QUEENS, N.Y.— St. John’s Television Network (SJU-TV) in New York City has rolled out a 20-foot, HD mobile unit to augment the quality of its live and on-demand content.
“We have a video production operation that benefits our entire university, and when combined with the current Big East-Fox Sports agreement, gives St. John’s Athletics a real competitive advantage when it comes to broadcast media,” said St. John’s Director of Athletics Chris Monasch. “The St. John's Television Network gives our teams unparalleled exposure on a national broadcast platform, particularly those sports which don’t traditionally receive a great deal of television exposure. Academically, SJU-TV provides undergraduate students a chance to learn and contribute to actual telecasts by experiencing hands-on H.D. sports production.”
SJU-TV is able to produce four- and five-camera H.D. broadcasts with full graphics integration, replay, announcers and sponsored features. SJU-TV, built around and powered by the NewTek TriCaster, includes equipment and support from partners like Canon, Ross Video, ChyronHego, Fujitsu, Miller, Varto Technologies and others to ensure the ability to give sports fans a high-quality viewing experience.
Each SJU-TV production is crewed by a 15-person team, a combination of local television professionals and St. John’s undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in TVF 4206: the Television Program Development video production course at the University. Now, 19 undergraduate students are enrolled in the Fall 2013 semester; a total of 56 students will have completed the course by December.
“Students gain practical experience with state-of-the-art technology and develop a new level of professionalism. Under Professor Susan Weber’s guidance they reap enormous academic benefits such as critical thinking and analysis, professional integrity, and judgment, to mention only a few,” said Kathleen Voute MacDonald, dean of the college of professional studies. “Students develop a portfolio that can be used immediately or in the future when seeking career opportunities.”
“With this course, students gain true television work experience without leaving campus. It is invaluable for students to have the opportunity to do hands-on work, not available in an internship, for live television that is going out to an actual, national audience,” said Weber.
The St. John’s Television Network (SJU-TV) has current agreements in place calling for as many as 80 Red Storm sporting events to be carried live in H.D. on third-party outlets like ESPN3 and FOX Sports GO in 2013-14. The broadcast plans come one year after St. John’s produced 61 games for an audience of 85 million households via ESPN3, the most to date for any school in a single academic year.
The agreements bring St. John’s University Athletics events to a national audience via the multi-screen authenticated networks of ESPN3 and Fox Sports. By way of providers like Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Verizon, all of New York and much of the Tri-State area now has access to ESPN3 programming online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through ESPN on Xbox Live to Gold members and Apple TV. Original content will also be available in the near future with the recently launched FOX Sports GO app rolling out across multiple distributors. Fox Sports Go will simulcast 30 St. John’s men’s basketball games and more than 100 Big East men’s basketball games in 2013-14.
Sports fans throughout the country that receive their Internet or video subscription from an affiliated service provider can currently catch live Red Storm men’s basketball exhibition contests and women’s basketball regular-season games. SJU-TV regularly produces St. John’s Basketball Media Day, all men’s and women’s basketball exhibition contests, and live men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball, lacrosse and men’s and women’s fencing events.
