Timber Creek Television is evolving once again into next school year and here’s what it means for video games, news, sports, and announcements.
First off, if you watched TCTV on Friday, May 21, you might have noticed the clear title of “These Are the Last TCTV Announcements.” It’s true — sorta. Those are the last TCTV Announcements for the 2020-2021 school year and the last Announcements in that format.
And now, a quick history lesson. The great Mr. Dell Ison started TCTV all the way back at the beginning of Timber Creek. Quickly they moved into sharing announcements created for every school day, and all by students. At that time, those students were the top Audio/Video Production classes in the CTE department. When KCAL opened in 2016, Mr. Ison headed there to build that fantastic program and train so many great students.
That’s when Timber Creek’s Broadcast Journalism class stepped in. Starting in the 2015-2016, Broadcast Journalism only focused on video news reports and sports coverage, including live streaming. But when the 2016-2017 school year started, we took on TCTV Announcements and have kept them going for the past five years.
Now it’s time to upgrade them.
Introducing Timber Creek Today
Our announcements next year will still be five days a week, with new content every day. Additionally, they’ll be in a little more modern, easier (and more fun) to watch packaging with a new title: Timber Creek Today.
In each episode of Timber Creek Today, you’ll see the latest news, information, announcements, and updates, plus the great video content you’re used to. Not only will Timber Creek Today be available during class periods for students to get information, but it’ll also be shared on social media, info screens and more. Also, every episode will include full subtitles for our information sections to be more inclusive of deaf or hard of hearing communities, bilingual students and others who’d prefer to not turn their sound on.
If you didn’t already know, announcements are but ONE of the MANY projects Broadcast Journalism works on, but it’s critical to us to make it something that you get information from and want to see.
Let’s talk about News next:
Weekly News and Sportscasts
If the name Timber Creek Today seems a little familiar, that’s because it was the name of our weekly live newscast for the past three years. Next school year, however, the title is changing and we’re including more local content within the newly rebranded This Week at the Creek. This year, our newscast won 2nd place Best of Show at the Spring 2021 National High School Journalism Convention, so we’re doing something right. We’ll continue on this path, but also plan to include some upgraded visuals and tech to help us get the information out to you even clearer than before.
News isn’t the only weekly program we produce at TCTV, as Beyond the Sidelines, our sports analysis show has been producing for a full year, detailing the biggest stories in the world of sports, offering game picks, and getting into arguments.
We’ll be continuing this program, though the title and format may change slightly as our next producers step up to the plate. One thing you’ll see much more of is local Timber Creek sport highlights and conversations with athletes within this show.
Fine Arts and Entertainment Programming
Our dedication to Fine Arts and Entertainment was on front and center display this year as we produced film version of Falcon Theatre’s “Peter Pan” and “Big Love,” broadcasted three Timber Creek Band Concerts, made another holiday album, highlighted the skills of seven groups with Talent Show, and kept tabs on the media landscape in our hybrid audio/video podcast/show What’s Poppin’. We intend to continue supporting our friends in Fine Arts with live broadcasting, recorded performances, and more into next year. Plus, there’s a lot of projects that the combined TCTV/Talon team are working on to showcase Art, Choir, Dance and other programs at various stages of development. Just know that we will continue to believe in the epic abilities of our FA hallways.
Timber Creek Sports Network
Similarly, we believe that our Timber Creek athletes at all levels deserve to be showcased and celebrated — win or lose, we’re all Falcons. Since 2016, the Timber Creek Sports Network has live-streamed sporting events for varsity level, and this year we were able to add JV and some freshman games to many of the sports we’ve covered in the past.
But it’s not enough for us yet. We’re going to continue to find ways to cover ALL Timber Creek athletes. This is a challenging problem. For instance, we don’t have the gear to provide live Golf coverage. This was the first year we could do a live Swimming event. Our Soccer coverage was marred by technical issues. Though we could cover freshman boys basketball, our student staff wasn’t able to cover softball or baseball like we have in the past. Our goal next year is to improve every element of coverage across the board for our sports broadcast and weave in the great lessons we learned in our studio and audio productions to create even been sports broadcasters.
We look forward to being back in the stands, on the sidelines, in the booths, and in The Nest for this next year.
24/7 Times Two
Even while you’re reading this, our two non-stop, 24/7 broadcasting channels have been running. TCFM, our student radio station, has continued to get people dancing — sometimes in person! — and has helped house and aid production of three podcasts this year, The Undefeated sports analysis show, The Armchair Detectives true crime production, and the aforementioned What’s Poppin? pop culture show. These three programs combined have generated easily over 60 hours of STUDENT-PRODUCED radio content over this year, and that might be a significant under-estimate as The Undefeated alone has produced a weekly show nearly every one of the 36 weeks of the school year. We’ll be continuing all three programs next year and adding one more — That Should Be a Podcast — a podcast that has unique topics each episode pitched by a TCTV student that thinks “that [topic] should be a podcast.” It’s a little meta, sure, but it’s also a great way to give students new opportunities.
Speaking of new opportunities, our 24/7 TCTV Nonstop channel finally launched early this Spring after extensive tests and it will continue to play throughout Summer. We’re very pleased to offer some new content DURING Summer, though we’ll have to let you wait to find out what some of it is…
Since starting TCTV Nonstop, we’ve been trying to make some adjustments to help viewers understand that, yes, it’s a real 24/7 streaming TV channel. In that vein — and combined with the above name changes — TCTV Nonstop is simplifying its name to just Timber Creek Television (or TCTV for short, obviously.) This is the final step in a long process to transform what was a brand for 5 minute and 55 second announcements videos into a full Broadcast program. It took five years, but here we are.
One More Thing
There’s one more project we’re ready to really detail for you and it has to do with Minecraft — well, at least that’s a part of it.
For about four years, TCTV and Timber Creek High School have been working to develop eSports and broadcasting gaming content. A few years ago, we played some video games on the giant screen in the cafeteria with students during lunches. It was very fun. Then we did a Smash Brothers Ultimate tournament and broadcast that. It was fun and successful. Then we started an eSports team for League of Legends. We qualified for State competition each season we competed. Things were going well. Then COVID.
After nearly a full year of plans on pause, we’re finally able to show you a pilot episode for one of the ideas we have for broadcasting gaming and eSports content. Starting next year, TCTV will have a program called Blockheads that focuses on four players taking on Minecraft challenges. The pilot episode is below:
But that’s just a sample of the start of the program. We’re looking forward to sharing more gaming video content over the summer including Smash Brothers Aiimiibo tournament put together by our Audio/Video Production students. When school is back in session, expect more details on what we’re playing, how you can watch, and how you can be involved.
Just like we want to support sports and fine arts, we want to support our students that care deeply about gaming. And just like those programs, we’ll have some growth at the start, so don’t expect the quality of your top Twitch streamer right out of the gate. By the time we’re done, though, we’ll have yet another career path available for our Broadcast students.
Thank You
The last thing to note is a big, huge, tremendous THANK YOU to everyone who’s watched a piece of TCTV video, tuned in to a Sports Net broadcast, listened to TCFM, watched Nonstop, subscribed to a podcast, and connected with us. We know that there are people out there who care and that means the world to us. The entire Broadcast Journalism team loves what they do and loves it even more when we know you’re seeing it.
Here’s to next year!
From Mr. Janda and the entire Broadcast team.