The static students see when they tune into Brown Television may become a permanent feature of the channel, as the student group that runs the station faces extinction.
BTV has not been on the air since last semester, when sound quality was a problem and there were often long gaps between programs. Now, if the station's student organizers do not resume at least showing movies on the channel, it will not receive any funding for the spring semester, said Undergraduate Finance Board Chair Ryan Mott '09.
BTV "has the potential to go extinct," said Liz Backup '08, one of only four students currently involved with the station. The others are Kevin Volk '08, David Notis '10 and Jad Joseph '10.
Last year, UFB awarded BTV $12,496 in funding for this semester, for the purpose of showing commercially released movies - usually the staple of the channel's programming, along with student-produced shows.
But the group was not budgeted for the spring, Mott said, because the station had been unable to show movies without difficulties.
BTV has run into trouble this fall because it was "inherited as a dead organization," Volk said, as last semester's only staffers - Pascale Georges '07 and Matt Listro '07 - both graduated.
Notis said he and the other current members became involved with the station after being the only four people to show up to a BTV open house in the spring. At the open house, the previous station managers showed the new group how to work the equipment in an hour and passed on the responsibility for BTV.
The equipment has been the main obstacle in getting BTV up and running, Notis said, because it is so out-of-date.
"All our equipment is straight out of the '90s," Backup said. For example, all of the station's material is run off VHS. Backup said when BTV co-founder Doug Liman '88 - director of "Swingers," "The Bourne Identity" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" - visited the studio last year during the Ivy Film Festival, he said, "A lot of this stuff is what I was using in 1988."
Getting the technology working again has been the major aim of the group so far, Volk said. The students' lack of technical expertise has also proved to be an obstacle, Backup and Volk said, and they have had to rely on Computing and Information Services to help provide working sound.
The problem with BTV, explained Volk, is that in the past it was mostly student shows, and when those disappeared for various reasons, BTV became a channel that just showed movies.
"BTV is like a phoenix, and we're trying to raise it from the ashes," Volk said.
Volk said BTV is hoping to eventually adopt digital equipment. After going digital, BTV could become a "production resource" for the Brown community, he said.
Updating the technical infrastructure of BTV would allow the group to accomplish its ultimate goal: airing student-created content, Backup and Volk said.
That would ideally include a combination of student-produced shows and recorded lectures presented on campus, and perhaps even additional interviews with speakers. "Hopefully, by the end of this year, all our content will be derived from student activities and maybe a little bit of original programming," Notis said.
In the meantime, "getting movies back on that people can hear and enjoy" is BTV's goal, Volk said - especially since that is the benchmark UFB is using the determine if the group should continue to receive funding.
The group's fall budget is being used completely for obtaining the rights to show movies, and the plan is to show movies during this semester, perhaps within a month, Notis said.
"BTV is currently stuck in the '90s, like Spice Girls. Unlike Spice Girls, BTV is committed to making a successful comeback," Volk said.
