Campus broadcaster NUTV is planning to pump up the volume in MacEwan Student Centre.
In September, NUTV hopes to revitalize its closed-circuit TV system by turning the volume up on the monitors located throughout the MSC food court during a daily two-hour programming window. Plans also include programming changes to highlight the best the station has to offer.
NUTV Staff Executive Director Michelle Wong hopes the changes will make the station more accessible to students.
“We need to get our viewership up by reaching out to our immediate audience,” said Wong, noting students in residence and MSC account for most of NUTV’s viewers. “I think it’s really a challenge for NUTV to function without sound.”
The daily dose of sound is tentatively planned to occur from 4-6 p.m., in order to minimize disturbance on students in the food court, Wong said. Programming changes include plans to air the previous week’s Movies that Matter film and to create a new community-focused show with opportunities for club and community members to gain screen time.
“We want to take the concept of campus community TV and expand it more,” said Wong. “It might take a year to build community access points, but when we start to engage the university population, I can only see an increase in participation.”
Plans include changes to the Speak Tank pro-ject. Wong said the Speakers’ Corner-style booth will lik-ely be moved to a more central location and sound clips from the Speak Tank will be incorporated into regular programming.
NUTV’s programming and closed-circuit changes come on top of plans to relocate the station to new space on the third floor of MSC. Wong said plans to reinvigorate the station’s operations will begin before NUTV is moved into its new space.
Students’ Union Vice-President Operations and Finance Joel Lockwood said the NUTV relocation will not occur until an agreement is made between the SU and the U of C about who will pay for core services upgrades in NUTV’s new space.
“We’re running into the same old problems,” said Lockwood, noting upgrades to infrastructure systems like heating and air-conditioning are the major impediments to construction. “We’re pushing for it to happen as soon as possible.”
Lockwood does not anticipate any trouble with the plan to turn on the volume.
“We’ve agreed upon reasonable levels of sound,” said Lockwood, who sits on the NUTV Board of Directors. “I’m really hoping it gets the word out on what NUTV does and lets students know they are there.”