What Goes on Behind the Camera at WCIA

I don’t have a TV in my room, so unless I’m watching in a friend’s room or going home I rarely see any kind of programming produced in the Champaign area. I’d be lying if I said I’d heard anything about the WCIA station before I actually opened the email that said we would be visiting the station. Thanks to Anchorman and 30 Rock I had a really vague idea about what goes on behind the scenes at a TV station, but I’d never been to a station myself to see any of it happen. When we first walked into the building it felt more like a waiting room at a doctor’s office, not what I’d thought a TV station would look like. But as soon as news director Andy Miller took us back into the actual studio, it definitely fit what I was expecting. The mood in the control room was downright intense; all of the different directors yelling back and forth with the camera men back in the studio, a dozen different monitors showing a dozen different images being controlled by a dozen different controls, and the constant pressure of meeting the time limitation for each segment. Being able to go in the studio and see each segment being broadcast live was really interesting, I had always thought that lifestyle shows like that were pre-recorded and shown later. The host’s ability to improvise questions to ask guest Andy Dallas and play off of his responses was really impressive. The conversation didn’t seem too staged nor unprofessional. Even with all of the people running around doing different jobs, the atmosphere in the studio was extremely friendly. The staff was happy to answer any questions we had and, in the case of the weather team, encourage us to major in just about anything but communications.