WKAR's First Fifty: VHS Version/ Captioned Master

I. Mean people who go after them. If you're happy and you have a good. Job. You're. Going to remember. Like. For. Example. Those Were The Days Of course when girls were happy to wipe them out. I think part of human nature. I think everybody. Has. Style. I think one of the things in life. Is they don't know what other people have experienced. I'm willing to share what I remember because I know it was great. As an individual you have to win. And. You don't want to forget about it. It is. Easy.

Welcome to WKRN first 50. I'm Adele you cheetah. Back when the 20th century was half over the marvelous invention known as television was spreading into the living rooms of Americans one household at a time. The box with the flickering picture would bring not only entertaining and educational programs to our homes and schools. It would bring the world itself. Michigan State has always been dedicated to bringing education and information to the people. As part of their land grant philosophy of this of this institution John Hanno the president of the university in the late

40s was very interested in being able to use television as a means to get information and education out to the people not just what we would call on tele courses but actually transmitting interesting and educational programming to people who were not students. And by 1954 when they were able to go on air they were very well versed to be able to achieve this goal in order for Michigan State College to get the plan for television broadcasting off paper and on the air later was needed someone with a combination of vision and experience in this very young industry the right man was found at Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Armand L. Hunter was a national authority on educational television who developed one of the most complete programs in the country at Temple. Hunter came to Michigan State College in early 1951. He was a very good arrowhead for this operation because he had he had visions that

most of us didn't have in terms of what could be done. And the university did a fine job acquiring him for that particular assignment because. He was able to actually execute what the university want to do under Hunter's leadership. The Department of television development produced more than 750 programs for the campus closed circuit system and over 500 kinescope recordings all before the station went on the air. On October 15 of 1952 the Federal Communications Commission authorized the construction of UHF channel 60 in East Lansing and assigned the call letters of W-K our TV. In 1953 the station moved into newly renovated studios and the largest of the colleges quonset hut. By November of that year the broadcast tower was completed on dobi road in oak of us at 1034 feet tall it was the third tallest structure in the world after the Empire State and Chrysler buildings things were rapidly coming together for WKRN first broadcast on January 15

1954. We had spent 24 hours a day literally working on the transmitting equipment we load to get it to actually come on stage. Which you didn't like to do. They actually had the replacements for two days before the first day of air time and we were all pretty pretty dead. We were all dragging the floor. It's hard to stay awake but we missed the first day's broadcast was made up of a wide range of programs campus matinee ladies tie curtain going up the toy shop and sports whirl. It was wonderful. There were no errors. You couldn't make a mistake you couldn't fail because nobody was in front of you doing it better. The technology was black and white. The cameras were enormous. The picture quality was terrible. It was an interesting time in the sense that we were working with me from one studio to the next from my start with the studio a a movie studio B and

then the studio see what's going on. Most of the day one cameraman for example is in Studio A Room of the room over and grab a camera and you'll be. Over there just to feel and feel really happy. We had two cameras in Studio A two and B and if we wanted to shoot a news show from a small wall by 10 studio we had to open the door from Studio B and shoot into the door. Touche to the desk newsman was it was exciting because everything we did was live there was no video tape at the time and we would do sometimes back to back shows in the same studio on the station break it reach up take the big flood lights and flip them the other way to the set. On the other side of the studio and continue on with Philly to break up the stations. And that that would happen a few times it didn't happen all that often that you were actually back to that show.

But often enough and the schedule when you would look at it would have eight 10 live shows a day. Of course doing live programming has its own. Interesting pressures because when it's eight o'clock you've got to be on the air no matter what. I mean there's no fudge factor. Although the stations equipment was state of the art for 1954. There were still challenges to overcome and everything was immense. We didn't have transistors. So the cameras were huge no microphones weren't large but we had the pedestal cameras for lenses 2 4 6 and 8. And when you change the composition you had to rock. Her. Home as quietly as possible. A lot of the sets were black and white. So I was like walking into a different world

you know like the inverse of the Wizard of Oz where you go from black and white to Kelly hear you outside in the colored world and you walk into the studio and it's black and white. I just felt like you moved into another dimension. I remember. We used to feel for what. We thought it was a book to live and so for all lose lose. The puppet Prince with what was one of the first things that we did a lot of fun. It was fun having to go to to see your work there and who knew know no one knew what the audience was or how big it might have been two people or 2000 people I didn't know. Everything was so heavy and so big when we went out to a remote for instance we had that big house trailer type in it. And it was heavy and we pulled it with a little jeep. The. Jeep was about all we could do to lug that thing around carrying the cameras to the top of the stadium. They had to carry him in to

pieces because of viewfinder of the camera body and self were so heavy the lenses you carried separately so there were five trips to get one camera up the camera cables were like about this big around round size of a larger garden hose and they weighed about two pounds a foot. And. We paid out the camera cables connect the camera to the remote truck and did the directors work hand-in-hand with us engineers cameramen and stuff. I think. A very bright bunch of technicians because they were dealing with something that was in its infancy and they just made things work that were astounding. But the biggest challenge of all was the equipment. It was the channel that R was broadcasting on. Our big frustration at that point in time was we were on channel 60 and not everybody was seeing us because everybody didn't have UHF UHF was

emerging on the scene in 1955 that there were no tuners in the TV set. If you bought a TV set you had 13 channels 2 through 13. And maybe you had a UHF tuner or probably an extra box to decide. So when. I arrived here at W-K our channel 60 in 1955 we were broadcasting. To a very small audience because very few people had a tuner capable of receiving channels 60. So the receiving antenna weren't very effective in the transmitting antenna was also not very effective. I won't use the manufacturer's name but the first television broadcast antenna on top of the tower out there actually was shooting a signal straight up. It wasn't putting it out like an umbrella that it should have been. Most of the most of the signal strength was going straight up in the air. So airplane flying would have done well but. We had a lot of good swiss cheese coverage with a lot of holes in it.

