Television Articles

But There’s No Investigative Reporting Either

“News gets to be a bigger thing all the time,” says Austin Bridgman, KSD-TV News Director.

When Bridgman joined KSD-TV in 1947 (five months after the station went on the air), news segments tended to be limited to the 10-minute variety, little more than a radio announcer reading copy on camera during the dinner hour.

Today KSD-TV beams nearly three hours of news (including commercials) into the St. Louis market [daily].

“News is more popular than ever,” Bridgman said. “There’s a growing dependence on television and a growing trust in it. People used to look at television as some kind of novelty in the early days.”

A recent Roper Opinion Survey tries to show that “trust” is, indeed, being placed in television. In one comparison of radio, television, magazines, and newspapers, a study prepared for the Television Information Office showed 64 percent of 1,982 [people] interviewed said they rely on television as the source of most news. About 48 percent of those in the study found television the most believable news source, while only 21 percent counted on newspapers.

And when people watch and trust, commercial sponsors follow. Television news becomes a highly profitable item.

Need Determines Budget
“We’ve never had to skimp on news expenses,” Bridgman said. “I’ve never been told to spend this much or that little. The budget seems to always be determined by the need of the news organization. But then again that doesn’t  mean we wouldn’t hear about it if we threw the money around.”

KSD-TV hardly seems to be skimping on its budget. The station reportedly pays anchorman Chris Condon about $40,000 annually and presumably pays at least that to Max Roby, newly acquired from KMOX-TV. Some reports to the Journalism Review, which the station would not comment on, have Roby making as much as $70,000 a year.

Roby’s addition brings Bridgman’s news staff to about 35 persons representing an amalgam of KSD radio and television news departments. Some of the staff swing between radio and television in producing the news for both media. Bridgman estimated that news personnel account for well over 25 percent of the total staff at the two outlets.

The future will bring a slight expansion of two or three persons when the present 6 o’clock local news half-hour blossoms into a one-hour production.

But for now the 35-man crew – newsreel personnel, writers, and on-air personalities – are responsible for around-the-clock news including a hefty dose of local television fare:

    Five minute newsbreaks from the NBC networks “Today” show at 7:25 a.m. and 8:25 a.m.
    A large portion of the daily one-hour “Noon Show.”
    Early evening news half-hour at 5 p.m.
    What Bridgman calls “the showcases” of KSD-TV news programing, the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. half-hours.

A tag-along 15-minute midnight news report which is little more than an announcer reading off-camera while the words “KSD Eyewitness News” are projected on the screen.

KSD, KSD-TV Work Together
“There’s complete coordination between radio and television,” Bridgman said, noting that television reporters frequently carry along tape recorders for dual coverage of an event.

But “we’re completely separate from the newspaper,” he explained, saying that the only time the three Pulitzer Publishing Co. properties – KSD Radio, KSD-TV, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – cooperate is in renting a helicopter, “and then it’s just if we want to do it together.”

Bridgman contends that the ratings place KSD-TV news on top of the competition for both the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news half-hours.

While he said that “ratings are important,” he added that if the station were to aim at any specific audience (e.g., the under-30 set) it would “certainly be managing the news.

“I know network people are always talking about aiming for specific audiences,” Bridgman said, “but I don’t see that news works that way.”

He said that KSD-TV news has “no fixed formula or format” to appeal to any specific group. “I suppose we wouldn’t short the hard news for features,” he said, “but other than that I can’t think of any formula we use for building the news show.”

What about the “ha-ha” or “funny format” that has been in fashion for television newscasts across the country?

“We never did go for that,” Bridgman said. “It gets pretty outrageous sometimes. I think news people need to look more human than just cut-outs on the screen. But we’ve had no determined campaign, no flat out instructions for people to loosen up.”

He added that the closest thing to a “funny format” on KSD-TV might be John Auble’s “more relaxed attitude” during feature reports.

