What does it take to capture the Western experience in a single day?
For specialty television station WOW TV, it took four staff members, two video cameras, one van and nearly seven hours of footage. Not to mention a 17-hour work-day.
Based in Scarborough, Ontario, WOW TV is a Chinese station serving the GTA. WOW launched in May 2009 with the goal of becoming Toronto’s premier Chinese news network. Their audience includes Toronto’s Chinese population of 600,000 as well as online viewers in China and Hong Kong.
The WOW crew visited Western Nov. 26 to shoot footage for an upcoming tv series profiling Ontario universities. While their Toronto-based competitor Fairchild Television provides GTA viewers with a number of syndicated shows from China and Hong Kong, WOW TV is keen to produce original programming in Cantonese and Mandarin. The Ontario university series is an example of this commitment.
So far, Western and OCAD (Ontario Collage of Art and Design) are the only schools the WOW crew has visited; however, future stops on their list include University of Toronto, Queen’s, Waterloo, Ryerson and York. The series targets prospective university students and their parents and will likely air on WOW’s most popular show, Toronto 360, which models itself after cable news network CP24.
The weather was uncooperative the day of their shoot, serving up a cold, grey landscape that did no justice to Western’s stunning campus grounds.
TV show host DeAille Tam, a past winner of Miss Chinese Toronto, trudged uncomplainingly around campus in a skirt and four-inch heels. Tam and producer Joanna Wong took turns helping production assistant Vincent Shui and cameraman Shao Xun Lau lug cameras, tripods and microphones through the UCC, into classrooms and even onto the roof of the green building.
Despite the weather and the tiring work, the team members were enthusiastic, professional and unanimous in their admiration of Western’s academic programs and facilities.
“I thought Western was a party school,” says Wong. “I had no idea [Western] had such a wide range of academic programs and advanced technologies. Even the architecture here is impressive.”
The seven hours of footage compiled over one exhausting 17-hour day will boil down to a mere 24 minutes of programming. Although WOW’s university series does not yet have a scheduled air date, Wong hopes the shows will air sometime in Spring 2010.
“It was a great day,” says Wong. “We really enjoyed visiting Western and hope our audience will enjoy watching the show.”
WOW TV
Catch WOW TV on Rogers Cable, channel 808, for a monthly subscription fee of $3.99 plus tax.