The reception is snowy. And strangely enough in those early years I remember being on an elevator once and speaking to someone and someone said Are you OK. And I said yes I am. And they said you know we watch you in Kalamazoo. They got great. That's 80 miles away. So we found that in Kalamazoo and in battle creek they got great reception. But in our immediate area it was very poor for me for my. Group. You'll lose a little of my neighbors could. Be with them or through on TV or film for me. So it was depressing. On the one hand did not many people were watching us but on the other hand it was a chance to experiment and figure out how to play television if I may use that word. And we did a pretty good job. As W-K A-R was giving the Lansing area its first look at educational television the luck of Lansing itself was beginning to change the Lansing area has

changed in many respects because it's gotten more diverse. When I first came to Lansing remember during the 50s. Most of the African-American population was limited to three census tracks. And all the schools were pretty well segregated. Not officially but they were unofficially I. We had twenty five hundred Afro-Americans here at that time that included babes in arms. There's restaurants. We couldnt go to. After all Americans were. Generally relegated to menial tasks as far as. I was concerned a ship from the factories in the 1950s television broadcasting was still in its infancy but downtown Lansing was in its prime with shops restaurants and theaters. The city was the center of activity for mid-Michigan. It was a city that you would barely recognize today.

We had the department stores down in the city of Lansing and there was lot more activity in the city of Mansingh more restaurants were downtown. Then than there are today. I missed the local theaters. You have to work really hard to go to one of the major Cineplex is now. When we came here there was a thriving movie theater. You know remember this is just you know less than 30 years ago the city itself. Was pretty viable of downtown theaters. And. Knapp's. Great department store. There was a thriving bookstore downtown and. In fact there was a lumber company. Right on Kalamazoo. Just just slightly beyond. Me. Imagine that. Now. You go into downtown Lansing after 5 p.m. And and it's empty. Everybody's at the malls and that has become sort of the New Town Square as if you know the whole character of downtown has changed as a result of losing some of those places that brought people in.

They're desperately trying to capture that back but it's really tough to do when people lived around the downtown area. Very bizarre. Normally they would come there or if you go home you're living. 10 miles out or 12 miles an hour. You are not inclined. To come back. To the downtown area. OK sure. It's still a joke about rush hour in Lansing lasting 10 minutes or something. But it actually is lasting a lot longer than it used to because people are going out from the city in all directions. And there's been a change then in the way people do their commerce. The average person I'm afraid. Looks at downtown Lansing is kind of a hassle. You know it's it's tough to park there. They don't have the variety that they might have. One of the malls has been a wonderful place to live but yeah it has changed. And I and I'm not always sure for the better. There was a series of music programs produced by Don Passhe

who should go down in the annals of public broadcasting Educational Television is one of the primary leaders in his era of bringing young talent into the realm of television. Dr. Donald passhe was hired as WKRN fine arts producer in 1954 and he held that job until 1987. He revolutionized the way music was presented on television and many of his programs were broadcast across the country. Don Passhe who had started that the fine arts programs had studied at Syracuse University. He had a musical background and he had a lot of connections with the Chicago Symphony. He had a lot of connections in New York with some of the major agents. He had a theory about the band that you could produce music programming that made sense visually in the pictures. You might say went along with the music.

He was insistent that if you were doing a program of piano music you didn't just randomly select. When you would change from camera to camera. You did it in spots that were logical from a musical standpoint. Not everybody thought that that was what he should be doing. Maybe they should be a little glitzier here and there but they really didn't need to be because I think they were really truly allowing the performer to carry the show and the music in the interpretation was was compatible with all of that. And so it worked and he was able to attract young talent from Juilliard and other major music schools to come here to this these studios. To me dumb was still one of the biggest reasons that we put forward stirps who. All because of the people he was able to bring Bill have newsgroup contacts and the new level for those people like Yo-Yo Ma when he was only 15 years old the program sir Emanuel Ax

Murray a pariah the list is. A long and distinguished Jessye Norman Ralph bought a pack Kathleen Battle Richard Stutzman and many others came to East Lansing to work on Paches programs. We set out to find really that the very best and emerging artists at the time. You know we didn't bring in a Murray pariah every week. But on nearly all of the people they had substantial careers. Some of the artists it was interesting when they went to the Quonset hut they'd listen and say that's not my sound. Well it was because of the way it sounded there in the Quonset house it sounded a little different and. And I give Don a lot of credit. He had to deal with. To use the term prima donnas many times and that those people have big egos. Especially if they're nationally and internationally known some you know strove for. If there was just one little glitch and then we would do things

