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TABE CREATIVE COMPETITION ENTRY RULES

TABE Categories and Rules, Fall 2023 Creative Competition

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There is no entry fee for up to 10 submissions total from paid TABE member schools.  Any school with more than 10 entries can submit up to 10 more by paying a $100 competition fee to TABE. Non-member schools may submit entries by paying the $100 competition fee. No student may enter the same competition more than once, and no school may have more than three entries per competition. Creative work done in the spring 2023, summer 2023 or fall 2023 semesters may be entered. Entries will be submitted electronically (guidelines posted separately) no later than December 18, 2023. Notification of Finalists will be posted in January, 2024, and awards will be announced at the TABE Conference on Friday, February 23, 2024.

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Texas Statewide Undergraduate Student Electronic Media Competition (with entries also accepted from any state with a connected border with Texas).

December 15, 2023 is the deadline for schools to pay a $100 entry fee as applicable for entries from students from their school. Eligible individual students may enter the competition for a fee of $20 per entry if their school does not pay a flat entry fee. The flat fee covers up to 10 entries from that school (see above regarding ‘free’ entries). Monday, December 18, 2023 is the submission deadline for material, for content produced or broadcast in any 2023 semester. Each college or university’s entries are submitted by uploading content and filling out an entry form, indicating the entry’s URL, making sure applicable advance payment has been done. Schools MUST COORDINATE their entries—if you submit more than allowed, all submissions may be removed from consideration. Grand Prize may not be awarded in any category with less than three schools competing. During judging, similar categories may be combined for awards in order to achieve a Grand Prize winner from among the best of those. Be sure to verify URL and the video & audio quality of the upload. You must provide a downloadable file or your entry may not be played at the awards ceremony. If your URL does not stay posted online and available until the date of the conference, your entry may be deleted from consideration and not receive an award.

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2023 TABE REGIONAL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT MEDIA COMPETITION

PURPOSE: This competition continues a tradition of providing a regional production competition for students in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, (Texas, plus any U.S. state that borders Texas. While college students from anywhere may attend the conference, only students in college or university programs from these states may enter this Regional Competition.

ELIGIBILITY:  

1   All entries must be undergraduate student-produced.

2   Entries by students who hold a full or part-time, paid position in a professional broadcasting or related organization and which were produced at or for that company/institution as part of the students' regular job will not be considered an eligible entry. This is an ‘amateur work’ / student media competition. 

3   Student-produced entries completed in fulfillment of college course credit and/or are the result of standard student media operations are eligible for competition. (College Internships at professional entities need to meet the guidelines listed in #2 above.) 

4   Faculty and professional staff can act in an advisory capacity only. 

5   No entry may have already been awarded for any other Student Media Competition.

ENTRY FEE:  The link for payment is located on the www.tabeweb.org web site.  Students must coordinate submissions with their adviser before submitting—any entry that cannot be matched to an already-completed payment or membership will be disqualified.  Fees are used for administrative expenses and awards’ costs.  Each school must select its own entrants in advance of making submissions—be sure to note the entry limits per competition.  NOTE:  Just like Newscast, in any event where a school has multiple production of the same kind of show, ONLY SUBMIT your best single entry.  LIKEWISE—each individual must select and submit his/her ONE BEST project within any one particular category—such as spot production, short film, news report, etc.  DO NOT SUBMIT multiple entries where you essentially compete against yourself, AND you must NOT submit the same entry in more than one category.  Be careful to submit to the appropriate category—you may not have your entry selected as a finalist if judges deem it does not fit the category you entered. In the event a school submits more than the allowed number of entries, all entries within categories are subject to being disqualified with no reimbursement of entry fee paid.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNERS: Winners will be announced at the spring semester TABE conference during the Awards Ceremony.

GENERAL ENTRY PROCEDURES

1   No entry may have been awarded for any previous Undergraduate Student Competition. 

2   Fill out and print out the entry form when submitting online with the uploaded entry. Entry forms must be completed in their entirety.

