‘A College Level, Even a Professional Level’: High Praise for TV Broadcasting Class from Students in Unique NCHS Program

Kaitlyn Mulcahy describes her younger self as that kid who “was always the one that wanted to get in front of the camera.”

During family vacations or in dramatic retellings of stories about their dog, the New Canaan High School junior recalled, she’d hop in front of her parents’ handheld camcorder. So as a freshman at NCHS, when Mulcahy saw that “Introduction to TV Broadcasting” was offered as a single-semester elective, she signed up. “I knew that after the ‘TV 1’ class, that I would want to continue throughout my four years,” Mulcahy said on a recent afternoon from outside the broadcasting studio for NCTV 78, where she helps deliver weather reports (see the 8:30 mark here) for a highly touted weekly news program. “I was inspired by some of the anchors who were on at that time, and I really felt a connection between them and the leadership opportunities that they had, and I just knew it was something I wanted to continue with.”

A collaborative effort from students in grades 10, 11 and 12 in various levels of Advanced TV Broadcasting, the live NCHS news program—known as “The Morning Announcements” and broadcast each Friday (watch the most recent installment above)—sees those in the class produce original programming, from scratch, for the town’s educational cable channel. Using state-of-the-art equipment and working as a team, students like Mulcahy who start on the TV Broadcasting track as freshmen and stay with it all four years say the experience offers unique skill-building, real-world experience, camaraderie and some hard-earned recognition among classmates.