and there was an interesting and Donna nice to talk about just kind of the interesting dilemma between when the performer artist is comfortable with their performance and when the production side is comfortable because it was scripted according to the score. And so any show could have over 150 shots 200 300 shots depending on the show. And so having all that go well. Was equally as important as you know in some ways is the performance itself. I think one of the ones that I remember is most memorable is when we were doing is doing a series on. The Beethoven violin sonatas with violinist palsu KOSKY and Gil Kailash The Pianist. The. We were doing the ninth Sonata there Crytzer Sonata in the first movement of that work. It's about 15 minutes long. We recorded that first movement I think seven or eight different times. Before they finally decided to take the

first take. Performing on stage. You come in from a green room where you've been playing and you're one up and you are in the act of using the bow on the string when you sit motionless and are given a sound the same to perform. That's a that's more difficult. Yet we got used to it. We were in those days play first performances of Viola piano works. And this was very interesting to Dogpatch. So I had in the end he brought in some absolutely magnificent artists and his program. You didn't mess with Dan's program. He had high expectations of himself and also all of those that worked with him. Nam was the old a perfectionist. I'm all I was. It was hard to pull up. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

whoa. He won it with your head. The lead was correct. And so the crew who do the habits that you'll stand to be well on the spot and support Wyler or anything else. Bob Paige was the gentlemen of our crew. He was a good director very stable. He was the only one that got him Passhe would work with us. Bob just had a way of keeping Don calm cool and collected when Bob the kidney station manager I think passhe was a little upset because he trained Bob and he's you know in that whole area and suddenly. No Bob anymore. But I remember him saying he would never. Do that again train somebody and have them yanked out. From under you know his controls. It's my most vivid memory of dying. He was a very dignified Professor at the most part. But when the first time that he and Marian Cornwell who was a woman friend of mine

and I went over to Kellogg center and at that time Kellogg Center had this big long day all the additions were not there yet we all were getting suntanned. So Don no one would believe this about Don. And he proceeded to show us his gym gymnastics that he learned that at Northwestern and he was a great gym last and it was a lot of fun and then he evolved into this very professorial very proper doctor. But I always remember the time on along with Don doing all these cartwheels in gymnastics. No one would believe that a doctor. With visionary leadership and a talented staff WKRN was producing some of the best programs on television. But in the late 1950s that wasn't enough to keep channel 60 going. It wasn't very long after we got on channel 60 still in

1954 that they came to the conclusion that this UHF thing was premature at the very least. It wasn't going to get the audience that they needed. I think part of it was the concern that we just were not able to provide a service to enough people on channel 60 the UHF issue was still a big one there wasn't you know it was a universal access to reach out to the television corporation of Michigan. I approached the university. And. Said What do you think about the idea of two stations sharing a single channel. And I guess the university was intrigued at that idea and that eventually the board of trustees agreed that they would try to file. Collectively for Channel 10 through the day. At that time the longest FCC deliberations up to that time to allocate the station. And I think it took. Over four years for the Federal Communications Commission finally authorized the first.

And I believe only. Shared time arrangement between a commercial and a non-commercial station. I think there have been. A couple of commercial stations that actually shared a single channel but this was the first. Of its kind. And I'm happy to say the last nobody ever understood it. OK. You know the people people in the real world I think 30 40 year how many years is it after the fact. Still don't understand what a shared time was all of a sudden we were watching NBC and then at 7 o'clock magically all these black and white stuff showed up with W M S B and they're going what is this. You know it was difficult for us because you know we didn't have a single image to project we're a split. Personality I suppose. At the time that W-K are shared the time with Channel 10 it was a creative clever thing to do. Probably

confusing. To the viewers. As to who is on when and yet it gave so much more exposure. They had to go for it. And in fact it was probably the best thing that could have happened to the University station at that point in time. I think had we stayed on. UHF channel 60. That the level of support would have just declined and declined and declined. Clearly there were limitations in terms of the hours that we were on. But we also were going to be able on channel 10 to reach more people. And I think that was very attractive to all of us at the station and I think perhaps to viewers here as well because we could be more visible in our community. I think the shared time arrangement really. Kept Michigan State University and the television broadcasting business on June 28 1958. W.K. are suspended operations on channel 60 and began preparing for the launch of WSB TV. Michigan State broadcasting the news station went

on the air on March 15 1959. The transition from 60 to 10 was by and large a technical transition we were going into a brand new tower had been built from scratch with all of the attendant difficulties with that new microwave. We put a new stick up out behind the studios to transmit to the tower and when all is over with and when we got on and looked at the picture everybody had a marvelous sense of ownership and pride. Gave you a little. Feel moving bigger and bigger. Well the men during the day and will resume full morning news with no B and B C programming. In doing that it put a very different kind of pressure on programming production because we were we were side by side with network. I remember well the. First three clock Bob

rubdown leader. Who. Would do the moves in full glory in the rebirth. Of a football field. We were brought in from Rockefeller Center. Below. Having two television stations share one channel presented a unique problem when what each station be broadcasting it was negotiated sharing of various hours. The University station was on from 9:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m. and from 6 to 7:30 in the evening. So all virtually all the prime time was allocated to the commercial stations. In some respects it was good because we we did a great deal of programming production in the early days. We didn't have much to fall back on. Kinescopes have the

capability of drawing anything from a network at that time so we had to produce everything pretty much alive. So it helped in some sense not to have to feel all of the time but in another sense it also hurt that got to be a conflict all the time. Who had the best show on it at a given time. I'm sure the audience was totally confused about who they're watching. It was a way to get this station from UHF into the VHF spectrum Channel 10 huge audience opportunity. But no huge audience if you don't have the airtime access. In 1961 with the shared time arrangements still going on w MSBA broadcast limited to daytime hours the station launched a new children's series course clubhouse. Jim Colver was a very vicious and outgoing

