Here's a guilt-free reason to get satellite TV: UCTV.

Since January 2000, the University of California's own television station, UCTV, has highlighted its core mission of teaching, research and public service by allowing individual campuses to disseminate vital information and spark public discussion on important subjects and issues.

Initially, UCTV - broadcast on EchoStar's Satellite Dish Network, Channel 9412 - received the majority of its programming from UC San Diego, which had been operating its own TV station for several years. Today, thanks to increased participation from UCLA and the other UC campuses, UCTV reaches more than 5.25 million homes, a number that keeps growing every day.

"UCTV is a combination of information and entertainment - generally a window into the university," said Lynn Burnstan, director of UCTV. "It allows the campuses to present information to people so they can make decisions, whether it's about global warming or arts funding."

Bill Wolfe, manager of OID's In structional Media Production (IMP), said his staff has increased its efforts to produce more UCLA programming, despite limited funding. For example, UCTV broadcast Jimmy Carter's recent appearance at UCLA; a tape of an Anderson School conference that was edited into a five-hour series; interviews with UCLA's most recent Nobel Prize winners, Paul Boyer and Louis Ignarro; a 1964 historical piece on dancer Erick Hawkins; and a documentary on Mildred Mathias, for whom the Mathias Botanical Garden is named. All have been streamed live as well on IMP's Web site at www.webcast.ucla.edu.

Last month, UCTV's first live medical conference, "Symposium on Interventional Therapy for Vascular Disease," was broadcast from UCLA via satellite to 10 different cities around the country.

"We have other projects in the pipeline," Wolfe added. "We want to generate new content, so we've taped the most recent Faculty Research Lecturers, Carole Pateman and Harvey Herschman.

"But we'd like to strike a balance between the new stuff and the old, so we're also doing more historic things."

The effort has clearly been worth it, as fans will attest. One UCTV viewer from Wisconsin wrote, "It's such a gift to have you on the air. ... Thank you for keeping me intellectually alive."