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You wait years for a nationwide student TV network (SUBtv) and then suddenly you can’t keep track as new ones spring up across the digital landscape.

To be fair, Xplore is an entirely different proposition to the well-established SUBtv, which has been broadcasting since 2003 in students’ unions across the country.

Xplore is essentially YouTube for students. A place for UK university and college students to upload their own clips and “have your say, whether you want to tell your best joke or sound off about what’s in the news, politics, the environment, college fees, abortion or Man Utd (this list is not exhaustive)”.

The site is endorsed by the National Union of Students and run by an NUS officer, Dan Chilcott.

It will be intriguing to see how this develops.

NUS has traditionally had a problem associating itself with any person or business whose viewpoint conflicts with its own agenda. It’s not easy to get the official support of NUS for anything - let alone an open platform for self-expression. Past executive officers have made it their business to put the spoilers on any collaboration that they can get political about.

Xplore has an exhaustive list of terms and conditions covering content posted, much the same as You Tube. You Tube takes a fairly passive moderation role, allowing users to notfiy them of infringements, but will NUS/Xplore be able to restrain itself?

It’s hard to imagine the organisation being comfortable, for example, if the platform it’s endorsing was used by hardline Trotskyists (yes, they do still exist) or Conservatives to market their ideas.

If it succeeds and attracts a lot of uploads, it is undoubtedly going to be scrutinised.

Still, it’s fantastic to see NUS continuing to be bold in its approach to all things new media.

Things have really moved on since the dark days of its deal with ITM Communications and its half-hearted attempt to be a one-stop student ‘portal’.

Under the direction of an inspired New Media Manager they have kept well ahead of the game and the current nusonline is alive with all sorts of web 2.0 incorporation.

Which brings us to Freewire TV, an IPTV (TV through telephone wires) service brought to the market by some refugees of the ITM/NUS partnership.

Freewire is described by some as Freeview via broadband. It runs over the university JANET network and is allowing some universities to install multichannel television in their halls of residence without investing in extra technology.

“The student market is the prime example of a sector that has been disenfranchised from digital TV,” Marcus Liassides, the founder of Inuk Networks which runs Freewire, told informitv.com.

“Freewire TV presents universities and other institutions with a highly compelling and long-overdue solution for the provision of high quality broadcast television.”

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