page_title: CitrusTV
section_title: UUTV era (1977–2004)
hierarchical_section_title: CitrusTV / History / UUTV era (1977–2004)
caption_attribution_description: English: The CitrusTV control room during a taping of CitrusTV News.
context_page_description: CitrusTV is the completely student-run television studio of Syracuse University and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. It was founded in 1970 and has around 400 student members.
  The organization is not a station, network or channel and does not broadcast its own programming, except for online streaming. Instead, CitrusTV provides programming, both live and taped—primarily to its website, Spectrum Sports and the Orange Television Network, which is the university-controlled station available in all campus buildings on channel 14.
  For several years, the organization used "the oldest and largest entirely student-run television station in the nation" as its main slogan. Though this claim was disputed by Ithaca College Television in particular, CitrusTV still maintains that it is distinguished in this way because it is fully student-run and independent of the university's media college, unlike Ithaca College Television. Ithaca's organization explains that it shares equipment and resources with the college, unlike CitrusTV.
context_section_description: The color production studio and campus cable system were taken over by the largest student-run organization on campus, University Union, which also programmed film screenings, concerts, speakers, and later established a radio station, WERW (We are UU). The television station was reorganized as University Union Television, or UUTV. Though technically under the control of University Union, the station had its own management, which reported to those in charge of University Union as a separate "board." Despite of this oversight, the station usually ran autonomously. There was also a faculty advisor nominally responsible for oversight.
  The station remained entirely run by students, who programmed the station and produced television programming in-house, including a nightly half-hour news program. UUTV also occasionally aired X-Rated films in the early 80s, largely to generate publicity. Early student productions included "Newswatch," (1977–1984), a comedy show which had a format almost identical to that of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," which did not come on the air until the 1990s, though "Newswatch" was frankly derivative of the "Weekend Update" segment of "Saturday Night Live," which premiered in 1975. Several of the shows including Newswatch 'bicycled' their tapes over to Syracuse Cable TV, and had them aired on the cable TV system's Public-access television channel.
  Another long-running show was "Null & Void," a sketch comedy show (somewhat of a replacement for "Newswatch") that ran almost 20 years, starting in January 1987; its premise of the programming at a fictional low-rent TV station was strongly influenced by SCTV. Another popular show during the years 1990–1992 was "Uncle Bobo's World of Fun" which included such colorful characters as Texas Bob Stone and Marty the Fishboy.
  The station also continually broadcast a sports-talk show, and each semester ran "The Bio Answer Show," in which University biology professor Marvin Druger would broadcast the answers to that evening's biology exam, so that the large number of students taking the class would not have to wait several days to find out how they did on the test. "The Rhythm," a popular music video program created by undergrad Dawn Jordan featuring music and interviews from R&B, Rap, Reggae and Urban Contemporary artists, was another popular show during this era and added diversity to both the station's programming and the channel's production staff.
  The station also programmed professionally produced television shows from television's past, such as "The Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek." Some of these were 16 millimeter films shown on the station's film chain. Though the films were rented from a local film library, the legality of showing them over the campus cable system was never clear. Many eybrows were raised when UUTV showed several recent theatrical releases even before HBO had screened them, including "Raiders of the Lost Ark." During this period, the station was on the air approximately seven hours per day, seven days per week.
  In 1989, an organization called "U-Net," an association of college-based broadcasters, began showing some of UUTV's productions at various colleges around the nation, including "Null and Void." This led to a clip of "Null and Void" appearing on the national show "Entertainment Tonight."
  During the early 90s, UUTV established a relationship with the Syracuse cable TV franchise that enabled nearly all UUTV programs to be aired on the City of Syracuse's cable system public-access channel. During this time, the public-access channel was happy to accept and air the UUTV programming as long as it complied with some rudimentary decency standards. There were a few shows that could not clear the decency hurdle, but for the most part, all of the UUTV programming eventually found its way on to public-access.
  The nightly newscast (Campus 7 News) and the once-a-week morning show (Sun Up) both did this, along with most of the station's entertainment and sports programs. Campus 7 News was aired at 10 p.m. on the public-access channel, leading the 
caption: The control room during a taping of CitrusTV News during the fall 2008 semester.
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