A WCTV Summer

I wanted to update you on some upcoming events this summer at WCTV.

Friday, August 1st at 5:30 p.m. is our 4th Annual Summer Picnic, to be held at Hayes Hall on the IU East campus. Again this year we will draw the Channel 21 Program Lottery at 5 p.m. in the studio, just prior to the picnic.

Lottery letters to Channel 21 producers will be going out in the next few weeks. If you would like to be considered for a Channel 21 time slot and are not presently on our producer list, please contact me. Our primetime (Tier One) Channel 21 schedule is currently full, so be sure to return your materials promptly to ensure your program will be included in the next drawing.

As part of WCTV’s 20th Anniversary celebration, we have decided to participate in PSA Day, where public access television centers across the United States open their doors for local not-for-profits to record free public service announcements. During the picnic, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., we will have our studio open with lights, camera, audio, teleprompter, and helpful staff to assist area not-for-profits in recording free thirty-second announcements to be aired on WCTV.

The following morning, Saturday August 2nd, we will be offering our 2nd Annual free Video Bootcamp at the studio, beginning at 9 a.m. We will be teaching field and studio production as well as iMovie and Final Cut editing. These free workshops came in response to requests from producers interested in improving their skills, but are also open to the community as a whole as part of our ongoing outreach intended to empower more grassroots video efforts in our community.

We are also using the Summer Picnic to announce the broadcast of Wayne County U, a new program WCTV is producing designed to support the educational discourse going on in our community at present. We are using our 20th Anniversary as a way to remind our viewers what public access television can mean to a community, and we feel that educational issues are at the forefront at this time. We hope that Wayne County U will help provide answers. Our first programs, for the month of August, provide information on the FAFSA and the 21st Century Scholars program.

We are committed to producing twenty episodes of Wayne County U through May 2009. If you are involved in a local educational organization and would like to partner with us on future episodes of this series, please contact me.

We hope you will join us for some of our busy summer at WCTV.