UWW-TV turns 40
Abby Moon Junior, Physical Education Major, Director of the Pre-game show
October 10, 2021
It’s the 40th anniversary of Cable 19, the student-operated cable channel stationed at the UW-Whitewater campus under the Andersen Library. The TV station is mainly student run with Katie Houck acting as the student supervisor of the program and Director Jim Mead as the overseer of the operation.
Mead came to the UW-Whitewater campus in 2006 and was promoted to Interim Director in 2011. One third of his time goes into teaching on the UW Whitewater campus. Mead teaches two subjects; electronic media, and journalism. He also works administratively with student housing, and the rest of his time is dedicated to the UW-W TV station. Mead speaks very highly of this team.
“All those students work so hard to do this,” says Mead. “They don’t always get the recognition they deserve.”
The campus TV station has been running successfully since 1980. The station covers many different events such as convocations, ceremonies, artistic presentations, diversity forums and guest speakers; all along with Warhawk sporting events. Students of this organization broadcast the events on the UW-W cable channel 19 as well as direct streaming videos from the event. There are about 18 students working for the Tv station and 11 students who broadcast football games. These students broadcast anywhere from 40-45 live events per year. The students put many hours of work into these events, football games alone consist of almost 10 hour days. There are many steps taken to broadcast just one football game.
One week before the event the script has to be written and finished. Two days prior to the event, the students working meet with someone from the Department of Athletics to plan out the specific game. Then Jim Mead steps in and works with the closed captioners, which can be from anywhere in the U.S., typing out the script for the game. Chris Cherer, the video production manager, then takes the field to start setting up the cameras for production, graphics, and directing. There are about four to five cameras at each football game which are all directed by electronic media students.
The UW-W Tv station not only broadcasts the games, but they create pregame and half-time shows for football games. Mead takes inspiration from ESPN to create a proper pregame show environment. The students are divided equally, half go to the stadium to broadcast the game and the other half stay behind in their office to do the shows. Matt Bruzas, the play-by-play announcer for UW-W football, is one of the highlighted announcers that goes to the field every time. Whereas others such as Abby Moon, the student producer of pre-game shows, stays in the office to direct her masterpiece. Moon, a junior, has been working for the UW-W TV station since freshman year. She started as a talent but made her way up to director. She has also announced women’s basketball, soccer, wheel-chair basketball, and softball. Moon advocates for the TV station and the people within it.
“I’m always in the studio on Saturdays. Jim is the best boss anyone could ask for,” says Moon. “I love sports and I love the people I work with.”