and talented fellow who had the idea to produce the series. And Jim of course was a great talent and he had the ability to make things move and that there was a glitch. Jim could bring it around so it will work. Well the program was a half hour show and it aired four times a week and each year we would hold auditions and we had big turnouts. A lot of kids applied to learn to be the host or the secretary or president of the show and we would narrow it down and finally select two I think and when I was 11 years old I was walking through the living room at home and saw an advertisement on channel 10 which was W. A.B. at the time it said they were. Looking for. New. Kids to be on the Culver's clubhouse show you know call this number and. Call that number. I don't know why I called and I just it was just kind of a whim and they said down here. Such and such a time and such and such a day and I interviewed for a couple of hours and at the end they brought me back actually to work with Mary

Martello which I guess they had picked as the other host and the two of us apparently hit it off well enough that we were chosen to be. The next talent for the show. They were just delightful. Bruce was smart as a whip. And fact that almost too smart sometimes. He was very very intelligent. I came across nicely Mary Martello was and is today even a consummate actress. Wonderful actors had a beautiful voice saying and she was a real charmer. You had to be prepared to kind of wink at me because you just kind of never knew what was going to happen but that was the fun part of it as well. In a half hour segment there were a half hour show where there would be several segments of material. There was usually a science segment. There were often. Arts and Crafts. And sometimes there was a music segment the fun games. Stuff that would be of interest to kids of that age group and it was very popular. We had an audience with kids in it and Jim with all of his guests in his experiments and

science and the animals coming in and out towards the end of the series. They had a segment which was wildly popular with the horse. Or one of the local. Goldfish a cowboy. What would he. Was. Came on the show and brought his horse into the studio. He would discuss. The. Equine care. To the kids and the kids loved it. Sometimes it was a. Bit of a mess in the studio but. We had this monkey on the show someone had donated this this large large monkey. He was kept in a cage out in the back of the station in the staging area. And would. Throw things at people as they walk by. And then when the show came we set the monkey up on the desk. Well one time we were doing the show and a cameraman was snaking a cable across the studio floor and the monkey jumped in the middle of this live show pounced on the cameraman bit him on the arm and then chased him as they went round and round the camera. And it was it was pretty

scary. And of course the studio audience thought it was hilarious but at the end of the season we had to let the monkey go. Culver's clubhouse wasn't all monkey business. True to the station's mission this was educational television. Our whole premise was to try to make. Learning. Fun. So we would expose them to different areas science astronomy. History. And expose them to some of the more fun elements. With the idea that they would then perhaps go to their teacher or their parents and want to learn more about the subject. In fact that's precisely what happened to Bruce Gillespie although he was on the show that's so fascinated with that astronomy corner. He asked if he could borrow the telescope take it home on the weekends. And Jim Colver said sure. You know just to take good care of. And so I did and I took it home that night set it up in the driveway and I pointed it at a star. Of

due south down the driveway and it was Saturn. And. The first story it picked was Saturn and it was just gorgeous through this telescope and I was I was just captivated and caught up in it. And that was sort of the thing that I actually launched me in in my career a professional astronomer and I've worked at three major observatories over the last 30 years. Including the Hubble space telescope we did this show for four years which is not a long time one of these shows. But it was a tremendously demanding show to produce. There was talk for a while of perhaps to the show and taking it to the networks or perhaps syndicating doing some very exciting things. And while that was intriguing it was at that point in my life I was so tired so burned out that it just was too tough to continue.

You know we're we're part of the global village as they say and our relationships with other communities is important. And I think W-K ear plays a large role in providing that perspective. Since 1954 WKRN has been dedicated to doing more than just television. The station is committed to serving the greater Lansing community by providing information and services to everyone from preschoolers to seniors. We've done a lot of community outreach projects over the years ranging from. Various different issues where we provide a lot of support. We really tried to reach out to the community to make that connection over the years. We've done things for women's health for education for drug abuse all kinds of things that many times are are attached to national programs. But we've also done local things and you know way back.

Almost 15 years ago we were doing a series called Street watch which was about. Grassroots efforts taking place in the community to to solve community issues. There's a house down the street here that I want to stop it where we're having problems stop the drug dealers coming and going. And the guy is kind of passing the guy that lives there allows them to come and go but tells me that they're not supposed to be there and yet they're there all the time. Good popular local program good calling show got good reviews. Do you have another step. It was an ability for the station to focus on our community and look at issues that again the commercial folks were not covered so it was a good alternative. I think we've always tried to be aware of. What community issues are going to do programming about them but sometimes we don't focus just on this is a problem. And here is why it's a

problem. But we also try to tell the story of people who were helping to make a difference in the community. I think that's kind of the hallmark for what we've done over the past decade or so. In the early 1950s before W-K began broadcasting the department of television development was housed on the third floor of the electrical engineering building on the Michigan State College campus. But to do live broadcasting would require multiple studio so a new home was needed for the college's new television station and MSU campus was right at the peak of a wild boom. President John Hannah at the time had made some wonderful preparations back in the 40s. He knew that after World War II the campus would be overrun with ex-soldiers wanting to go back to school with the G.I. Bill. In the beginning when the students first came to campus the

next militar students they were put in Quonset hut which are now where the Brussell center is Monteriano on field as new campus buildings were finished the Quonset hods were renovated for other uses. They became some classrooms dormitories. The police post was in a quiet and quiet WKRN was in a quiet that had that had been in the cafeteria. It used to be the old mess hall for the Quonset hut that were on the western edge of the campus. We started out. They were still serving meals in the Quonset. There was only one active studio because actually there was a kitchen in the back of the Quonset hut that was servicing what was then the new Brody dorm group. They hadn't completed the kitchen floor that the dorm grew. So they were still preparing meals in the back of the Quonset hut even while we were moving and they were still there for quite a while.

