior to the advent of digital video technology, particularly computer editing software, a student television station was costly to run and the programmes were difficult to edit. When digital technology became available and relatively cheap it became possible for students to take advantage of it and many new stations were set up at the end of the nineties and early part of this decade^{[citation needed]}. The number of stations continues to grow each year^{[citation needed]}.

Current style and production techniques

Techniques vary from station to station, some emulate professional television stations, with equipped studios control booths and editing suites, some have no fixed basis relying on members own camcorders and computers for production. Most stations rely heavily on magazine style shows often broadcast live once a week then repeated. These will include individual segments, often reviews and news programmes with few producing comedy or drama. The segments are often made available on demand online after broadcast, although few stations sell their content (most likely for copyright and licensing reasons). A notable exception to this is SUSU.tv, which does retail their programmes via their website. Student television was quick to utilise digital video which is now increasingly used in the mainstream such as in the British documentary Taking Liberties. the Canon XL1 is commonly used by student TV and it was used on hit British film 28 days later.^[4]

Cultural impact

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Student produced television is becoming increasingly recognised in Great Britain, the National Union of Students having awards for both "Best Media Student" and "Student Broadcaster of the Year",^[5] as well as the Royal Television Society who have awards for student television stations and student produced content^[6]. The Guardian hosts a annual Student Media Awards which mainly focuses around print media, however there is a Student Broadcaster of the year award.^[7]

An animation called Badgered by Sharon Colman who was a student at the National Film and Television School^[8] was nominated for an Academy Awards in 2006,^[9][10] under the category best animated short film. Which was won by "The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation" by John Canemaker and Peggy Stern.^[11]

LSUTV (Loughborough University TV) presenter Ore Oduba who won the NaSTA best male award of 2008^[12], went on to be hired by the BBC on July 2008 to present the childrens TV show Newsround^[13].

National Student Television Association

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National Student Television Association Logo.

The National Student Television Association (NaSTA), is formed from affiliated stations from throughout Great Britain. The number of affiliated stations varies from year to year, but historically it consists of approximately fifteen active stations ^[14]. But as of 2009 the size of NaSTA has grown to incompass 30 member stations^[15]

NaSTA also runs an annual awards ceremony, in which eligible stations submit examples of their programming for appraisal by judges drawn from the wider broadcast industry.

The earliest records of a NaSTA conference date from the 1995 conference, when the member stations were, BTV, CTV, GUST, GTV, LUST, Nexus, STOIC and YSTV.^[16]

Every year one of the affiliated stations volunteers to be the host station of NaSTA, hosting the awards and administrating NaSTA - this includes the managing of finances, communications and promotion for the entire organisation. Since the 2006 conference NaSTA has had a non binding constitution detailing the responsibilities of the host stations and scope of the organisation. NaSTA customarily maintains a website^[17].

The organisation recently staged an election for a trial executive, with a view to establishing a full, annually-elected executive at the spring AGM.^[18]

The 2010 NaSTA conference will be hosted at the University of Glasgow.

Freshers TV

Freshers TV was launched in 2008 by the National Student Television Association^[19], an idea to branch out of the traditional way that Student TV had been broadcast and reach a higher number of people. NaSTA linked up with Freewire, a company who provides TV University Halls, Freshers.tv and Sub.tv who provide TV feeds for university student unions.^[20][21]. The results of 2008 were positive on Freshers.tv and online the concept was viewed by 7.655 viewers over the 2 week trial period.^[22] A 2009 Freshers TV run is planned but details are as yet unknown.

References

External links

• NaSTA
• Royal Television Society