UMIQ gives away prizes & wins its own award

UMIQ, a UMTV game show, won the 2002 CBI [Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc.] National Student Production Award for “Best Technical Product” for a show entitled “UMIQ Show #6: Greeks versus Pearson” that was broadcast on May 1, 2002 on UMTV, Channel 24.
“I was shocked that we came away winners of the CBI, only because we were first-time applicants, and the rest of the competition has been submitting for years and winning awards,” said Rachael Brill, the UMIQ producer for 2001-2002. “But I should have suspected that we would be victorious being that UMIQ also came away as a finalist of the 2001 Telly Awards, which is a professional industry standard of excellence.”
UMIQ is a television quiz show that started last year and is based on questions gathered from a variety of different classrooms. The contestants are randomly selected from a lottery for each of the eight teams: Apartment Area, Eaton, Hecht, Stanford, Mahoney, Pearson, Greeks and Commuters.
In the 2001-2002 season, the Greek Team beat the Apartment Area to become the first champions of UMIQ.
Each show consists of three rounds, and the winning team from every episode advances to the finals. Each contestant of the winning team receives a $1,000 credit to the UM bookstore. Runners-up receive a $500 credit, courtesy of Luis Glaser, UM Provost.
“UMIQ is a concept introduced and developed by me,” said Sanjeev Chatterjee, the advisor and professor in the School of Communications. “However, it is the students’ hard work and creativity that keep it going.”
“The show was so successful because of the hard work and dedication Terri Maloney, myself and the rest of the staff contributed,” Brill said. “And of course, thanks to Provost Luis Glaser, who contributed $10,000 for the winning championship team.”
Brill graduated from UM last May and is currently working in Los Angeles on a hidden camera prank show called Girls Behaving Badly, which can be seen on Oprah Winfrey’s cable network, Oxygen.
Also involved in the production of the winning episode were Terry Maloney, the director/co-editor of the episode, and Joshua Johnson, the host.
“If you see the show, you will realize that it is a big undertaking involving many constituencies at the University,” Chatterjee said. “It is also a show that is technically proficient with good content.”
The other finalists that competed against UM in the category were Illinois State University, Midwestern State University and the University of Cincinnati.
UMIQ is currently in production for its second season. The championship episode will be taped in front of a live audience during spring semester and the 2002-2003 UMIQ champions will be crowned.
Look for UMIQ this spring on the campus cable channel, UMTV, Channel 24, or on AT&T Broadband Channel 96 in Coral Gables.
Kathleen Fordyce can be contacted at K4Dice@aol.com.