But we eventually had it all to ourselves. Since the concepts were not originally designed to be television studios there were a number of challenges that the staff faced the Quonset hut was a Quonset hut and in the summer you had a terrible time cooling at the winter time had a terrible time hitting it. Robles zil for a film festival they'll fly all over built for hot summer. By. The end of the tunnel film Perm to warm the building up. In the Willard Limby therefore story Goldbloom word Thornberrys boob tube to come through. We did off the record originally out of Studio C which was let's see I have a I have this is a song that keeps track of my steps the studio she was about two times as big as this OK. It was very small. And so we were in this room and I remember we taped at eight o'clock in the morning at 8:25 central air lot. I would fly over

from Detroit to the capital city airport and you could set your watch and each one to find about 15 minutes into the show I'd be asking a very pointed question in the plane would fly over on the kwacha that was the sound of the trains were also a problem. And there were also leaks in the building and not journalistic leaks water leaks. OK that often came in when it rained we had to put buckets on the floor. We also had to tolerate the rain. Quonset roof seeing a live show or if it thundered outside. If you had to shout to make yourself heard or when we videotape we have to stop the videotape with the Marines doing a lot of our arts programming was done at night because there was less noise. But every once in a while a. Fire engine would scream down Harrison or I would and we'd have to stop and. Start over again. We got two engineers who had a challenge let's put it that way. It seemed to us like that's the way you do it. And everybody cooperated and

was wonderful. A lot of fun. A lot of laughter but a lot of creative work came out of here minute or in the apartment from there. I'll pull the plug on you. I never worked in a Quonset hut in fact until I moved into that I had no idea what a Quonset hut was. Over the past 50 years Michigan State University has grown tremendously. That growth has spilled over into East Lansing and the city has at times struggled with its own identity of deal with users realize the importance of for. We fully realize the importance. Of Mifune state to exist. Michigan State University had 16000 students in 1949. 1950. And. Today there are something like 46000 depending on how we adjust the enrollment. MSU remains pretty much the same. You know you've got to strip and grand reburn It's always fun when the kids leave because you get your town back. The town is safe but it's also fun to have them back because the

place comes comes along. The M.O. was growing up from walking home from home. From. Home. Almost every Boothville will follow when the owner of work and everybody knew all the business people in town Boo-Boo's people knew. Everybody seemed to be a part of town. A little bit more. Than. It was. To get. On WKRN first day on the air. Viewers tune in to see sports world a roundup of the day's sporting events. Over time this series evolved into Spartan sport light through highlights and interviews the program showcased MSU athletics from the previous week. That was a big blow because come prepared months in advance and what went on on Monday like sumos hillbilly will go with the with Spartan sport light has a great timeslot because the weekend usually is when all of the

varsity sports at Michigan State happened. You didn't want to cover the Tuesday event from the week before you wanted the Saturday game. Basketball football hockey and then some of the non-revenue sports. But yeah Saturday even Saturday night games you only had Monday to produce the end of the film or the two of you is up for the day of the fall. Mom. Saw him on the supplement. We didn't start recording till about your approval ratings up for food in the remaining time that we feel to seven member for a burglar to get to. Reward for similar drugs through upstroke. It was a little. Boy we give them more fun we're doing a live. Game coverages of things that you wouldn't even do today

like a gymnastics meet a wrestling meet. We did soccer. We didn't know how we were doing. But we did it. I don't know how much it was watched but it was really dynamic live fun television. Those were really interesting times. Going live and just winging it with something you didn't know a lot about. All W.K. are covered many MSU sports the longest running series was the Saturday night football replays one of my first experiences with WKRN. When I came up to Michigan State as a college freshman in 1976 I was on a pretty limited budget so I couldn't really afford to go to football games even though I loved football and one of the guys on my dorm floor it all and you'll just watch it on TV. The Spartans were on probation at that point in time and I thought he was insane. I said What are you talking about. He said all this show is tape delay on channel 23. And I started watching him. I was after every game. Well in 1978 Michigan State was playing in universal Michigan

down in Ann Arbor. Since the game was done in Ann Arbor I decided to go home and help my father out. He was doing some work on the house so we were working on the house and losing the game on the radio. And in 1978 the Smurf and Gibson and the guys engineered a marvelous victory over the University of Michigan. And I knew right then as I was listening again I had to be back in East Lansing for 11 o'clock replay. So I told my dad that I'm ready now. And about nine o'clock I got a speeding ticket just outside the must rest area. We got back just in time for the start of the game glistening. Adams and Terry Braverman. It was a great memory. Definitely worth the ticket. We had to go through a lot of hoops with the Big 10 office to get permission to do it because they own the rights to the game of the week. But at that time there was only one game and it was at 3:30 or 1:00 so at 11 o'clock Saturday night we're not competing with any game. Our viewers would like to see it. We have access to the stadium

