By Ian Beabout, Online Editor
WLUTV-14 is the University’s very own TV station. Since its very humble beginnings in the basement of the Elbin Library, it has since grown into a multi-million dollar facility that gives broadcasting and communications students the opportunity to work in the unique environment that is the TV field.
Now with its online feed, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, its reach is far beyond its formerly limited carriage and can be streamed 24/7.
In addition to carrying all the home football and basketball games live on the West Liberty Sports Network (WLSN), WLU-TV offers a variety of specialty programming for a variety of interests. The programming includes In Your Business, hosted by Carrie White, who focuses on local businesses and entrepreneurship, Bordas and Bordas Legal Review, hosted by Jamie Bordas, who discusses general legal issues nationwide cases, and On Money, hosted by Pete Holloway, which is geared toward financial concerns.
Sports enthusiasts will be interested in Jock Talk, hosted by Brandon Galici, Trent Nicholson, and Kyle Patrick, which centers on WLU athletics, high school sports, and professional sports. Also of this nature, Hilltopper Sports Weekly hosted by Kyle West, which interviews football coach Roger Waialae and basketball coaches Jim Crutchfield and Lynn Ullom weekly. This program also provide game recaps and a look ahead to the following match up, plus stats, highlights, and player profiles.
For music fans, be sure to keep an eye out for Noise Violation, a program airing on Wednesday nights, which features weekly performances and interviews of local musicians, plus professionally recorded sound from each artist by way of WLU’s recording studio. This provides local musicians not only with exposure on WLU-TV, but also with a professionally captured video and audio recording of their live performance.
With all of this in place, what else can viewers expect?
“We are also in the process of adding a couple new student produced programs, including one called West Liberty University Box Office focusing on the Arts and Theater,” senior producer and engineer Jared Thompson said. “We are also planning another show highlighting some of our International Students, as well as bringing back the original student produced show, Inside West Liberty.”
On the technical side of things, “Our biggest accomplishment so far has been converting our production truck to full HD. We just installed a Tricaster 410 and NewTek 3 Play Instant replay system which was able to bring our entire production up to full HD for our online stream,” said Thompson. “We are also hoping to continue to add programming, as well as expand our WLSN coverage to more sports.”
To find out more about WLU-TV and programming, you can visit the website here and the Facebook page here. To view past programming, be sure to check out the station’s Vimeo page.
