MY TV JOURNEY

From the first four staff members hired by Mr. King - a senior producer, a producer/director (me); a graphic artist (a friend of Dr. King who created displays for the State Museum);  and an announcer (from the golden age of local radio fame - another King buddy) - the staff began to grow almost daily.  New old desks were added from the state surplus warehouse of equipment known as the burial ground.  Soon, what was to become the "bullpen" was overflowing with folks and the chatter was incessant.  However,  this didn't interfere with our "work" because we had no work to do.  We came to work and sat around for the entire summer as the two studios were being outfitted with equipment - there was no google or computer solitaire yet for us to wile away the empty hours.  By the end of August an Executive Director and a Program Director were hired who had public TV network experience. The result: lots of rookies (me included) and a couple of seasoned pros. Wh...

And so I started on a new path and as usual for state government operation the way to be  “hurry up and wait.”  Mr. King was interviewing every day as a line of prospects waited to see him – put there were no cameras, lights or even a transmitter tower.  And I settled in at a used government issue well worn metal desk in what would be soon called “the bullpen” that would accommodate our staff.  (We would inhabit the once bar of the former bowling alley for over a year – doing “research” which meant pursuing lots of local Jersey newspapers.  I had to drive 63 miles one way (before the 295 expressway was completed) to read and wait .  It was going to be a very long year.  As the staff grew so did the inventory of  very expensive machines.  Very expensive studio equipment that arrived daily.   It soon was evident that I was hired before some of my future superiors – the Program Director, Production Manager, News Director  and more...

There were many adventures doing what I called my little show and my big show and the months flowed by.  I visited almost every public school in Philly and got to know some fine teachers doing a tough inner city job.  And I saw that the kids on all levels really wanted to learn and tried very hard while also facing some tough circumstances.  And then it was June, the school year was soon over and I had a whole summer to plan and produce my shows for a second season.   I looked forward to visiting many of the great summer school programs offered by the District which had some very progressive and interesting camps and projects.  But then right after I had finished my final morning show the phone rang on the wall next to my impromptu office.  "Hello Cal," the voice said as I wondered who knew me well enough to  call me that?  Even my mother didn't call me Cal.   "It's Bill King, your wife's secretary's brother, I hope you remember me?"...

     The FYI evening show was indeed a "filler" - we talked with nobody special and everyone we could find.   School News had some interesting segments - from the crew of Apollo 17, the last men to walk on the moon (for decades to come)  - to the President of the Philadelphia Zoo - to the Wilson High School principal and mother of Dave Wilson who would become the Emmy winning director of Saturday Night Live.  I visited almost all of the countless schools in the District.  One moment stands out from the many classrooms and the thousands of students I encountered - it was in a kindergarten class in west Philadelphia and one of the most troubled areas of the City.  As I entered the class all of the children were sitting on the floor watching  one of my four daily taped broadcasts of School News.  The program ended and the teacher turned off the set, noticed that I had arrived for our visit and announced me to her class of little ones. ...

     A few days after my viewership revelation was shared with the Parkway  (which was the euphemistic name for the School District of Philadelphia's monolithic Central Office building at 21st Street and the Parkway, I was summoned to Nina's corner office.      She was infamous for her very long meetings - "chatting around things" - bringing someone in for something very important and then regaling them with stories about her homeland of Yugoslavia.  These "meetings" could go on for hours and then finally she would get to the point of the visit.  (Most of her staff avoided these chats whenever possible - it was plain to me that she really just needed someone to talk to as most of her staff feared her and avoided contact.)  But I had an office right outside her door and was fair game when other staff disappeared.  Plus, I wasn't afraid of her.     O n one occasion it turned out to be a "real" meeting and  she came righ...

     After  six weeks into School News/Philadelphia I made a startling discover and it was totally serendipitous once again.   I had an elementary school teacher on the show (her name and school have long faded - but her impact on my show will always remain in my small grey brain cells as Hercule would say).   This teacher talked about helping kids learn to read and at the end of the five minute show she mentioned "mimeographed" pamphlet that she had produced that parents could use to test their kid's reading levels and it could help in deciding if they should seek assistance from their school.    She offered this to our invisible audience and I closed the show mentioning my office phone number as a way to get the give-away - "call this number and we will send you this great reading tool...etc.   I thanked my her and went to my closet/office. And then the revelation hit me like a bolt from Olympus.      The comm...

     Everyday that year for 180 required school days I was up early braving the highway and crossing the Walt Whitman bridge in the full flood of commuter traffic - pitching and diving and looking for an opening like an "Indy Driver".  It was not a relaxing ride.  And as the sun filtered through the smog - yes there was a yellow haze that hung over Philadelphia on most mornings in those pre-catalytic converter days.      It was my goal to have a "live guest" interview on each show which sure beat a dead guest (ask Dick Cavett who had one die on his show).  Filling a five minute program is not easy as a one person production team I learned the first week.   I decided if I didn't want to air a re-run I had to book as many in advance as I could and they needed to represent as many of the city's schools as possible.  After an introductory memo was sent to every administrator and teacher in the system from the Assistant Superintende...