Thanks to a surge of support from Boston University’s gay community, campus cable now includes a channel specifically for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender audience.
Butv10 added Logo — channel 77 — as GLBT group Spectrum called for a space for gay filmmakers and producers to show their work, said Spectrum Secretary Bridget McNulty.
“I think it’s really important to have something like this, not just because of the social equality issue, but there are a lot of quality movies and shows out there that just aren’t going to be supported by the mainstream,” said Spectrum Vice President Kake Boucher. “Having a channel like this goes a long way toward supporting art in general.”
Boucher, a College of Fine Arts sophomore, said she encouraged club members to request the channel through an online suggestion box on the butv10 website. The significant amount of interest and votes prompted the channel’s addition last week.
Spectrum, an MTV Networks production, features gay and lesbian news, documentaries and original series.
“Within six days of Spectrum making it an initiative, we got Logo,” said McNulty, a School of Education junior. “We organized and we were able to get the station.”
The effectiveness of Spectrum’s organized approach was the first time the group had worked together in this type of cultural effort, McNulty said. Telecommunications Office Director Jim Shea said Butv10 had no record of any significant attempt to get the channel.
“We had gotten suggestions in our suggestion box from a number of students asking us to add Logo into our broadcasting, and we referred those to the Dean of Students Office,” Shea said. “Dean [of Students Kenneth] Elmore had already been doing research and working with Spectrum. It came together quickly, from the time we got the suggestions to the time on air.”
Spectrum members said Logo will benefit the entire university, because the channel could help make students more comfortable with GLBT culture, McNulty said.
“It gives us equal status with other cultural groups who have their own stations,” she said. “It shows that BU recognizes and supports us as a cultural group. It is just really entertaining television.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