for our home games. And if it's televised on the road we will use the network telecast. Whoever was doing that game we got permission. So we would sit in the booth Gemini and do the audio to the game with the luxury of the network coverage even back then it was obvious Jim had a history or knowledge of MSU football that certainly assisted him in kind of relating the progress of the games and different things that are going on. We were as if we were doing the game live. People still come up to me today in 2004. Did you guys were you at the game or were you back in the studio putting the audio on after the fact. I said well if I get on after the fact I'd know ahead of time whether he was going to run for a touchdown or we did it live the tools were from the bullseye. I didn't really how many people still stop in supermarket. Food for. Example. But still with those ROOM. The proliferation of television I think killed us.

ESPN and The Big Ten would had a Saturday night game a doubleheader in the afternoon. They didn't want to compete with themselves. God forbid someone was watching a public television station 11 o'clock watching Michigan State Northwestern when they could be watching Nebraska Southern Cal. Like. The late 1960s and early 1970s brought many changes to our nation and to mid-Michigan to help with a surge in traffic for Lansing. Interstate 96 was completed through downtown construction of the new road also known as the aureoles freeway require the demolition of many Lansing homes including ironically the former home of ransom calls. But the road also ran through a part of Lansing that had a large number of African-American residents. It went right down the heart of. The neighborhood where half of Merkins were live. So they bought their houses but for them they got money in them to move into

other areas. People dispersed. They were able to disperse because they had some money to pay for the property. So. And so that changes some of their housing patterns as the civil rights movement progressed w MSBA provided a voice for the African-American community perspectives and black probed the issues of importance to Lansing's growing African-American population. The show welcomes such well-known guests as Coretta Scott King. Flip Wilson and Andrew Young It also served as an outlet for African-American musicians and performers. In church. Bring. The two teams during the same time period. East Lansing took a step that would dramatically change life for its residents and the MSU students.

When I arrived in Sixty-Six East Lansing was dry. And open houses consisted of one hour a year after the home football game. Before I left four years later East Lansing was no longer dry. There was alcohol on campus and there were 24 hour Open House policies. That was a major change for the university. In 1970 you had the first park in 1960. Alcohol was legalized but it wasn't actually put into bars until 1970. The reason that it changed in the first place in late 60s or 70s was not from any kind of student mandate or request. It was because the merchants were having quite a problem keeping the profits off and they thought originally that if they allowed alcohol to be sold in restaurants that it would bring people back into the town and force some part of that. Happened. But for the most part that did not save Swinson it

probably hurt it more than it could have helped. But that's Tyson w MSBA was not immune to change the station was still mired in the shared time arrangement with W-why Aleck's on Channel 10 and both stations were getting increasingly frustrated. The shared time challenge which actually proved to undo that the thing was was pretty great because the commercial interests in Jackson always felt. That we had time that was robbing them of that revenue. And no matter what time we had. They felt it would cut into that. On the other hand we felt that we were robbed of the best viewing hours. But obviously they were a commercial TV station. They needed to make money so they wanted the time slots where they could sell it. So we did not reach a huge audience as a result of that because we were in such lousy times. Most of our primetime schedule actually came into the Sunday

afternoon schedule and so things like the Forsyte Saga which was very big at that time ended up in the Sunday afternoon schedule. At first it was great. We had a much larger audience on channel 10 than we had on channel 60. People knew exactly how to tune in a VHF jam. But as the years wore on it became more and more difficult and more and more frustrating. The other big thing that came along courses was the network involved was the whole satellite feed and having a network where we could get things off of the satellite it just kept becoming more and more evident that the shared time arrangement had outlived its usefulness. By the mid-1960s w MSP began a concentrated effort to convince Michigan State University that the station needed a channel to call its own. Late in the decade MSU president Clifton Wharton was finally convinced. I got a call one Friday afternoon from Dr working and he said can you get some stuff together for me for tomorrow. Pop'n the president's booth at the football

game I'll have the trustees there and I'd like to discuss the issue of full time UHF station for the university. So naturally we scramble to get much good stuff together as we possibly could. Ultimately the board approved the idea of applying for a UHF channel and extricate itself from the shared time arrangement and ultimately they agreed upon a figure of 1.7 million dollars to. Provide the university with funds to activate the station and to equip it with color broadcasting equipment. The Quonset hut had also come to the point where it's useful as the plants were growing through the cracks and boilers chipmunks were scurrying around inside the walls. In 1979 Michigan State University began construction of the communication arts and sciences building the new state of the art home for W-K TV and

radio. Construction was finished in 1981 and the station began to move in. It was difficult from the standpoint of all of the paraphernalia that had to be all of the scenery construction equipment. The scenery itself and the props and. The videotapes. Hundreds and hundreds of videotapes in the library. Moving the satellite dish. Was a major operation obviously the most difficult part of move would be moving with technical operation in such a way that we didn't lose any air time process. It was amazing how quickly they got us out of that Quonset hut and on the air and I can't even remember what it was. It was like an overnight. After 27 years of broadcasting from the concert facility on the campus of Michigan State University WJR TV is moving tonight to the communication arts building. We went down in the evening when we were back up the next morning and it could have easily

