UNC-TV segments will now air nationally

North Carolina Science Now began on Aug. 7 of 2013. The program consists of five- to six-minute segments reporting on different scientific happenings in North Carolina, from synchronous fireflies to interviews with astronauts. And now the program can reach a national audience.

N.C. Science Now has joined with over 20 local PBS affiliates under a WNET umbrella program SciTech Now. Each station can send in segments that are linked together into one weekly 30-minute episode, which is aired nationally.

Frank Graff, producer of N.C. Science Now, said the new national audience won’t change the program’s North Carolina focus.

“I’m still going to do the story because my primary audience is North Carolina, I’m just not going to send that story to the partnership,” he said.

Tom Davidson, senior director of content for UNC-TV, said the partnership sends a 30-minute program to each member every week and UNC-TV chooses segments that apply to North Carolina, like global warming.

Graff said he gets his information from all over the place, like subscriptions to campus newsletters and system news. He looks through the information and chooses what he thinks will appeal to a larger audience.

“Especially with science news and medical news it can be really boring television,” he said. “If someone comes away from my piece having learned five or six things, I’m happy.”

Graff said it takes a week to produce each segment, starting from research until the final edits are in place.

Tom Linden, a professor at the UNC School of Media and Journalism, said he met Graff when he was hired by UNC-TV. He sits on a panel that reviews the segments Graff creates and partnered with Graff for one of his classes.

"(My class produces) similar stories as he does — it was natural to invite him to come to the class, which he did last year,” he said.

Linden’s class, titled “Science Documentary Television,” has produced 10 science segments over four years. This year it will produce three segments, all of which will air on N.C. Science Now.

Davidson said the WNET partnership harkens back to an older model of television.

“Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s when the FEC required local stations to produce more local content, many of them participated in a project called PM Magazine,” he said, which functioned as a regional consortium of news.

Graff said the goal of the N.C. Science Now is the same, whether it reports on diseases or invasive species.

“One of the goals of this whole science project is to answer the WIFM question — what’s in it for me?” he said. “You want to teach viewers four or five things but you also want to answer what’s in it for me? Why do I care about this?”

state@dailytarheel.com