BYU-TV to air President Faust's funeral

President Faust's funeral will be held Tuesday at noon. To see it live you can tune in to BYU-TV. And in honor of President Faust, BYU Broadcasting is showing many of his great talks both today and tomorrow.

To see a complete list of the new schedule, which includes rebroadcasts of his funeral, click here. On that list is the last talk he gave in General Conference, entitled, "The Healing Power of Forgiveness." You might remember this talk, where he details the forgiving nature of the Amish people, even after a gunman entered their quiet community and killed 5 young girls and injuring 5 others. BYU-TV will air this talk tonight, Monday, at 7:30.

BYU Broadcasting also put together a one hour show that will premier Tuesday morning at 11:00 called "Remembering President James E. Faust."

The Passing of President James E. Faust

President James E. Faust passed away early this morning. BYU Broadcasting appropriately changed its programming schedule to highlight some of the great addresses that he gave while serving as an Apostle and member of the First Presidency for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you tune in to see a particular program, instead you might see a CES fireside or BYU Devotional that feature a presentation by President Faust.
BYU Broadcasting also is airing short 'In Memoriam' pieces between programming.

BYU Weekly

This week is the return of new episodes of BYU Weekly. This program features BYU students reporting on all aspects of BYU, including academically, culturally, athletically, etc. Some past reports have been about the invention of Fizzy Yogurt, a student trying to become a pop-star in China, and the Women's Conference service projects.
Tune in this week to see a report on BYU's Center for Service and Learning, an interview about BYU's upcoming Education Week, and a story on Brock Trejo, captain of the BYU Men's Soccer team. Hosting this week's show is Kim Christensen. Reporting this week are Janell Robinson, Kaitland Ely, Janifer Hemingway, and Jarom Jordan.
For times when you can see it, click here. To see archived episodes, click here.
Of course, BYU Weekly welcomes comments and story ideas.

BYU Sports Network

Because BYU Broadcasting has so many different outlets, programming content that will be distributed by more that one of these outlets can be tricky to brand. For instance, when a BYU Football game is broadcast on BYU-TV and KBYU-Television, what should the in-game promos say? "Coming up on BYU-TV and KBYU." What if the next game won't be on KBYU but will be on BYU-TV? It becomes a mouthful. So BYU Broadcasting created the BYU Sports Network. Now the announcer can simply say, "Next on the BYU Sports Network..." and that translates to any of the BYU Broadcasting channels.

For years, student reporters for the BYU Sports Network have created short pieces that highlight interesting aspects of BYU Sports. These pieces air during halftime of broadcast games, and are usually seen no more than once or twice. Now there is in development a weekly Sports program on BYU-TV. It doesn't yet have a title, and won't be in production for at least a month. This new program, however, will allow these short pieces more airtime and much greater visibility.

Also, posted now on the BYU Broadcasting's Sports website, you can see a small collection of these short pieces produced and reported by Jarom Jordan, and Jason Tang. More will follow in the coming weeks.

Some stories that these student reporters are working on in the meantime include BYU Club Sports and the BYU Women's Football Clinic.

BYU Devotional

Tuesday's Devotional held at the Joseph Smith Building on campus was televised on BYU-TV. The presenter was Merrill Christensen, professor of Nutritional Science. He used a line from Jeffrey R. Holland's April 2007 General Conference as the basis of his talk, "Our culture's obsession with comparing [and] competing."
He quoted two of President Hinckley's talks, saying, "The world into which you will move will be terribly competitive. You are moving into the most competitive age the world has ever know."
Brother Christensen pointed out that we aren't to seek out the praise of man, but in order to be successful, we need to impress people. "If you don't impress the coach, you don't make the team. If you don't impress an employer, you don't get the job."
He asked Elder Russell M. Nelson about this, to which he got the response, "If you are well prepared in everything you do in school and professionally, and do the highest quality of work of which you are capable, your work will speak for itself and the right people will be impressed."
If you missed this BYU Devotional address, or simply wish to watch again, click on the picture below.



Here's a note about my conversation with Brother Christensen before the Devotional.
He worried about taking too much time, as he was told to keep it to 25 minutes. He then said that being a nutritional scientist, he knew the one ingredient needed for talks: shortening.

Clive Barnes, who is the chief Dance, Drama and Opera critic for the New York Post once said, "Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want."

I think, however, that while most popular programming seems to be controlled by ratings, the "truly democratic culture," there are plenty of programs and stations that are immune to such measures. BYU-TV is one such station. BYU Broadcasting, as stated in its own mission statement, endeavors to "enrich the lives of audiences through the creation and delivery of religious, educational, cultural, news, and sports programs that reflect Brigham Young University's unique standards of excellence;" hardly programming that could withstand any democratic process. While engaging a large audience is important to BYU Broadcasting, it isn't necessarily what drives its content.

One more thought:
BYU has long believed that "The world is our campus." Quoting again from BYU Broadcasting's mission statement, "[BYU Broadcasting] is uniquely qualified to expand the influence of Brigham Young University beyond its campus." Hmmm...

Book of Mormon Discussions

A popular series on BYU-TV is Discussions on the Book of Mormon. In each half hour episode, faculty members from BYU's Religious Education Department discuss a few chapters of the Book of Mormon. Among those that watch this show are a cute old lady in my ward and my mom. The cute old lady grabs my wife each week to tell her about the episode she most recently watched. My mom would watch this show each week as she prepared to teach her Sunday lesson.

Each episode is available for download (audio only) absolutely free. In fact, many of BYU-TV's programs are available to listen to, all for free. So, instead of listening to the same old 80's music that you've been listening to for 15 years each morning while you go for your 2.7 mile walk, download Discussions on the Book of Mormon to your mp3 player, and listen to something that won't make you walk faster, but will keep you on that straight and narrow road.
Here's the link for all of BYU-TV's podcasts: http://www.byub.org/podcast/
Or, if you prefer to watch, here is when it next airs.