MLHS television production expands role

Students will televise all Moses Lake football games live

MOSES LAKE — Each fall season brings more television coverage of the Chiefs football team to Moses Lake. For 2005 BNC-TV has teamed up with Northland Cable TV to broadcast all Moses Lake High School home football games live on channel three.

BNC-TV has had a close relationship with Northland for five years, sending clips of games they covered over to the cable company.

In April Bob Schroeder, instructor for television production at Moses Lake high school, and Northland Cable came up with the idea of broadcasting all the home games live on channel three.

No other high school in the state does projects to the scale of what Moses Lake High School will do. Northland donated the television slot to BNC-TV and installed cable from Lions stadium to their offices.

In addition, BNC-TV had to purchase more equipment.

Quite a few sponsors have stepped up and donated equipment or money to BNC-TV in exchange for air time during breaks in the action.

"Our programming is well supported and the community likes it," Schroeder said. "This is a community project."

After Northland and BNC-TV decided it could happen, Schroeder went to the school board and superintendent to get their blessing for the project. Both approved it and BNC-TV and Northland cable began making the live programming a reality.

The Associated Student Body still has to approve the project, but Schroeder anticipates their approval, saying that they have been very supportive of BNC-TV and all their ventures.

Anywhere between 22 and 28 crew members are needed to produce a live broadcast.

Schroeder estimates the crew will use over one mile of cable for each broadcast.

His goal is to produce a broadcast on par with what any other professional crew would accomplish.

In order to pull it all off, Schroeder will take two of his classes to the field earlier in the day before the game starts to begin setting up for the shoot.

His advanced students will arrive about four hours before the game to make sure everything is set up correctly then wait for the game to start.

The setup for the first game will take place next week, to ensure all the equipment is working properly.

"We have to test everything before our first broadcast," Schroeder said. "We will test everything at Lions Field as soon as we get done with the Grant County Fair."

This is Schroeder's ninth year as the instructor for television production at MLHS.

When he started the class he had just one camera. Now they have equipment that outpaces most professional news rooms he said.

"With this class students can go from school to work," Schroeder said. "I hope they go from school to school."

Schroeder is successful in making each production student-run.

The only involvement from adults will be with the announcing.

Eventually Schroeder would also like to have student announcers in place.

Students who sign up for the course have to be sophomores and it's a three-year commitment.

Schroeder has experience in the field, having worked freelance for NBC Sports and worked at KIRO TV for many years.