After 5: 'DU Uncut' takes regional stage

Drury University is bringing a taste of "Austin City Limits" to five Midwestern TV stations.

The 35-year-old PBS music series features a 60-minute live set by notable bands on a picturesque stage overlooking Austin, Texas.

Drury's version, "DU Uncut," shows six songs by varying artists filmed by students in the university's production studio.

"I grew up watching 'Austin City Limits,'" says Brian Shipman, Drury's faculty adviser, who's spent four years on the project. "We can't be 'Austin City Limits' because we don't have that kind of set; we can't accommodate a live audience. We thought we'd try to be a regional version of 'Austin City Limits' with local music."

When the idea was birthed, Shipman says organizers had no idea it would take this sort of stage. "DU Uncut" will air in five markets in three states this year and next.

Backtracking

What started by inviting a single guitarist into Drury's campus studio to be recorded by studio production students evolved into recording a full band, then multiple acts playing a one-hour show. The next question: What to do with the footage? Shipman and his students challenged themselves to pitch a series of shows to a commercial TV station. KY3 considered the idea in late 2006, and Ozarks CW aired 13 shows for 26 weeks in 2007. But Shipman knew there was more, and he and the students began looking at cities and bands beyond the Springfield market.

"Every city has fantastic musicians," Shipman says. "These guys are never going to get picked up by Sony Records, but they're talented; they're professionals."

So the team selected its markets - Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas City and St. Louis - and went looking for bands.

"The strategy was if we invited bands from these cities and states, then we would look more attractive in those markets," Shipman says. "Once we had at least six bands from each area, to where we could put together a decent pitch reel, we would then make a sample episode containing those bands and send it to the vice presidents of programming in those areas."

At that point, Shipman worked the phones.

"Some people answered the phone on the first ring; some it took weeks and months to get them to respond," he recalls. "Eventually, they did. It was just old-fashioned salesmanship ... getting to the secretary, getting to the person. Once they (watched the video), we had them won over. ... The conversation started."

PBS affiliates KOZK in southwest Missouri; KCPT 2 in Kansas City; OETA in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Okla.; and AETN in Conway, Ark., will air 15 episodes of "DU Uncut." The Higher Education Consortium channel, HEC-TV, in St. Louis also picked up the series of one-hour student-produced shows.

"We're celebrating the fact that we've received so much coverage," says show host Andrea Cramer, a 21-year-old advertising and public relations major from Olathe, Kan.

Big Smith and The Domino Kings are among the local bands recorded, along with Max Groove from Kansas City, Cramer notes. She says it's surreal to know her face will be broadcast in five markets.

"I'm most excited about it being in Kansas City, because my mom and dad and family can see me on television," she adds.

All told, 140 bands came through the campus studio.

"We think we're the first college group of kids ... to land a regional show based on a studio class," Shipman says. "It's one thing to air something locally on your own public access or even to get a station in your market. For it to leave state lines like that ... we can't find an example of when that's happened for 15 one-hour episodes.

"We now have a potential audience of millions of people."[[In-content Ad]]TV Coverage
Four PBS affiliates and a higher education channel are broadcasting a season of Drury University's music series "DU Uncut."
• KOZK in southwest Missouri - 11 p.m. the third Saturday of each month
• AETN in Arkansas - TBD
• KCPT 2 - 11 p.m. Sunday
• OETA in Oklahoma - 11 p.m. Saturday and 2 a.m. Sunday (beginning Dec. 13)
• HEC-TV in St. Louis - 8 p.m. Monday and 5 p.m. Friday (beginning Nov. 2)

Did You Know?
Willie Nelson played on the pilot episode of "Austin City Limits." PBS claims the show, now in its 35th year, is TV's longest running music series. See www.pbs.org/austin.