Bridgman generally agrees that local television does a sorry job of investigative reporting. But that’s precluded by “simply a shortage of manpower,” he said, “not a lack of interest in the community. I think the newspapers will always be doing more of it.”

He added that he couldn’t remember any recent television report at KSD-TV that came close to being called “investigative.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/1973).

 

“Channel five.” (pause) “The news station with Eyewitness News.” (pause) “With Chris Condon.”

Condon (Close-up) “And here’s a précis of the Bi-State dilemma.”

Auble (Close-up) “A one-liner about Cervantes.”

Condon (Close-up) “Another on President Nixon.”

Commercial

More news. And weather, and sports. More commercials.

Thirty minutes later, with Ed McMahon and the Tonight Show looming larger than life on a screen behind him, Chris Condon wraps up the 10 o’clock news show and ends his working day.

Usually it is a working day that begins at 10:15 in the morning with a call at home from the station’s news director who outlines the day’s news events.

If he does not drive directly to an assignment, Condon arrives downtown from his Webster Groves home at 11:15 a.m.
After covering up to five different stories, he goes back to the station in time to be anchorman at 6:30, helps create a new news package to present at 10 p.m., and is on the air again.

Wears Many Hats

During a typical day he probably wears more hats than any one person in the St. Louis media – especially those in the television field.

Not only is Condon the only local anchorman who handles daily reporting assignments on a regular basis, he said that he also writes about “55 percent” of the 10 o’clock show, makes judgments about what is to be covered, has a say in how stories are received and can, if necessary, make “last minute judgments” as to the length of a story.

Which would be comparable to a newspaper reporter who, after assigning and covering a story by himself, becomes a news editor deciding which page it runs on and then sits on the copy desk and edits it – an unheard of job.

Condon said in an interview with the Journalism Review that his multi-faceted role developed gradually over the years since newscasts (including the weather) were 10 minutes long, there was one camera team, one reporter and everyone was expected to do everything.

Joined KSD in 1961

Originally from the East Coast, Condon came to St. Louis and the 10-minute newscast in 1961. After majoring in philosophy and minoring in radio communications at Fordham University, he gained his first experience as a newscaster while serving with the Army Signal Corps in the Philippines during World War II. Condon returned to Fordham after the war to get his degree and began working for a series of stations in the East and Midwest, including two years as anchorman at WDAF-TV in Kansas City, immediately before he arrived at KSD.

Despite the variety of his responsibilities, Condon perceives himself as a newsman. “I see myself as a reporter,” he said, “but for the money and promotions purposes I’m an anchorman.

“I put together the newscast I would want to see,” Condon admitted. “How do I know what all the people out there want? I use my own news judgment most of the time.”

In a manner not unlike his television posture, Condon, a short, white-haired man talks off the air in a slow, modified voice.

Gestures are noticeable by their absolute absence.

But Condon, relaxed interviewee, and Condon, tense interviewer, are totally different people.

During a Board of Education press conference the first day of the school strike, for example:

“Mrs. Smiley. What about the so-called $3 million cash reserve the teachers claim the board has?”
“There is no cash reserve, Mr. Condon.”
“Mrs. Smiley, what is the money that will be left over in this school year to be used for?”
“To avoid deficit spending…”
“Mrs. Smiley, is the board going to refuse teachers’ demands for a mid-year wage hike?”
“I already told you, Mr. Condon…”
“How long will the St. Louis school children be out of school, Mrs. Smiley?”
One question, after another, after another – a series that is sometimes resented by the subject, the other members of the press who are impatient to get their turn and the television viewers.
“I’ve been criticized for pressing people too hard more than anything else,” Condon admits.
“What you have to learn to do – and I still haven’t learned it – is to keep your voice neutral.”
Often, he explained, he asks the same question three, four, maybe eight times while the person he is interviewing avoids a direct answer. It is the last question which is edited and shown on the air. The guy watching at home doesn’t know anything about a whole series of hems and haws. He only knows what he sees, and he sees – and hears.