3   Entries must remain posted online from the date of submission through the announcement of winners, then remain posted online  through at least May 31, 2024.

    Content removed prior to the specified date is subject to having its winning status revoked.  Any other factors after the competition that are discovered that would have disqualified an entry will also cause the winning status revoked. For any revoked entry the individual student must return the award and reimburse TABE for all costs associated with its creation and distribution.

4   Each entry must be accompanied with the appropriate entry fee, when applicable. One check/ money order payment is required for the flat fee entry per school, but then each school will be responsible for separately submitting a summary form noting all entrants connected to that entry fee. The individual fee per entry is available only to schools that have three or fewer total entries.

5   Entry fees will not be refunded for disqualified entries.  Individuals accept that if action is taken by them to dispute the credit card charge paid for entry fees or conference registration, they will still be responsible to TABE for the payment, plus any additional fees or losses the dispute causes to TABE.   School advisers agree to work with students to assure proper payments are made and efforts are not made to circumvent payment.

6   Entries may only be submitted between November 15, 2023 and December 18, 2023.

7   TABE will make every effort to return judges’ comment forms but we cannot guarantee entrants will receive the forms.  Students may request judges’ comments after completion of the conference, if not automatically received.  The regional competition should help individuals in certain categories work on improving a regional submission prior to a national competition.

8   Terms and Conditions of Entry:

• Submission of any entry acknowledges the right of TABE to use it for exhibition and

     publication in any medium.

• The competition assumes all entries are original and are the works and property of the entrants, with all rights granted therein. In the event that an entrant without such rights submits an entry, TABE is not liable for any copyright infringement on the part of the entrant and the entry is subject to disqualification. The entrant agrees by the submission of a project and/or payment of fees that it is his or her own individual, non-professional work and that the entrant holds full responsibility for having met any related legal requirements, including copyright. Any copyrighted material used must have accompanying permission forms with the entry.

• Audio & video entry specifics continue below

AUDIO AND VIDEO COMPETITIONS

1   Submissions must have been produced or aired during the period of January 1, 2023 to December 18, 2023. 

2   The same audio/video piece may only be entered in one category each contest year.

3    Entries are to be original work by undergraduate students (fully student-produced) for
     a campus media entity or from a standard college course.

4   Where applicable, entries must be accompanied with evidence of copyright permission for such things as network news footage, movie clips, copyrighted scripts, licensed or unlicensed music, and music videos. 

5   Productions must contain primarily originally produced material [as opposed to stock footage or segments produced by anyone other than the eligible entrant(s), etc.]. 

6   All production entries must be complete programs, complete program segments or complete packages as described for each entry category. Do not send edited montages of programs, stories, packages or segments or demo reels. (If you post a one hour program on a website that only allows shorter postings, break the program into segments and submit links for all segments.)  The exception to this is the telescoped DJ aircheck and ‘talent’ category as described above, which should be a montage of one airshift with no live breaks done by the announcer deleted from the aircheck.

7   The intent for uploading entries for the 2023 competition is that students will upload entries to an easily available online site (YouTube as an unlisted, but NOT private file, Vimeo, SoundCloud, etc.) and submit the URL on the entry form.  URLs that cannot be opened will cause the entry to not be judged and the entrant will not be reimbursed.  Entrants are responsible for meeting all technical issues to make the file available for judging.

JUDGING: All entries will be judged by media professionals and well qualified university faculty and staff. Entries will be judged based on technical quality, originality of ideas and achievement of any stated category criteria. The judges have the authority to determine that no entry is suitable as a winner in any category.  TABE does not guarantee that longer productions will be played in their entirety for judging purposes, but judges will be expected to review at least one third – and no less than the first ten minutes of—longer-form materials. No first place awards will be given in any category with less than three schools competing.  Entries are judged based on standard expectations of quality, so judges may deem no entry meets First Place criteria even if the category has more than three entries.