GUST – Glasgow University Student Television

For an institution with a fairly pretentious and elitist reputation, Glasgow University’s own media is surprisingly good, militant preaching of the QM magazine aside. Subcity and the GU Guardian both have excellent reputations, and GUST, while not always of the same standard, is still worth a look.
Obviously the shows have no budget whatsoever, and the lack of professional training and facilities makes for the odd bout of unintentional comedy (especially on some of the «drama» shows), but the station doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has an output far more entertaining than you’d think.
A couple of years ago they showed a guy doing the «Subway Challenge», not the stag party «drink at every stop» tour, but his own alternative. The plan was to get off the Subway train at Buchanan Street, and make it to St Enoch station in time to catch the same train he’d just alighted. It took him a bike and a couple of goes to make the 55 second time limit, but it was undeniably impressive.

Okay, so if you read Catriona’s review below — you’ll notice that she’s complained about the fact that GUST is low budget. Erm, well yes. It’s run entirely by students, and they don’t really get any budget to speak off. It’s actually quite amazing the programs that GUST churn out each week when they have a budget of a few hundred pounds a year.
Regardless of this fact, every week you can watch a few new GUST programs. Ranging from news to entertainment to dramas to university events — you’re very likely to find something that will interest you. Their programs are hugely fresh and entertaining, and are great if you want to keep up to date with what’s happening in the university. They also regularly have local bands playing live in the studio.
Catriona also mentioned that you can only view GUST programs online — but this isn’t true at all. Although you can watch all programs on demand at
— programs are also available to watch on numerous TVs around the Glasgow University campus.
In addition to watching the programs — you may want to get involved yourself. If you’re a student at Glasgow University then you can join the society, no experience needed. Once there, you could be involved in scriptwriting, filming, editing, acting, presenting, costumes, technical set-​ups… the opportunities are endless. You can find out how to join at their website.
Later in 2010, GUST will be hosting the National Student Television Awards. This is quite an honour for GUST, and means that students from all over the UK will flock to Glasgow to attend the award ceremony.

Glasgow University Student Television (or GUST as it is more commonly known) is only available online at
and the content is a mixed bag. It is great to see people trying to make something different from the usual mainstream media but sometimes the lack of planning and budgets are painfully obvious. That said this is a great resource if you are a student at Glasgow University or if you live in the city and you want to see an alternative take on events.
I recommend that you have a cheeky look at the stations G-​Spot show which gives you a regular run down of the hots and nots of the cities art scene. This is a delightful low budget show but I think this only adds to the charm.
The station has weekly updates so keep checking the website to see what is new in the GUST world.