“Good night for Eyewitness News.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 5/1973).

At St. Louis’ First Station, the Earliest Days Were Anything But Smooth

TV, and How It Grew – Managing the electronic wonder-child brings a whole new set of skills into play, including the ability to duck, squat, ad lib and find the mike.

Whether television has become adult had best be left to debate between the man who won’t leave his receiver to come to dinner and the man who wouldn’t have one of the things in his house. But for those of us who have been around it since its birth in St. Louis, there’s no question that television has passed its infancy. That infancy left scars on everyone who had anything to do with the child.

KSD-TV went on the air February 8, 1947, with the latest equipment money could buy and a crew competent to operate the equipment. But it turned out that one other factor was required – experience in producing television shows. And the only way to gain such experience was for us to go ahead and produce them, learning the hard way.

One of our first shocks was the discovery that our cameras, those magnificent $15,000 objects, built by RCA’s finest brains, had no view finders. In its eagerness to get on the air, KSD-TV had badgered RCA into selling and lending equipment that was, in this respect at least, incomplete. There was no way for a cameraman to see the picture he was taking, to frame it properly and get into focus.

For those first few weeks, until view finders were obtained, the operators blindly pushed their cameras forward and backward, swung them from side to side, changed lenses and turned their focusing knobs, completely in the hands of the director, who could see what they were getting on the monitor screens in the control room.

During those early days, the company that made ad slides had trouble centering them properly, so that often part of the message did not appear on the screen. One night announcer Carl McIntire was reading a beer commercial behind a series of slides. The first slide read “It’s dry!” The second read “It’s smooth!” The third one read “It’s goo.” McIntire, choked with laughter, never did finish the commercial.

It was about that time that McIntire became known as the Range Rider. He was serving as announcer at a performance of a hillbilly band which called itself “The Range Riders,” and decided to move from one microphone to another, across the path of the camera. To avoid being seen by the audience, he squatted and proceeded across the floor in a series of little leaps. But he had miscalculated the range of the camera, and as he passed the lens, the audience saw him jogging up and down for all the world like Hopalong Cassidy.

KSD-TV began operations with modern lighting equipment, so that its performers never suffered the broiling administered by the lights of the pre-war television stations. But even up-to-date lights put out a certain amount of heat. In a production called “Vodvil Varieties,” there was a shot of Bob Ingham reading a theater program. The camera was supposed to peer over Ingham’s shoulder and pick up the program page, and to make the words legible a thousand watt spot was mounted about 18 inches behind him. Bob smelled something burning. Sure enough, it was his hair.

On another occasion, Ingham was conducting a sports program in the studio, first sitting at a desk, then getting up and walking over to a blackboard. Since he was using a microphone suspended from a boom, it was necessary for the engineer to loosen the boom arm and follow him across the studio with the mike. But the engineer, whose name was Arthur, turned the wrong knob, and Bob glanced up to see the microphone descending toward his head – fast. He ducked just in time, and remained huddled in his chair while Arthur wrestled with the boom counterweight and finally hauled the mike out of the way. This incident, trivial in itself, has been immortalized in a poem written by another engineer, entitled, naturally, “When Arthur Lowered the Boom.”

More embarrassing was John Roedel’s microphone hunt at Kiel Auditorium. John was going to interview some prominent individual or other, between matches on a wrestling program. The KSD-TV microphone was under the ring, in easy reach – but nobody had told him that. And as he began to speak, he became suddenly aware of the mike’s absence. He looked around uncertainly, reached for the microphone attached to the public address system, backed away in response to wild signals from engineers, and finally discovered the right one – all in full view of the television audience, because the ring was the only lighted spot in the big convention hall, and there was no place else to swing the camera during the search.

But if inanimate things such as microphones caused trouble, it was nothing [compared] to the anguish created by live animals. Horses, dogs, mules, even Elsie the cow, appeared on KSD-TV at one time or another. And entering the studio seemed to stimulate their natural functions, with untidy effects. After Elsie’s visit, a stagehand spent an hour furiously sawing wood to make sawdust.