taken us off for two or three days. And it did. And it was state of the art. It was a place where you were proud to bring people in. I think it allowed us to do like the town hall meeting stuff that we did a studio a huge you know you could actually do major productions in there. And so it opened up I think of Vista to do additional programming that we simply were finding could never do. Over in the Quonset hut suppose we had better equipment and which helped us to do the job better as well. People in Lansing are follow politics. Like most communities follow sports. When you go to a party people talk politics. Who's got the ball. Who dropped the ball. People on offense people on defense being located so close to Michigan State Capital W.K. are has always been a leader in covering state government in 1955. The station was the first to do a live broadcast of a legislative session. W-K are received national recognition for broadcasting hearings of the House Un-American Activities subcommittee at the state capitol in 1956. For

nine months in 1962 W.M. as provided coverage of Michigan's constitutional convention. Since 1967 the station has broadcast the governor's annual State of the state address. And in 1978 W.M. as being hired a young reporter to cover the Capitol. I was working for Channel 10 covering the legislature and the executive producer here a W MSP David Rice called me up one day and he said it I've seen your capitol stuff. And despite that we want to hire you. And he said we have a documentary show and we're looking for somebody to cover the Capitol. Would you be interested in it. It was called Assignment temp and it was a 60 Minutes type program and frankly it was very good. And we ground out a 1 hour documentary every week. And one of my segments was on the capital. And and that's how I got started. Over the past three decades senior capital correspondent Tim Scotiabank has moderated debates hosted televised town hall meetings and interviewed Michigan's governors but he's best known for a program that was launched in 1972.

He thought it would be a good idea to get. Reporters who cover the legislature on a regular basis to participate in a panel discussion. And as well as interviewing a key lawmaker or decision maker in the state. So he came up with the idea of off the record that had grown out of a suggestion from a guy who worked for the Detroit Free Press Steve Cooper who came here from North Carolina and he said to me one day school week he said in North Carolina we had a TV show on public TV that analyzed what was going on in the legislature. So I went to station management here and said What about that let's let's do that every week. Some people's feathers are ruffled by comments that are made on the program but in general. I think it adds a great deal of understanding and perspective to what's going on in state government.

Off the record gives you a good list of who the players are and an analysis what's going on. So it kind of gives you a base to make your judgment I think off the record. Does a spectacular job of taking the politician. Out of the setting that he or she can put a spin on things. And sitting them down with three or four people who are asking hard questions. I think it demystifies a lot of the politics and I think that's a very a very good thing. I think Tim did a great job of bringing important issues out. Putting the right people in together to get the kinds of good dialogue and conversations that were important. I think he also had a good sense of humor. He was able to bring some of that he was also you know he was always I think on the look out for what else should we be doing. We did a show actually called a day at the Capitol. It was a statewide cooperative program that we did with all the other public TV stations and we went in at the top of the day from the time they opened the door at 7 o'clock and we stayed

until the time they closed the door at 10:00. And as fate would have it it was one of the most historical days in the Capitol. We had a virtual verbal fight on the Senate floor between Basil Brown an African-American lawmaker from Highland Park and a Caucasian state senator Gilda Mel from East Detroit. But if you want to talk about mentality I don't think he has it. And they were arguing over a Detroit subway which never gotten built. And you apparently take exception to. What I said about your comments before about your racist nitpicking about your attempt to strangle and decimate and liberate the city of Detroit. Well I say to you again sir. Now if you don't like that you do something about it. Get your best home and stand at your beach. Any. You know I'm going to this is escalating here and getting far

from the what we're debating and I'm going to that's going to go any further. I'm going to rule you both out of order on the leadership in the house we had microphones on all of the leaders. There was one lawmaker Mike Bush was the Republican leader floor leader. And I remember it was a very busy day about 12 bills in his hand and he obviously forgets that he's on microphone after four hours they did. Final word here to show that. Could hear me up there. So it was a fascinating behind the scenes look. And again underscoring that public television would take the manpower person power to put this kind of show together was an absolute insightful thing for people to see how it really worked on the inside. So this station has had a commitment to doing stuff that other people aren't doing. And that to me is the hallmark of public television because if we weren't doing it nobody would be doing the last half of the 20th century saw tremendous growth in the communities surrounding Lansing as the region's population grew up people began to

push further out from the capital city. There was a lot of farmland and agriculture. Was extremely important when we went on the air in Lansing and the surrounding communities whether it was Eaton Rapids Shalott or what have you. And you didn't go very far before you ran into farmland. When we first moved to an apartment East Lansing and our exit was the ochreous excellent 96 on that intersection of jowly an open road and it was basically farmland. And you know today it's it's kind of it's own little city. Was just exploded. Of course the same thing that's true of. Grand Lodge. And. Williamston of course and. To a lesser extent maybe St. John's shoreline. It happens all those all those towns are being affected by it. And in some ways benefiting from this constant desire on the part of people to move further out from Lansing.

