On Sept. 25, students walked into their first-period classrooms to find themselves face-to-face with the revamped morning announcement show, known as The G. This year, not only will the Titan Broadcast Network (TBN) produce The G, but it will also take on three new projects: TBN Sports, The Red & Black (R&B) segment and the TBN website.

TBN Sports will air alongside the morning broadcast, and will feature highlights from some of Gunn’s home games and interviews with coaches, while the Red & Black segment will show documentary-style videos that profile people and events on campus. Coming later in the year is the TBN website (www.GunnTV.com), which will enable students to watch TBN videos online. The TBN team has also made other small changes to the announcements show, junior member of the team Veronica Polivanaya said. “[The new intro] is a lot shorter than the other one and the animation is awesome,” she said.

The students meet at school every morning at 7 a.m. Among the 30 or so students, there are only six returning members of the large broadcasting staff. Despite the influx of inexperienced students, broadcasting teacher Edward Corpuz sees the larger staff as a plus. “Having more students gives us more flexibility and enables us to have staff members dedicated to our new segments, TBN Sports and The R&B,” he said. These additional members add diversity to the team and allow it to have broader coverage.

Students on the team decided to sign up for the broadcasting class for various reasons, Corpuz said. “Some students want to pursue careers in television and film while other students simply enjoy reading the announcements to the school,” he said. The TBN allows students to create a broadcasting network–an opportunity that doesn’t come around often. “Basically, if you love doing video broadcasting or if you’ve secretly wanted to be an anchor your whole life, then this is the class for you,” Polivanaya said. “You get used to waking up early, and other people should definitely join.”

Students on the TBN take turns working with the equipment and taking on various roles. They rotate roles from anchor to cameras to teleprompter to director.

The school funds the course, but Corpuz applies for grants to cover additional funds that are needed to make the announcements possible. “The students enjoy operating the equipment and are continuing to find new and creative ways to use it for our daily broadcast,” Corpuz said.

Prinicipal Noreen Likins said it takes time to build the comfort and confidence levels needed to work with the equipment. “It is not a skill that is as easy as it looks,” Likins said.

The administration is satisfied with the broadcasting program, Likins said. The morning announcements are important to both the students and school since they are a main “channel of communication” and the only means to provide students with information about upcoming events at Gunn and around the Palo Alto area.

Having the announcements on the television screen is more effective than students reading news over the intercom, Likins said. “I think the announcements are reaching more kids [this way],” she said.

The Student Executive Council (SEC) plans to take advantage of the broadcasting network by showing videos on the announcements. “It is one of my personal goals to get SEC into the announcements more often,” senior Student Body President Max Keeler said. “I would like SEC to go onto the announcements to give updates of what we’re doing.”