The stagehands finally became so irked at doubling as stable-boys that one of them, learning that a dog show was in prospect, decided to anticipate matters. He obtained a quantity of dog-repellent powder and sprinkled it liberally on the floor and the equipment used in the show. The effect exceeded his expectations somewhat. The puzzled dogs, sniffing the repellent as they approached the hurdles they were supposed leap and ladders they were supposed to climb, shied away in bewilderment. The show was a flop.

A debacle on another and, to the audience, much funnier type occurred during a live commercial for one of those new phonographs that plays without a needle. The demonstrator, Rush Hughes, inserted a record in a sort of drawer and closed it. Music flowed out smoothly – from a transcription on a studio turntable. Hughes, continuing to extol the virtues of the phonograph, pulled out the drawer and removed the record. But he found himself holding only a fragment of it. The record had crumpled when he closed the drawer.

The advertising agency in charge of another phonograph commercial was understandably incensed when, after the thing had been on the air for four or five weeks, it developed that the script, all the time, had included this enlightening sentence: “No tone from radio or phonograph.”

Sometimes, even when everything went completely according to plan, the result was amusing to certain listeners. As when, after a Romeo-and-Juliet balcony scene involving love-making that, even at the distance was somewhat torrid, [Russ] Severin stepped to the microphone and said: “And now – a timely message from U.S. Rubber.”

Probably the most elaborate fiasco in KSD-TV history was the Little Henry incident. Little Henry, of course, is the stripped-down 90-pound helicopter that is the pride of McDonnell Aircraft. NBC had just launched its nightly news network show and was anxious to demonstrate how it could pick up live features from any of its member cities. So it was determined that the St. Louis contribution, on this particular evening, would be a performance by Little Henry. Engineers worked for hours stringing cables and mounting lights at McDonnell’s airport plant. Little Henry was in fine shape, circling and hovering over the scene. Then, just as Frank Eschen received his NBC cue and launched into his account of the helicopter’s remarkable abilities, Little Henry faltered. Perhaps it was too much to expect him to escape stage-fright, with the eyes of television audiences in eight cities trained on him. At any rate, Little Henry dropped to the ground and crouched there stubbornly, while Eschen improvised an account of what he could do – if he wanted to.

KSD-TV has been on the air for some two-and-a-half years now, and the roughness has pretty well worn off. No longer do programs run fantastically off schedule; the network requires split-second timing. No longer do sets topple over and props turn up missing. But there is still so much in television that depends on human eyes and ears, minds and muscles, that funny things are going to go on happening. And no matter how machine-perfect everything else may run, it will still be possible for an announcer to say, as one said not long ago:

“This is KSD-TV, the St. Louis Past-Dispatch.”

By Jean Winkler

(Originally published in Page One in 1949. Jean Winkler began writing news for KSD-TV when the station went on the air.)

NewsCorp, Owned by Rupert Murdoch, Purchased KTVI in 1996

Rupert Murdoch Buys Channel 2

The new owner of KTVI (Channel 2) is Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp., which owns Fox Network, 20th Century Fox Film Studios as well as countless other media outlets around the world. Murdoch bought New World Communications, Channel 2’s owner and the owner of nine other television stations around the country. Murdoch has owned 20 percent of New World and bought the other 80 percent of the company for $3 billion.

Murdoch’s company is the fourth owner of Channel 2 in the past four years. Times Mirror sold Channel 2 along with its other television stations to San Antonio-based Argyle Communications back in 1993 for a little more than $300 million. Argyle then sold its stations to New World for more than $700 million in a deal that took effect in the spring of 1995. As part of its ownership deal with Murdoch, New World converted all of its television stations to Fox Network affiliates. The affiliation change in St. Louis, which moved Channel 2 from ABC to Fox, happened last August.

