 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
Sketch, a comedy show starring the students of the University of Northern Iowa, was originally started to save one of the cable departments at the university, but it turned into something that piqued the interests of many students at UNI.
"(Sketch) is classy college humor, with high energy," said Rob Bauer, a sophomore communication and electronic media major and member of UNI Sketch. "We like to appeal to college students, and we really strive to make it funny."
UNI Sketch was founded by Bauer and Taran Goecke, a senior communication and electronic media major. The two wanted to take advantage of a resource that wasn't being used.
"We saved (one of the cable departments) because people weren't taking advantage of that resource. The resource is a channel that you can put your own stuff on, and they were just running out of things to air on it," said Bauer. "So Taran and I were just throwing around this idea for a show, and we're trying to get viewership of it and we want it to be popular, but at the same time we're saving that department."
When it came time to bring more members to their group, Bauer and Goecke asked around.
"We had kind of a selection process that we used, but we didn't really open it to the public. We just knew some people that had similar interests to us, and we just basically got our friends in on it," said Bauer. "We've expanded a little bit from there. It vaguely consisted of us finding immediate students and talking to them to see if they were interested in doing sketch comedy, whether it be writing, editing or acting."
Now that UNI Sketch is airing on Wednesdays every three weeks, they are opening up new opportunities to get the entire campus involved.
"We really encourage people to send in their own user-submitted videos," said Bauer. "We'd like to see some competitive thing going, because who doesn't want to see their own stuff on TV?"
Students who want to see their videos on the show can send a message that includes a link to their video to UNI Sketch on Facebook.
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UNI-Sketch true purpose has been a way to increase viewership and reach students through light-hearted entertainment. The students involved in UNI-Sketch are all a part of the University of Northern Iowa Student Cable Programming Organization and truly are being resourceful with the powerful tool of broadcast media. It started when Rob approached me one day at work with the idea of adding this show as it would help create more awareness of the channel. As the manager, I totally supported and encouraged the idea. The cable department oversees the registered student organization that was made to do things like UNI-Sketch. But I'll state again, UNI's cable CHANNELS were NOT on the verge of disappearing. If anything it was the student organization itself that was falling apart, but it has no effect on the channels.-Taran Goecke (The Manager of UNI Cable Programming services)
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