And the Emmy goes to…the Southeastern Channel!

by Erin Moore

What do “Frasier,” “Family Ties,” “The Mary Tyler Moore” show and the Southeastern Channel have in common? They all boast of winning Emmy Awards three years in a row.
The channel won two Emmys in 2007 after receiving six nominations—more nominations than any other news, commercial, or public television channel in Louisiana. WWL-TV Channel 4 and Louisiana Public Broadcasting share the honor of having the second-most nominations in the state, with one apiece.

The 2007 Emmys were for the five-spot image campaign, “Tomorrow’s Leaders.” Produced by Steve Zaffuto of Madisonville, the channel’s operations manager, “Tomorrow’s Leaders” won in the Commercial and Director-Post-Production categories.

The only Louisiana university television station ever to win an Emmy, the Southeastern Channel has four Emmy Awards to its credit. The work of its staff and students has garnered recognition from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences since 2005, when the station was only three years old.

“That’s unprecedented and pretty much unheard of,” says Rick Settoon, general manager. “The Emmy is the most prestigious award you can win in television. The channel is going up against all of these large commercial television channels in big-city markets that can spend six figures on any one production. To consistently outperform them is exhilarating, to say the least.”

In 2005, the channel won an Emmy for its entirely-student-produced ESPN “Sportscenter”-style magazine show, “The Big Game.” The station has also been honored for the student-produced documentary short “For the Love of the Game.”

“Despite being only five years old, the Southeastern Channel continues to stand tall among the premiere college television stations in the country,” says Randy Moffett, Southeastern’s president. “Receiving four Emmys and 14 Emmy nominations in the past three years is a tribute to the talent and hard work of the channel’s staff and the superior quality of its production.”

The Southeastern Channel officially hit the airwaves July 9, 2002. It was created to provide students with a chance to study in a real-world environment with cutting edge facilities, thereby enhancing their career opportunities upon graduation. From telecourses, talk shows and training programs to documentaries and sporting events, the channel’s programming is an extension of Southeastern’s mission to lead the educational, economic and cultural development of Southeastern Louisiana.

Staff members and faculty with real industry experience were sought to steer the channel’s initial path. This emphasis continues today with top professionals from the broadcast and video production industries—many with years of experience at the national and international cable network television levels—contributing to the channel’s success. Students are being trained by professional staff members who have experience producing prime time specials in more than 40 states and on six continents.

The Southeastern Channel produces over 300 hours of fresh original programming each year, creates multiple episodes of over 30 regular series each semester and airs over 100 hours of original programming each week, roughly two-thirds of its 24/7 schedule.

“We air almost exclusively local programming,” says Settoon. “That’s mind boggling for a university of any size.”

In its short history, the Southeastern Channel has provided a valuable training ground for university communications students who have worked and studied over 17,000 hours at the state-of-the-art studio production facility. Since its inception, approximately 650 students have trained and worked at the station. A record 100 students are involved this semester, through courses, show participation, student work initiatives or a combination. While the quality of production and programming is irrefutably stellar, the hands-on experience students receive makes the program even more impressive.

Graduate student Allen Waddell decided to seek his master’s degree at Southeastern in order to gain more experience at the channel as producer of “Big Game.” “At the channel you get to dive right in and really do the work,” Waddell says. “This is practical experience in a highly professional setting that you can’t find anywhere else.” He adds that the channel’s outstanding reputation has opened impressive doors for its students. “We’ll be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the ESPN crew interviewing Reggie Bush or Marques Colston,” says the organizational communications student from Ponchatoula. “That’s unbelievable.”

Student-produced programs are formatted and structured exactly as professional programs are, including news, sports, entertainment, magazine and talk show programs. This enables students to compose impressive demo reels and résumés.
“Northshore News” producer John Reis of Mandeville is a senior business major who began his foray into broadcast journalism as a high school intern at Fox 8 – New Orleans. He started his college career at a New Orleans university that he says is “known for its movie and TV courses.” However, he transferred to Southeastern after a visit to the Southeastern Channel studios. “It was exactly like the ‘real’ studio and set that I worked at in high school,” he says. “That immediately spoke to the abilities of the staff and the opportunities the Southeastern Channel would afford me as a student.”

The sportscasters of tomorrow also receive valuable experience with sports play-by-play and live event production, which is rarely available at other universities. Students announcing football and basketball play-by-play were recently recognized as one of the top three such groups in the country by College Broadcasters, Inc. Those same students were quickly invited to do “play-by-play” on a professional broadcast.

Students gain experience producing programs for broadcast, as well as dramatic segments and commercials. They work both in front of and behind the camera and learn the latest in digital and graphics effects. Positions include producer, director, technical director, videotape operator, teleprompter operator, computer graphics operator, lighting director, camera operator, floor director, anchor, writer, reporter, narrator, videographer, editor, audio mixer, grip and talk show host.

Southeastern alumnus and long-time newscaster with ABC 26 New Orleans Steve Bellas is also a full-time Southeastern faculty member in the Department of Communication and host of the Southeastern Channel’s Telly Award-winning “Northshore Focus.” He says the channel continues to impress students because they truly receive quality real-world experience. “Broadcast journalism courses in most universities are hit and miss when it comes to real experience,” he says. “At Southeastern, it’s a guaranteed hands-on environment.”

