WKU News

Athletic events at WKU are reaching a wider audience than ever before thanks to an expanded partnership between the Hilltopper Sports Satellite Network and WKU PBS.

It’s a student crew making it all happen as WKU’s Amy Bingham explains in this week’s View from the Hill.

“The new partnership with athletics allows us to deliver content in a completely different way than what we have.”

Hilltopper fans can now tune in live on Facebook to watch sports like volleyball, soccer, baseball and softball.

 “We are really consistent at about a 100 live viewers concurrently throughout a live broadcast but will reach 5,000 people and people will pick up and drop off.”

The additional broadcasts allow for more hands-on experience for students who work at WKU PBS.

“I’ve been every role from technical director, director, graphics operator, facilitating the streams.  I’ve helped set up with cameras.”

For nearly 20 years, WKU PBS has partnered with HSSN to broadcast football and basketball games, but these other sports have provided a unique opportunity.

 “I had never filmed a volleyball game til a few weeks ago, so I got on that, it’s pretty neat.”

“The speed of the different sports I think is the biggest challenge.  To move from basketball to football to soccer to volleyball to baseball to softball and a few things in between.”

Sports is just one of many examples of the productions students work on but they say WKU PBS is careful not to spread them too thin.

“They know that school comes first and if you have a problem or if you’re not doing too well in school they’ll take you off some stuff or switch you out.  Just so, you know, they know school is a priority.”

Invaluable training that will propel  them even further in in their careers.

 “If people aren’t here they’re missing out, you know we offer every incident, every opportunity for a student at Western Kentucky University to come and learn.”

With one month worth of games under their belt since the expanded partnership went into effect, Basham says they’ve reached some 40,000 unique viewers with 60,000 hours of content viewed.