Instead, CitrusTV provides programming, both live and taped—primarily to its website, Spectrum Sports, and the Orange Television Network, which is the university-controlled station available in all campus buildings on channel 24.2.

In 1972, University Union was granted the former Watson Dormitory dining hall as an interim UU center, with funding to construct a theater, the Community Darkrooms, and the first color television studio on the SU campus, edit rooms, and offices to teach and promote portable video production.

Students designed and built the cable television system connecting large TV monitors in most campus buildings.

In 1977, Synapse ended its use of the Watson studio and formalized its association with the Newhouse School continuing its NYSCA post-production program following a National Endowment for the Arts grant to control 2" video editing by computer.

Early founding members included Carl Geiger and Bill Viola, who helped build the cable system.

Other projects included Carl Geiger designing and building new electronic image making tools and producing an elaborate experiment called “Multi-Origination Dance Piece."

Another popular show during the years 1990–1992 was "Uncle Bobo's World of Fun" which included such colorful characters as Texas Bob Stone and Marty the Fishboy.

The station also continually broadcast a sports-talk show, and each semester ran "The Bio Answer Show," in which University biology professor Marvin Druger would broadcast the answers to that evening's biology exam, so that the large number of students taking the class would not have to wait several days to find out how they did on the test.

Many eyebrows were raised when UUTV showed several recent theatrical releases even before HBO had screened them, including "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

In 1989, an organization called "U-Net," an association of college-based broadcasters, began showing some of UUTV's productions at various colleges around the nation, including "Null and Void."

During this time, the public-access channel was happy to accept and air the UUTV programming as long as it complied with some rudimentary decency standards.

The nightly newscast (Campus 7 News) and the once-a-week morning show (Sun Up) both did this, along with most of the station's entertainment and sports programs.

Campus 7 News was aired at 10 p.m. on the public-access channel, leading the show to be tagged by its producers as "Central New York's Only Prime-Time Newscast," which it was.

During this time, the campus' original closed-circuit TV network was generally not maintained by the university at even the most basic level.

The organization continued to attract record numbers of students and regularly produced a full complement of news, sports and entertainment programs every semester.

During this time, SU exercised almost zero oversight over the station, which empowered students to experiment, learn, have fun, and create any type of show their hearts desired.

Light Works was hungry to acquire the UUTV real estate for their upcoming expansion, and their newfound grant money provided the political and monetary support that they needed.

Consequently, the original Watson Theater television studio was completely gutted to make room for the Light Works expansion.

Though the UUTV studio and office spaces were now significantly smaller, the station did benefit from a new complement of production equipment that was purchased as part of the relocation.

In early 2004 UUTV, led by general manager Eric Fleming, split off the University Union, and became a separate student organization: HillTV.

[7] The show had several episodes online (some of which had also aired on the "Orange Television Network") that contained content that some people found offensive because of racial and ethnic jokes.

The controversy sparked a letter to the university community by Chancellor Nancy Cantor, and the story was also picked up by the Syracuse Post-Standard, local TV stations and the Associated Press.

[9] On November 11, SU held a hearing before a panel of three tenured faculty members at an undisclosed time and location to reconsider Cantor's decision to disband HillTV.

On November 30, the panel reversed the Chancellor's decision and reduced the punishment to a suspension and one year probationary period and required HillTV to undertake steps toward re-organization to prevent such an issue from arising in the future.

During that time, the station focused on renewing its culture by altering its approach on recruiting new members and improving the attitude within the major departments.

CitrusTV now makes its content available online in addition to traditional cablecasts through the Orange Television Network and across the central New York region on Time Warner Cable Sports channel 13.

[14][15] CitrusTV has partnered with a variety of local and national stations to provide content to CBS Sportsline, InsideLacrosse.com, Time Warner Cable Sports and Syracuse.com.

Working in CitrusTV's own studio, students rotate between jobs in order to get familiar with the industry equipment and to appreciate all that goes into producing a successful newscast.

For the 2016 presidential election, CitrusTV produced a live three-and-a-half hour special that also streamed online and aired on the Orange Television Network.

The show features a host with multiple guest reporters, and covers local, national, international, financial, and technology news.