Harry Kreisler of 'Conversations With History' on UCTV

By Harry Mok

Harry Kreisler has been interviewing academics, scientists, writers and other personalities on his television program, "Conversations With History," since 1982. For much of that time, the show was broadcast on usually hard-to-find community access channels on cable TV.

The show's exposure got a boost in 2000 when it became one of the first series on UCTV, the University of California's educational satellite channel, and more recently the program's videos on YouTube and the Internet have made Kreisler, as he describes it, "something of an international celebrity."

Once at Beijing University, a student setting up tables at a conference put Kreisler's nameplate in front of him without prompting.

"I asked her, 'How did you know my name,' and she said, 'I watch you all the time, you're very popular.' "

As UCTV celebrates its 10-year anniversary on the DISH Network, the channel embarks on its next decade on the leading edge of a media revolution. UCTV reaches 22 million households on satellite and cable, but it also has more than 23,000 subscribers to its YouTube channel and millions of its podcasts are downloaded each month on iTunes. All of UCTV's programming can also be streamed or downloaded at www.uctv.tv. 

"As people have become more familiar and more capable of watching video in ways beyond the couch and the TV, it became important for us to be pushing that technology," said Lynn Burnstan, managing director of UCTV.

UCTV draws its content from University of California campuses, labs and medical schools. Programs range from recordings of lectures, speeches, panel discussions and concerts to interview shows and the news magazine "State of Minds." Some of the more popular videos are medical advice programs, such as "Health Matters," an interview show hosted by Dr. David Granet of UC San Diego; and "Treating the Invisible Wounds of War," a UCSF series which offers guidance to mental health professionals and families dealing with military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"UCTV has become a vital tool of the university's public service mission," said UC President Mark Yudof. "We have a never-ending supply of fascinating stories to tell about UC's impact on life in California and beyond, and UCTV is a perfect medium to share these inspiring and informative stories."

UCTV's educational programming is succeeding in narrowcasting to viewers interested in particular subjects, said Alison Gang, UCTV's communications manager.

"What we have are a bunch of shows about really specific areas," Gang said. "We're reaching a bunch of little audiences ... The way we do it isn't the way NBC does it."

UCTV producer Jennifer Ford and Dr. John Blossom work on an episode of 'Disaster Preparedness for Health Professionals.'

The Internet and social media such as YouTube have allowed UCTV to distribute its content in ways far beyond what a satellite dish can transmit. The ability for videos to be linked to, embedded and e-mailed has made it easier for UCTV's niche audiences to get the content they want, Gang said.

One example of this is a video of a performance of Carmina Burana led by the UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus. It was posted in February 2008 and has been watched more than 1.3 million times, making it by far UCTV's most-viewed YouTube video.

"It's probably because there's just not a lot of that kind of music available online," Gang said. "We're filling a void."

Before there was YouTube

UCTV was a founding education partner with Google Video before the company bought YouTube in 2006. UCTV began posting videos on YouTube in 2007 and it has grown to become one of the service's most watched educational channels with 3,400 videos uploaded and nearly 12 million views.

"We were there at the beginning and had this amazing collection of content; content created on every campus of our system," Burnstan said.

Podcasting is another area where UCTV was an early adopter. Its partnership with Apple's iTunesU, combined with its own audio and video podcasts and RSS feeds produces millions of downloads a month, including a record 5 million in November 2009. iTtunesU was originally conceived as a place to download lectures by professors, but the robust content outside of classrooms that UCTV offered forced the creation of the Beyond Campus category, Gang said.

UCTV also has increased its reach on cable television over the last decade in California and nationwide, including 24-hour channels in Los Angeles, San Diego, the Central Valley and Riverside, as well as prime-time slots in San Francisco and other cities.

"We are well situated for the PC being part of living room entertainment," Burnstan said. "I think that is going to continue to change and also how video is delivered into the home."

Early start at UC San Diego

The genesis of UCTV began in 1993, when UC San Diego launched a cable television channel to highlight the research, artistic and cultural offerings of the campus. When then-UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson became systemwide president in 1995, he wanted to bring the "notion of the university being a visible partner and an entity in people's homes" to a statewide level, Burnstan said.

Planning for UCTV began in 1998, and the channel went live from UC San Diego, where it is still based, on the DISH Network just as satellite television was becoming more common in people's homes. The first program to air was "Health Sciences Journal: Heart Health for the Whole Family," featuring experts from the UC San Diego Cardiovascular Center. The "Health Sciences Journal" series ran on UCTV from 2000-05.

"We are very much carrying out our original charter, that notion of reaching out with the knowledge that is being created on our campuses," Burnstan said.

Each month of its anniversary year, UCTV will celebrate with features that showcase its programming diversity. The celebration kicked off in January with a collection of videos featuring Nobel Laureates who have appeared on the channel over the years, such as 2009 medicine winner Elizabeth Blackburn of UCSF, DNA research pioneer and 1962 winner Francis Crick and 1984 peace prize winner Desmond Tutu. Other highlights will include programming related to Black History Month in February, religion in March and National Poetry Month in April.

For the next decade, a major goal for UCTV is to create or foster more original content in formats like a news magazine or documentary-style videos that highlight UC's research breakthroughs or its role in tackling issues such as climate change.

"We started as C-SPAN for UC, and that's good," Burnstan said, adding, "We're finding more partners on campuses who want to produce more programming. That's where we want to see growth over the next few years."

Harry Mok is principal editor in the UC Office of the President's Integrated Communications group. For more information, visit the UC Newsroom or follow us on Twitter.