Two University of Iowa students struggling for airtime on DITV, the UI's student-run television network, experienced something of a wake-up call. “Why don’t we start our own show?”
Jackson Kalmar and Natalya Olynyk launched Wake Up Iowa City in February. It is a lifestyle show aimed at a college-aged audience that promotes local events and features a sports segment by Hawkeye tight end Johnny Pascucci.
The show, available on YouTube, spotlights Iowa City's hidden gems, including local entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop businesses, and nonprofit organizations to bring people to the city.
“I started this to provide resume clips to employers, but now it's bigger and we're getting more sponsors,” said Olynyk, a journalism and mass communications major from Norwich, Illinois. said in a blog post.
Both students said the results were better than they expected.
“We are on an uphill climb,” Kalmer, an enterprise leadership major from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, said in the same blog post. “Everyone saw the new show and watched it. People tell me they're waiting for the next episode. A lot of people are watching.”
Olynyk and Kalmar met in journalism class and ended up co-hosting KRUI's show. But radio wasn't their desired destination, and Olynyk was intrigued by a new lifestyle show featured on news station KCRG, an ABC television affiliate in Cedar Rapids and his current employer. Ta.
“I thought, OK, this is what we want to do,” Olynyk said. “We plan to imitate this and make it our own.”
Like Mr. Olynyk, Mr. Kalmar began his academic career as a journalism major, but changed his major after enrolling in business classes. His startup incubator at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC) helped Wake Up Iowa City grow in popularity.
“Iowa JPEC helped with the business plan and gave us access to it,” Kalmer said. “It gave me the tools to make['Wake Up Iowa City']happen and answer questions like who do I contact, where am I going to post this, how am I going to market this? It was helpful.”
The 10-minute show takes place weekly. The first episode debuted on Valentine's Day and featured fun date activities like a cookie crawl and a couples Pilates class. A month later, the students co-hosted their first in-studio interview with Chicago rapper TheZeffsterr.
Kalmar and Olynyk hope to continue Wake Up Iowa City even though Mr. Olynyk graduates next month and Kalmar has one semester left.
“I don't know yet where I'm going to go (after graduation), so it's possible that I'll stay at KCRG and work there and continue in Jackson,” Olynyk said. “I don't think this is the end, I want to pursue this. We met with a consultant from the Majid Center for Writing (at the University of Iowa), and he told us I said if you really want to pursue it, keep going, it wouldn't be weird for us to meet, especially since we live near each other in Chicago.
“We've been provided with ample opportunities from our previous jobs, so it's been a lot of fun,” Kalmer said.
This article is based on Darren Miller's blog post.