The latest roll of the dice in television Monopoly© should result in little visual change at Channel 2. The station has spent the past year retuning its news operation into the Fox mold and that is likely to continue.

The biggest impact of a change in ownership at a television station – or any other media outlet, for that matter – is among the employees at that station. It can be very unsettling. It can mean a new general manager, a new news director and the different visions these people bring to their jobs.

For now that doesn’t seem to be an issue. The news department leadership at Channel 2 has been stable, but the station has had four general managers over the past several years. Current KTVI-TV President and General Manager Spencer Koch has been in the job since July 1995. Industry observers expect him to continue in the roll under Murdoch’s ownership.

(Originally published in the St. Louis Journalism Review 9/1996).

 

In 1984, Channel 30 Got a Much-Needed Make-Over

Overhaul at KDNL-TV: Building, Program Schedule

St. Louis has five commercial TV stations. The one on the UHF side, KDNL-TV, does not get much press, largely because it has never been a significant contender for the St. Louis television audience.

When Atlanta-based Cox Broadcasting Co. acquired Channel 30 in early 1982, they immediately announced plans to initiate subscription TV in hope of capturing the non-cabled city audience. That experiment with “Preview,” Cox Communications own pay-TV service, flopped in February 1983, for a variety of reasons.

For the past year, KDNL-TV has been trying to reposition itself as a serious contender in St. Louis TV. Much of the responsibility for exorcizing KDNL-TV’s step-child image rests on the shoulders of William Viands, vice president and general manager. Viands arrived in St. Louis 15 months ago, after managing two Cox radio stations in Miami. He is a 22-year Cox veteran.

One of the more dramatic steps undertaken by Cox to upgrade its St. Louis television property has been contracting for a major overhaul of the station’s studios at Tucker and Cole Streets. Cox is spending $750,000 to remodel the station’s entrance and lobby, lay new carpeting, [add] new walls, ceilings and lighting in the 35-year-old building that once housed KMOX-TV, Channel 4. Cox has spent a cool half-million on equipment and $200,000 for new furniture.

One of the more notable achievements of the remodeling is that the building is being rid of its ugly green “emergency room” tile.

Remodeled studios are no guarantee of higher ratings. Good ratings come from a revamped programing schedule, and Viands shared some thoughts on the sort of fare KDNL will be pushing during its 24-hour broadcasting day.

Nostalgia is every independent station’s staple fare – KDNL is no exception.

“It’s just amazing. I gave my secretary a stack of letters today from people saying ‘Thank you for the Lucy Show’ or ‘Why did we move Perry Mason?’ or ‘We really enjoy watching the Andy Griffith Show,’” says Viands.

Adding to the hockey, soccer, and wrestling, Viands plans to re-acquire the “Whitey Herzog Show” in the near future.

One of KDNL’s big disappointments is the late night talk and entertainment program “Thicke of the Night.” Mediocre ratings forced KDNL to shift time slots for the show, says Viands, because Alan Thicke was no competitor to Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”

“Thicke isn’t as funny and durable as we hoped,” says Viands. “Some of the people on with him are great, but they’re overworked . The show would fly a lot better if it was 60 minutes, I think. Coming up with 90 minutes, five days a week with original material is difficult.”

Viands thinks “Thicke” producer Fred Silverman could do the show – and KDNL’s ratings – a big favor by taking the Thicke out of “Thicke” and putting someone in like Bill Cosby.

“We have to go out and negotiate a separate deal for every single program we have on the air, 24 hours a day,” says Viands. All-day programing also means selling advertising for wee morning time slots in which the audience largely consists of insomniacs.

KDNL added radio-television personality Otis Thomas as the station’s news director in 1983. Thomas provides one-minute local news updates throughout the day, plus an entertainment feature, “Otis Thomas on the Town” which is couples with Cable News Network’s “The Hollywood Minute.”

