Conroe/SHSU Team up for New Show

CONROE, TX -- In a recent press release, The City of Conroe announced a partnership with Sam Houston State University's Mass Communications Program to produce a monthly hour long TV show for the city's Public Educational and Government Access Channel. The content from the video production will also be used for the city's social media and information websites. This production aims to provide informational, instructional how-to videos, as well as behind-the-scenes views of Conroe’s department operations.

'The production of Conroe's new television show is an essential first step in modernizing the communication tools we're using to provide crucial information to our citizens in a format that's more common with how society consumes their information,' said Conroe City Administrator Gary Scott.

Sam Houston State University will provide Students from their Multi-Camera Field Production course, under the guidance of Professor Martin Gaston, to participate in this unique real-world experience program. The outlook for this program is a continuous year-round project, rotating the production students every 16 weeks when each new semester begins.

One Conroe official relayed that the venture is not a paid internship for the students, and the city will not incur any charges in relation to the project. SHSU is providing student interns and equipment for the field production portion of this project.

``We are very excited about the new partnership,`` said SHSU Professor Marin Gaston. ``And look forward to working with the City of Conroe.``

Professor Gaston’s department is part of SHSU’s Academic Community Engagement (ACE) initiative which aims to connect students to their community through classroom instruction and real-world experience. Gaston and his students also work with the City of Huntsville, and local Huntsville radio stations KSAM 107 and KHVL.

'Our primary focus is identifying each department's most common questions citizens ask,” said City of Conroe Communications Officer, Andrew Yousse. “We'll answer those questions in short, step-by-step videos and place those videos on our PEG Channel and the specific department's page on the new city website, currently in development.'

A committee of representatives from each city department has been established and will determine the content featured in each episode. The name of the city's new show and the projected first episode air date will be determined at a later date.