HillTV, Spawn of UUTV, is Dead

I just got a call from the inimitable Mr. Proctor with some sad news. Apparently, the Syracuse University Chancellor has dissolved the student group HillTV, formerly my own dear UUTV, over a matter of offensive content on one of their shows. The Post Standard has an article from the 19th on problems with the show "Over the Hill."

The show's description on the station's Web site invites people to "watch, get informed and get offended," and it seems to have hit its mark when it comes to being offensive, making light of issues such as eating disorders, date rape and lynching.

"We've had an unusually high number of problems regarding content sensitivity with their shows," said Rich Levy, HillTV's general manager and an SU junior. "I have seen some of the most recent episodes . . . I found a lot of their content to be highly offensive. A lot of it was just wholly inappropriate."

Levy took over the general manager position about three weeks ago.

I feel Rich's pain - we had to deal with a series of ill-conceived and problematic shows when I was General Manager. Hey, college is the time of your life when you get to fuck around. In our case, however, we were seen by maybe 12 people on cable access and the clunky, unreliable campus feed, so we were generally safe from scrutiny. Not so much now, it seems. From the Daily Orange:

Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor disbanded the student-run television station HillTV on Thursday.

Cantor spoke to former HillTV General Manager Rich Levy, the department heads and the former sports director at 4:30 p.m. to tell them of her decision to disable the station. Cantor also told the HillTV representatives of the administration's decision to create a new student-run television network on campus.

The HillTV Web site, HillTV.com, was removed Thursday evening.

Cantor did not allow the former HillTV members to speak in defense of the station.

This is the letter that has been floating around among alumni:

Dear HillTV/UUTV Alumni,

Many of you may already be aware of the recent activity at SU involving HillTV. As of tonight, Chancellor Nancy Cantor has shut us down. All production has ceased and HillTV as a recognized student organization NO LONGER EXISTS.

One of the entertainment programs, “Over the Hill” produced racially and sexually offensive content in a series of their programming. The Executive Staff members were in the process of reviewing their content and status of their show. No episode of "Over the Hill" has been approved by the Executive Staff since issues regarding the show's content were first brought to light this semester. We cancelled the show and were in the process of reworking our content sensitivity standards to make sure future programming did not have this kind of effect.

The members of HillTV, and in particular the Executive Staff, have sat through a series of town-hall meetings as well as internal meetings over the past few days. We wanted to solve the problem and move on, to continue working as a student-run organization.
However, we were not given the opportunity to work through this issue, even after the show was cancelled.

The future of our station, as well as the past, is gone.

The Orange Television Network and its general manager Andy Robinson now control the “Watson Studios” facility. We plan on working with OTN on an interim basis, but are planning to appeal the decision to permanently shut down HillTV.

Right now, we are asking for your encouragement, thoughts and guidance. It is important to us, as past and present members of HillTV to support the student organization we loved so much.

Katie Frey

There is media and administration contact info, too. I'll email that privately to anyone who would like to comment to the powers that be on this issue.

I'm going to reserve final judgement until I learn a little more about what exactly went down, but just from the above it seems that the faculty decided to take visible decisive action to cover for a potentially embarassing problem, so they punish the entire station for the sins of a few.

I don't know what the content of "Over the Hill" was, but let's assume it was bad. Like National Socialist Movement bad.

Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor Shut down the student run television station Thursday night. A packed house in Syracuse's Hendericks Chapel applauded the decision.

Yeah, that bad. So you've got a patently offensive and terrible show that people are complaining about. So the HillTV execs cancel it and start working on ways to prevent the National Socialists (that's Nazis, btw) from sneaking onto the schedule again. Now, AFTER the show has been cancelled, the SU faculty disbands the TV station entirely, apparently because the organization was far too flawed or corrupted to be trusted with making more shows.

But wait a minute. Then the chancellor asks the staff of the now defunct station to join the committee to form a new station? Uhhhhh... does anyone else see a logical conflict here? This sounds like classic CYA from the University.

I'm going to have to think about the best way to respond to this - letters, phonecalls, etc. Either way, the alums really need to go to bat on this one.


Update 10/23:
The wingers are out in force on this one. Apparently this, along with the banning of the BSA from campus earlier this year, is playing into the hands of the "poor oppressed conservative" crowd. Supporters of the HillTV staff will need to carefully avoid being forced into defending "Over the Hill" on the basis of freedom of speech. That's not the issue. The staff agreed with the public and (I'll say this as many times as I can) CANCELLED THE SHOW. The chancellor then arbitrarily disbanded the station without a review process. I'm pretty sure that's against the bylaws governing student organizations, but we all know that as far as student rights are concerned, those kinds of rules aren't worth the binders they're stacked in.

If David Horowitz gets involved, we're fucked.