KDNL also carried an hour CNN newscast weekdays at 5:30 p.m. KDNL carries three community affairs programs: Viands is especially proud of one: “KDNL Capitol Report,” taped at Cox Communications Center in Washington, D.C., featuring weekly interviews with Missouri and Illinois legislators.

On March 1, KDNL celebrates one year of returning to full-time service. “Our programing is worth looking at,” says Viands. If viewers agree, KDNL will be the fastest growing St. Louis station in 1984 – maybe even a contender.

By Elizabeth Freeman

(Originally published in the St. Louis Journalism Review 2/1984).

KTVI’s Management Appears to Get Serious About the Station’s News
Channel 2 Brings Back 6 p.m. News

After a two-year absence, the 6 p.m. newscast is back on KTVI-TV, Channel 2.

Station officials have announced that beginning Monday, Jan. 7 [1991], the 6 p.m. edition of Channel 2 News will replace the syndicated program A Current Affair, which will move into the 4 – 5 p.m. time slot with fellow infotainment mainstay Hard Copy.

“The exact reason for us bringing it back at this time is to be competitive with the other stations,” said Bill Berra, news director at KTVI. “The perception was that we were not competitive because of the lack of the 6 o’clock, that we were being beaten to stories or didn’t have the staff.”

The reasons for the initial yanking of the local programing did indeed have to do with both editorial and advertiser-related dilemmas. The station cited Channel 2’s declining news ratings and the high costs of presenting a low-rated and sparsely advertised-in newscast.

In the last 15 months, though, KTVI has taken some steps to restore the luster of its heavily tarnished news operation. Newscasts in the morning and middle of the day have been added, and the staff has been built up, reversing the shrinkage of several years ago. The station has also invested heavily in modernizing the news department’s technical operation. There are new cameras and edit equipment, plus a heavily used satellite truck to enable the station to originate news segments from anywhere around the country.

KTVI’s editorial product has also improved. Its coverage of major events, such as the recent dangerous weather in St. Charles, has won plaudits from local television critics.

Berra expects the editorial focus of the new broadcast to stress local news with a mixture of local and national at 5 and 10.

Eric Mink, long-time television critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said that the move was probably geared toward positioning the station toward a run at the start of 1991.

“You just get the sense that the first of the year is when they’ll make the move,” Mink said. “They’re picking up “Arsenio” then, and that should help strengthen the late news. And they possibly wanted a month to try out Dana King and see how well she works with (Don) Marsh. They seem reasonably comfortable with that. I’m sure they also promised Berra that it would come back when they hired him.”

The 6 p.m. program will be anchored by KTVI’s primary anchor team of Don Marsh and Dana King. They will also anchor the station’s 10 p.m. newscast. Station veteran Donn Johnson and current morning anchor Tom O’Neal will take over the 5 p.m. newscast. O’Neal will continue to anchor KTVI’s mid-day news with Kathryn Kiefer. As for the morning newscasts, Kiefer will replace O’Neal to co-anchor with John Auble in the 6:30 a.m. slot.

Whether anyone is watching all these new arrangements is another matter. Mink pointed out that the 6:30 a.m. broadcast is currently being beaten by cartoons, while the 5 p.m. newscast is being edged out by Channel 30’s reruns of “Cosby” and is just edging out Channel 11’s household sitcom “Growing Pains.”

But Berra would not use the word “credibility” when describing the return, even ratings seem to be a decidedly lesser concern here.

“Credibility…how do you define credibility?” Berra asked.

Mink was shocked by this answer, saying “I can’t imagine how anyone there could say such a thing. That sounds so bizarre to me that you should probably go back and check again with the source. There’s no question that they lost a lot of credibility, though they have done much to repair and improve things dramatically.”

Whatever the reasons, Channel 2 is sounding optimistic.

Said Berra: “This shows Channel 2 is back.” At the very least, it’s far better than having “Geraldo” wage the 6 o’clock battle for KTVI.

(Used with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 1/1991).