FIRST Nationals on "Regular" TV

Originally posted by Replic
Any other ideas on how to adequately represent FIRST in the video medium?

Well, just so we have this in one place and the status of them:
Suggested Mediums:
NASA TV (Too small viewer base to be effective)
FOX (Mostly Disagreed, except for short blurbs)
FOX family and other divisions of FOX (see above)
MTV (Divided No)
MTV2 (Only plays Music and Commercials)
CNN (Mostly Disagreed, except for short blurbs)
NBC (Mostly Disagreed, except for short blurbs)
MSNBC and other divisions of NBC (See above)
CBS (Mostly Disagreed, except for short blurbs)
ABC (Mostly Disagreed, except for short blurbs)
ABC family and other divisions of ABC (See above)
Discovery (Not Discussed in Detail)
Discovery Health (No, wrong subject)
Discovery Wings (No, wrong subject)
Discovery Science and other Tech. based (Not discussed)
ESPN/ESPN2 (Not Discussed in Detail)
C-SPAN/C-SPAN2 (Not discussed in Detail)
TLC (Added Aug 11, 2003; Not Discussed in Detail)

Why:
NASA TV, as stated not enough people watch it (I don't even get it)
FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, these can all be lumped as they have similar viewer bases and therefore similar demands for programming. In my opinion they will most likely not partake of a broadcast, however they ,might run a news segment every night for the week in one of those 'running updates' that they have. This will raise awareness of FIRST quite a bit, but we are discussing how to have the whole thing or a sizable portion of it broadcast, so theses are out of the question
CNN, similar viewer base as above, but because they do a lot of reporting in the technology genre they might run a post-championship 1-hour segment on the championship.
MTV, they do music. I feel that unless we play on the 'wow' and 'cool' factors and less on the 'these kids are doing something educational' side of FIRST we can rule them out.

This leaves Discovery and its divisions, TLC, ESPN and it's divisions and C-SPAN with it's divisions. I feel that they are the most likely prospects, although I think we should try for Discovery, TLC or ESPN first, then all of their sub-catagories and C-SPAN, then C-SPAN2 in that order because my personal opinion is that Discovery and ESPN (predominately Discovery) have a viewer base that is closer to who would watch than C-SPAN, and that we should try for the main stations first because in many places (me included) don't get the sub-stations (Discovery Wings, etc...) without paying an obscene amount (not me) for the 'deluxe' cable and a smaller viewer base. With that said...

Remember:

FIRST holds broadcast rights and can choose to give or not give these to any station, and that station can choose to turn FIRST down even if it is offered, so please, please, please don't try to organize this on your own, we don't want any lawsuits. Furthermore all of FIRST's sponsors probably have a say in this. What I'm saying is you probably need to talk to Mr. Dean Kamen.

...So with that said continue discussing.

Note to the above post: I've added to the list the divisions of discussed stations just so those bases are covered. Keep in mind that my opinion may have influenced some of the status ( ) blurbs, and nothing here is meant to inflame anyones tempers. If you feel I've made a mistake in the status of a station, or have lumped topics incorrectly, or anything else, just PM me or post it here with what you want fixed and I'll change it as soon as I log on. Or just have Brandon ban me if you get really ticked. Just kidding.

Just my 2.1 cents