He added that students who study and work at the Southeastern Channel benefit immensely from the teaching and mentoring the staff and faculty provide. “At other colleges you may very well end up with a professor or advisor who received plenty of academic training, but has never spent a single day in an actual newsroom or studio,” he notes. “At the Southeastern Channel, because the staff is comprised of accomplished professionals, the students don’t just learn—they learn to be professionals.”

That may very well be the reason several former students have been able to go straight from the Southeastern Channel to various network affiliate stations. Randi Rousseau (reporter, WDSU-TV6, New Orleans), Krystal Boothe (former traffic reporter, WWL-Channel 4, New Orleans) and Daniel Brown (assignment editor, WAFB-TV9, Baton Rouge) all landed jobs right after graduation. Two recent graduates are working in the movie industry as videographer and editor in Los Angeles. Also, several have opened up their own video production companies in South Louisiana.

Rousseau attributes much of her editing technique and on-camera presence to her time spent at the Southeastern Channel. “A degree is a piece of paper. They’re all the same. When you’re looking for a job in television, you don’t want to show people a piece of paper,” she says. “You want to show them a compilation of what you’re capable of doing. When you work at the Southeastern Channel you can do just that. I still have my demo tape from when I was there.”

A significant portion of programming is designed by students for students, including such student-produced shows as “Northshore News,” “The Big Game,” “College Night,” “Southeastern Times” and the increasingly popular music video showcase, “INDI-visual.” Beyond its student audience, the channel also produces a variety of programs for the diverse northshore audience, with the aim of reaching an 18-65 age demographic and spotlighting four areas of programming focus: education, entertainment, community and athletics.

“As a university channel, we can be creative and offer a palette of programming,” says Settoon. “We’re not hemmed in with a set theme with just sports shows or just cooking shows. As long as the show [will fulfill] the university’s mission, will provide a learning experience for students and will be good TV, we can make it happen.”

Original community shows include: “Northshore News” (local news for all northshore parishes); “Northshore Business” (economic development topics—one episode, titled “Ten Years in One Day,” describes how Katrina fast-forwarded growth on the northshore); “Northshore Focus” (roundtable discussion of critical issues for northshore residents, often featuring business, government and political leaders); “Backyard Wonders” (a look at nature and tourist attractions on the northshore); “Florida Parish Chronicles” (the true and often quirky history of the Florida Parishes); “ArtWorks” (featuring outstanding northshore artists, their crafts and their works); and “Community Vision” (showcasing various town meetings and educational and political forums).

The Southeastern Wind Symphony, Chamber Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble and Concert Choir, as well as dance concerts, operas, musicals, or dramatic productions performed at Southeastern’s Pottle Auditorium, Vonnie Borden Theatre, or Columbia Theatre of the Performing Arts, can often be found among the channel’s entertainment programming. Included are special events staged for the Columbia’s popular Fanfare season, such as the Moscow Circus, Capitol Steps political comedy satire troupe and high-profile performers such as Maureen McGovern or Grammy-winning country artist Kathy Mattea.

Educational programs include more than 25 Southeastern Telecourses and the “Southeastern Lecture Series,” in which faculty members and guest speakers discuss everything from the environment and Babe Ruth to Nostradamus and the JFK assassination. “Movers and Shakers” is a talk show about cutting-edge faculty and academic programs, while “Southeastern Times” is a magazine show with campus life feature stories.

The channel produces weekly episodes of “Big Game,” with game highlights, on-field reports, anchor reads, special feature stories, sports editorials and opinion segments like “Pardon the Interruption.” Studio and location interviews are held with coaches and athletes, covering all Southeastern sports in addition to the New Orleans Saints and Hornets. “Lion Tracks” features studio interviews with Southeastern coaches, while “In the Locker Room” concentrates on interviewing student athletes. The Southeastern Channel also produces live sporting events, such as basketball games at the University Center and football games in Strawberry Stadium. Top Lion games re-air the following season as part of a “Classic Lions” lineup.

As opposed to most college channels, which reach only into dorm rooms, the Southeastern Channel reaches throughout the northshore into 100,000 homes, with an audience of 250,000 viewers on Charter Cable Channel 18. “When you work at the Southeastern Channel, your friends, family and the community as a whole can see your work,” says Reis. “That kind of feedback is invaluable.”

Southeastern Channel viewing isn’t limited to cable subscribers. A live web cast of its 24/7 programming can be seen by clicking a link on the channel’s home page at www.selu.edu/tv. That’s where you’ll also find the channel’s daily programming schedules.

What’s in store for the future of the Southeastern Channel? Settoon hopes to have the Southeastern Channel perceived, recognized and appreciated as “the television station for the northshore” in the same way that Southeastern is known as the “university of the northshore.”

His plan to reach that goal is multi-faceted. As far as programming goes, he says one big goal in the next five years is for “Northshore News” to become a weekly instead of a bi-monthly show. This will provide for better training of students in the sense of requiring real-world deadlines and proper delegation of responsibility. It will also mean even fewer reruns for the viewing audience. He would like to see an increase in the number of live sports events produced on location, such as football, baseball and softball games.

The channel is beginning the conversion process to high-definition television. Students will be part of that process, providing them with training at the cutting edge of technology in the industry.

According to Settoon, such programming improvements will hopefully shepherd in an ever-increasing number of students who train and work at the Southeastern Channel, which will in turn help provide more programming for viewers.
“We want to be known throughout the South and the nation as THE place to study television and as the top university channel in the country,” he says, with determination.

With four Emmys to the channel’s credit, Settoon’s words seem to be more of a prophesy than a wish!