Deep Purple hits TV; Howard hired full-time

After two years of being a Web-only video production, GoPowercat.com's Deep Purple, a weekly show covering Kansas State athletics, will be moving to broadcast and cable channels this fall.

Deep Purple will appear in the Topeka/Manhattan markets on KTKA-49 and Topeka-CW, and also air across much of the state on Cox Communications' Kansas 22, a cable-only channel on Cox systems throughout the state. This year's first episode will air in early September. Air times will be announced at a later date, but always check the local listings.

Hosted by Powercat Illustrated and GoPowercat.com publisher Tim Fitzgerald and GoPowercat's Shane Howard, the multi-segment show has received rave reviews in its two years appearing as premium content on GoPowercat.com, but the show had reached a crossroads, Fitzgerald said.

"We were using a lot of resources in the process of producing Deep Purple, and we needed to find a way for Deep Purple to be self-supportive," Fitzgerald said. "By gaining Deep Purple as an independent revenue stream, we were able to create a full-time staff position for Shane Howard, who graduated from K-State this past spring."

With Howard moving from part-time to full-time status as GoPowercat's Director of Video Services, and current K-State student Ryan Wallace joining the staff as assistant video producer, GoPowercat will be offering much more video content than in the past.

In addition, GoPowercat will report on K-State sports throughout the year for KTKA-49.

"These agreements have afforded us far greater resources so we may offer even more free and premium video content on GoPowercat.com, even with Deep Purple shifting to more traditional broadcast entities," Fitzgerald said.

Deep Purple will still be available on the Internet.

"I know the subscribers at GoPowercat have enjoyed this show for two years now, but it simply did not prove to be self-sustaining so it was either going to go away or evolve," Fitzgerald said. "The show will now be available to a great portion of the K-State family, which will in turn expose them to the type of coverage we offer at both PI and GoPowercat.com.

"Even though we've been around for more than 11 years, there are still plenty of K-Staters who do not know about our products. Many more will now learn about us."

Deep Purple's move to television will also mean expansion of the program. "We will be adding segments and other staff members to the program," Fitzgerald said.