2008/09

The idea to have a TV station was thought up by a group of students involved with Junction11 (the student radio station), it was apparent that there was an opportunity for a third media to be introduced.

Thus, throughout the summer of 2008, Stuart Wood and James Geddes set about preparations to found Reading University Student Television society.

By Christmas of 2008, RUST had been voted in as an official RUSU Society and so the real work began. A competition was run to find a name and logo for the station.

“RUON”, said “Are You On!”, was Eve Nicol’s winning entry, as  decided by the Reading University Students’ Union Sabbatical Officers. The original logo the station also designed by Eve is below:

The society went from strength to strength, producing its quiz show (Accumulate!), entering competitions and filming every event we could get to.

The station became “Unofficially” affiliated with NaSTA (National Student Television Association) and sent two of its members to see what it was all about. Turns out it was an amazing weekend where we met loads of people and had a great time! The following year we officially affiliated.

2009/10

After getting a lot of notice from Accumulate! a second season was run, with host Daniel Peake doing a brilliant job of presenting (He got highly commended at the NaSTA awards for his presenting).

Many other successful shows were produced in this year including The Ding’s Got Talent and What RU on About (Panel show).

NaSTA this year was very successful, it was our first year of entering for any awards and we picked up Best Technical for our website and Highly commended Male presenter for Dan Peake.

The Union noticed how fast we were developing and by the end of the year with the help of Anna Barnes (VP student Activities) we became an official branch of the RUSU media. With this came a much larger budget for equipment and the fact that we no longer had to charge members to join.

Another benefit to becoming a volunteer media was that we managed to get ourselves an office in the Lounge which made editing and access to equipment much easier.

Stuart Wood (Station Manager) also helped secure an alumni bid which allowed the purchase of live vision mixing equipment and a second iMac for editing.

One of the biggest successes this year was winning Society of the year, which we are all very, very proud of!

2010/11

Now an official Media group within RUSU let’s see what this year brings!