The Lansing area has also been impacted by changes in the region's industry. We first came from Diamond Rio had just closed dropped for just we're going full blast walls going full blast. Of course now. Those things are all gone. And most recently we had the demise of the Oldsmobile main play which you know is symbolic. Of sort of this. Change in Lansing from the. Industrial city to. Something else. We're going to have a whole generation of people growing up who. Don't know what else will be at this time. And I guess that's progress. And certainly is not progress. I remember coming here. And seeing you know half the cars on the water. I was just struck by that and. I began to pick up on this. Loyalty that people felt. Because. Not only were they good cars but people. Had fathers and brothers sisters and mothers who worked in the

plants. My dad worked for General Motors for over 30 years retired General Motors. And he didn't refer to himself as working for General Motors. He worked for Oldsmobile. And he drove an automobile and you expect the kids to drive Oldsmobile. And then with that we really had an identity as being part of Oldsmobile always will be. And Lansing are synonymous now. And now the more is gone. This is just. A piece of history. I wouldn't like to see leave. But it's gone. Over the course of 50 years you expect that a lot of things will change but the pace of change continues to increase especially in recent years. It's extremely dramatic if you're talking about a couple of decades. There was no satellite TV there was no any other source for television. No there were none of those cable networks that exist today. So early on in the 90s I think we enjoy. The largest

audience that we've ever had for the station. Before there was this. Explosion of competition that came along. So it's a real challenge and the real issue is how do we stay relevant. And. How do we continue to make a difference in the community. So I see that. The horizon is exciting continuing to be. Huge opportunities. Where we had an opportunity back in my early days in the 50s. I had no cable. No. No color no tape just a couple of stations to compete with. And not everyone with a TV set. Although that was. That was exciting today with all of this that we still have all of these needs to fill. But we now have the ability to deliver it every bit as exciting if not more so.

There are so many different stations and stations like they are. And. Bring. More quality. To their audience. I think people value that kind of. Thing. And I think they will continue to. Do it. Because it has its legacy. It has a standard of quality that some other stations that are not public. Oriented. When my dad started to General Motors when I was a little kid he used to wear a blue

uniform then all of the work outfit and about every six or eight weeks. My mother would have one of the kids who happened to be on her discipline list. That particular week would have to burn my dad's outfit in the barrel in the backyard because it was so oily and greasy that it would make the washing machine grimy and soil the other clothes that's gone. That that kind of manufacturing is gone. I think that the changing factory. Mold. Her has been a. Huge impact. Because there are many jobs now that require. More education even though there are jobs that are good. Our factory jobs are not mechanical factory jobs particularly. But you need to know robotics and need to know. Math and really either. The skills that were not necessary before you had to do is have a strong back. That's always been a fascinating community. Lansing because it's the state capital

has a big university and also has a major manufacturing center. That it's a. Very interesting combination. Of people a whole diversity of professions. I think that leads to a great mix. One of the things that I guess comes to mind that I was very much involved in was a program that came down the line called the Joan Robinson story was about this woman who had been diagnosed with cancer. She was given about two years to live and she opted to have a camera crew follow her to help people understand what was going on with that trip that journey was like. And we got that program from PBS and I looked at it numerous PBS. Mean it was in E.T. I can't remember and it was a very

very moving story a very intense story. And and I knew it was going to around the cases. And so I said to Bob I think we need to bring in some people to kind of try to figure out how to best present that. You can't just lay this out on the air and let it be there. So he agreed and we brought him to I brought in doctors and nurses and counselors and showed them the program and talked to them and said Now what what do we need to know to help the viewer comprehend this. Handle it and cope with it. And so ultimately we had a bank of phone people available that night who were professionals doctors nurses and counselors who came in and volunteer their time for the three hours that we were on the air with the program and they took over as I recall over 300 phone calls that night from people some of those calls lasted over 45 minutes each because they were very intense personal connections with people. Finally they were able to talk about their cancer which they hadn't been able to do with family members. And at the end of the program after we were down and was dark. And everybody gone except the counselors were still there.

We debriefed all the counselors because they had had such a traumatic experience but I think it showed that that was kind of one of our first maybe not first but one of our outreach programs where we really tried to reach out to the community to make that connection. I can remember standing in my own little DMZ which was the median that went down Grand River and on the left hand side is I looked west. Where thousands of students protesting shouting. On the right hand side the east wind singing the state police. And I remember standing there thinking to myself Wow this this just could get back. And it did get bad. The kids crossed the DMZ at the time basically destroyed all the windows at Jacobsen's.

And it was just absolutely destroyed. That was working as a police dispatcher at the time. So it must've been about 72 or 73 the blockading grandeur of revenue by the students. Those were some very tense times it was. Difficult for me because I was a police dispatcher was locked inside a very small room taking telephone calls from the outside about what was going on what was happening. And there were a lot of police officers that felt that they were in very great danger. That was. There were a lot of students on campus. I was talking to the state cop guys that I knew Colonel Halvorson was that the person at the time and I said Do you know what's going on here. He says we're going to keep the peace. And I just you know in talking to the kids that it's the last thing that they wanted. I still recall the newspaper articles of the pepper spray that the police officers were using tried to disperse the crowd. And then there was a huge march from the campus to downtown to the Capitol. You remember at the Capitol at the time the word was some Republican lawmakers who were very up in

arms about the kids doing their anti-war thing on college campuses. But for them it was very remote. OK. But then when you see five seven eight thousand people showed up in the capital law it was an unbelievable sight. It got the attention of lawmakers the riot itself the biggest riot some strain on the environment here for quite a while. You will still see people today who were involved in that who have. Harsh feelings about that particular incident. But for the most part it ushered in a new era for the police and the campus relations in that the police became much more professional. It became much more trained in these types of incidents and how to avoid them in the first place. So I think what you see today is a much better police force for having lived through some of those hard times. He said

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