CalTV

CalTV is the University of California at Berkeley's online television station. It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at [http://www.thecaltvproject.com/v3/ "caltv.berkeley.edu"] .

History

Though there had been multiple attempts to get a television station for Berkeley off the ground, it wasn't until Spring 2005 that the ASUC was able to allocate sufficient seed money towards setting up an online TV station.

Technology

CalTV uses a unique combination of web and digital media technologies to produce its online broadcasts. As its web platform, CalTV uses standards compliant and customized content management system coupled with the Google's online video player. For producing content, CalTV utilizes a 4CCD mini-DV digital video camera, the industry standard Final Cut Pro video production software running on Apple iMac G5. With continued support from the student government, CalTV intends to invest further in its technology platform, thereby fulfilling its goals towards the Cal community.

CalTV also podcasts its content. The podcast feed is available through the iTunes Music Store.

Content

The station's content has evolved with time. In its first iteration, the station produced a single show focusing exclusively on news events (local, national and international) but produced in a citizen journalism mode. The show featured brief backgrounds on stories introduced by CalTV journalists followed by opinion from Berkeley students and professors.

With time, CalTV's content expanded into sports, arts and eventually entertainment. "The CalTV Sports Highlight" was born in 2006 and covered California football, baseball, water polo and much more. The semester of Spring 2007 marked the debut of "The CalTV Show", an off-beat news show offering a summary of local and national news as well as commentary on issues of concern to students.

The current 2007-2008 cast of "The CalTV Show" includes (in no particular order): Yaou Dou, Katie Felber, Rosa Kim, Kira O'Connor, Helga Zambrano!, Chin Hua-Lu, Tamara Buran, and Antonio Yip Wlassowsky.

Special events

CalTV has also been involved in the coverage of many on-campus and off-campus special events. These events included exclusive interviews with such celebrities as:
* Michel Gondry
* Will Ferrell
* Conan O'Brien
* Adam Sandler
* Don Cheadle
* Jerry Seinfeld
* Regina King
* Emile Hirsch
* Viggo Mortensen
* The cast of Hot Rod
* The cast of Superbad (film)
* The cast of Comedy Central's Reno 911
* California First Lady Maria Shriver
* Former CBS anchor Dan Rather
* CNN Sr.Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta

Funding

CalTV has been supported in a large way by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). CalTV also works closely with [http://bigideas.berkeley.edu/ Big Ideas @ Berkeley] , an initiative that provides funding, support, and encouragement to interdisciplinary teams at UC Berkeley. The station has also been exploring revenue generation through ads and promotional activities.

Recognition

CalTV has been recognized in local media. The Daily Cal, Berkeley's newspaper, published articles on CalTV [http://www.dailycal.org/printable.php?id=931] , [http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=19714] .The station has also gaining visibility in the Berkeley blogging community [http://clog.dailycal.org/index.php?s=other] , [http://calstuff.blogsome.com/2007/01/25/new-caltv-launch/]