Tigervision TV plans launch

The University's first television network, though still in its embryonic stages, is well on its way to becoming a reality. With its launch — which may come as early as this fall — Tigervision will feature programs including news, sitcoms, sports and editorials.

Though challenges such as funding, programming and staffing remain, the station's creators are aiming high.

Tigervision president Greg Marx '07 said he would like the station to one day broadcast "anything that you would see on NBC," ranging from cooking to reality to late-night comedy shows "equivalent to Conan O'Brien."

Marx estimated he has received about 170 emails from students interested in participating, including those in campus groups and publications that could use a visual outlet to reach an audience.

"If it's going to work out, it has to be good from the get-go," Marx said. "People are only going to watch the news if it looks like the news. It's not something that we're planning to start out small."

The staff is preparing to film some pilot programs of new shows. As the station will draw much of its programming from existing groups, some of the shows already have content available.

The launch, though, depends on additional funding. Marx hopes to raise $30,000 from sources including alumni, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, and the USG Projects Board, which has already provided $10,000 to set up the broadcast server. The station has reserved a space beyond Lot 23 on Alexander Road, and the production staff will also have an office on campus.

"There are so many people that have written in and are interested. It's a huge time commitment and they're not going to get paid and they know that," said Jen Mickel '07, who has helped with planning. "The holdup is the funding. Everything else is primed and ready to go."

Dave Uppal '08, who is also involved with creating the station, said the station may begin with football games or Triangle shows that are already taped. That way, students could still catch guest lecturers, student band jam sessions or anything else they might have missed. Eventually, though, the station should build up to more original, 24-hour programming, he said.

"I would like to see Tigervision become the first channel that students flip to when they turn on the TV here on campus," Uppal said. As he will primarily work on the station's news broadcasting, he added, "We hope that the programs can take campus news to a more in-depth level, with live interviews, video clips and other things you can't get from printed publication."

The station will also offer campus artists and filmmakers a new venue to present their work. Marx himself was inspired to launch Tigervision when he joined the Princeton Film Foundation.

"The problem of the Film Foundation was, what's the incentive to make something? It's just going to end up in some obscure film festival, and nobody's going to see it," he said. But with a television station that the student body will watch, "there would be an incentive to make these things."

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Tigervision will soon have its organizational meeting to more formally establish a production staff, and hopes to take advantage of the immediate wave of student enthusiasm.

"The official beginning date is dependent on when we get the money," Mickel said. But "the novelty of a new TV station is something that we need to feed off."