President ad interim Aram Chobanian’s committee to discuss introducing cable on campus will form as early as next week, Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said Wednesday.
“We’re still trying to collect rsums from students, making decisions on students in the next week or so,” he said.
The committee, which could “convene sometime soon after spring break,” will discuss whether cable will be beneficial for the campus, Elmore said.
Although he stressed that “there is no guarantee there will be cable,” Elmore said he has heard many positive responses and will continue polling student reactions.
Cable on campus could affect many of the university’s student organizations. The service could provide new opportunities for WTBU, Boston University’s student-run radio station, WTBU’s Public Relations Director Adam Wescott said.
Currently, the radio station broadcasts three different ways, Wescott said, the most popular being through the internet. Because of the small size of the radio station’s tower, most areas of campus are unable to listen to the station via the station’s official medium.
“The tower was put up before a lot of the construction on Comm. Ave. was done,” he said. “The radio tower is just not able to stream our station all over campus.”
If the station is able to broadcast through a campus cable station, he said listenership would greatly improve. Students in dormitory lobbies and gyms could listen to the station through a university information channel, on which WTBU could broadcast in the background, he said.
“Because we would have access to all these different buildings, it would give us the ability to stream our station in many different areas,” he said.
Wescott said WTBU has been considering the benefits of cable for some time, and the station is pursuing the possibility of getting one of its engineers on the cable committee.
“We’ve been looking at ways to get our own wiring installed or ride the coat tails of this committee,” he said.
College of Communication junior Becca Stone, who is the executive producer of the student-produced sketch comedy television show “Overexposed,” said cable on campus would significantly improve her show as well.
“Currently, our show airs on the cable access channel in Boston, which means that no one on campus can see it,” she said.
Stone, who has never seen her show on TV, said she would be “thrilled” if cable was brought to campus.
“Cable on campus would provide an opportunity for people to see [the show],” she said. “It would feel more like a real show – like we’re working on something real.”
The show, which Stone said is only produced once a semester, would probably be produced more if students could see it.
“It would provide a great motivation,” she said.
COM senior Danny Baram, the show’s head writer said all BU students involved in campus TV could benefit from cable.
“BUTV in general would greatly benefit from cable TV, and most of all from a campus television station,” Baram said. “If students could see their work on TV then they would be motivated to produce better and better material, and more students would want to help,” he said.
But College of Arts and Sciences freshman Catherine Ard said students could be hurt by the service. Though she would enjoy watching cable television, she said she would “waste too much time watching it” and spend less time studying.
“I wouldn’t like cable on campus because I think it would provide too much of a distraction,” she said.