Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008 | 6:40 p.m.
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- Aug. 12 -- Governor says university asking for moon
- July 21 -- Another change at UNLV: University College to be dissolved
- June 30 -- Budget crisis has UNLV slashing staff
Three Nevada television stations owned by the chancellor of Nevada's public university system will broadcast, for free, $1 million worth of system advertisements.
The 15- to 30-second spots will run for several months, beginning two days after the November election and continuing through the end of the 2009 legislative session.
They could discuss how budget cuts could damage the state's higher education institutions, said Ralph Toddre, president and chief operating officer of Sunbelt Communications Company, Chancellor Jim Rogers' enterprise. Sunbelt's subsidiaries operate Channel 3 KVBC TV 3 in Las Vegas, Channel 4 KRNV in Reno and Channel 10 KENV in Elko, which reach every household in Nevada and will carry the ads, according to a letter Toddre sent today to the Board of Regents that governs higher education.
Toddre and Rogers said they did not know exactly what the commercials would say. Toddre said Sunbelt employees would work with higher education employees to produce the ads.
Rogers, who has been an outspoken opponent of cutting college budgets, said the spots could feature community leaders including businesspeople or sports stars urging viewers to oppose reductions to higher education funding.
Though the chancellor has suggested repeatedly that the state should create new taxes, he doesn't think the ad campaign would broach that issue.
"I would doubt very much it would be pitching solutions as opposed to describing problems," Rogers said.
No newsroom staffers from the chancellor's television stations would be involved in creating or broadcasting the commercials, Toddre said.
He also said he is the one who came up with the idea to provide air time to the university system.
"Sunbelt believes that too many Nevadans do not understand the value to both the culture and the economy for there to be a stronger higher education system," Toddre wrote in his letter to regents.
He also said Sunbelt would ask other radio and television stations in the state to run the free commercials.
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