MY TV JOURNEY

As me and the Chief Engineer hired staff  our TV53 family was growing everyday.  Every space in Frank's insurance business office was occupied by my production staff trying to look busy in the boardroom - but we were running out of chairs and only one phone line was on the long meeting table.  The engineering staff was hanging at the studio location that was entirely empty.  They spent the time helping to clean out the trash from this long vacant building, fighting off panhandlers who used it as home and watching the massive crew of carpenters, plumber and electricians. In one of my countless morning meeting with the "What About Boss" - was told, "Get these people out of my office and put them to work...I ain't paying people to sit around.  I replied, "Frank, I can send our news team out into the City to meet key people and news sources and when we get a handheld camera I have them shoot stock footage."  I had to explain then that they would be shooting...

Week by week the TV53's studio space was being built literally from the groud up in a detoriated space with crews working overtime.  I was given an edict from Bob our Prez.  “You must have severn days of 9AM to Midnight programming by June 1.”  And he made it very clear that this was written in stone - if we didn’t go the air for the summer at our seashore resort home all would probably be lost.  Little by little I hired the production staff as I improvised a I hired away from NJPTV a former (and great help to me) production assistant who was now an Assistant Director.  Frank S. inserted several “political appointees” into the organizational chart - and all had zero TV experience and I inherited his insurance company partner’s daughter - I made her an production assistant and her learning curve was going to be steep. By the way I was going to do these 12+ hour days 7 days a week commuting 140 round trip which took me 1 hour 30 mintues if the wind was right and ...

Where to begin?  That question weighed heavily on me as I made my commute through the pines to the shore.  I had proposed and produced many programs but always had the tools and the crew waiting for my directions.  On my first real workday on my own was at hand - the prep had ended and it was time for me to be the program manager - so I went to work.       My philosophy since high school was "always take my strengths with me!"  What this meant for me was that everything I did was a product of what I had done and learned before and that I should not try to invent but use the tools I already honed.  And so I began like I had many times in the past by breaking down the very complex into its parts.  I made a list of what I needed to produce programs based on how NJPTV was built around me: Production Staff - As our engineer began to solicit technical staff I focused on the creative personnel needs. I produced a press release that focused th...

 Thousands of shows… 18 Documentary films…Live Specials..Network hits and in a wink I was well into my ninth year at NJPTV.  I always had a plan in every job I had - if in 5 years I wasn’t promoted I would move on and promoted myself.  After the first five at the network I was ready to move but to my surprise I was promoted to Senior Producer/Director with an excellent raise in my salary.  Near my tenth anniversary I was ready to start looking but I was elevated to Executive Producer for Cultural affairs.  And so I stayed.  And then one day we got an memo announcing that our Chief Engineer Dan Merlo was leaving to head the technical department of a new commercial UHF station in the revitalized by gambling mecca Atlantic City.  At his going away party I wished him well and he said,  “My new boss  is looking to fill a bunch of production department jobs you should come and check it out.  I’ll get you an appointment with the president.”...

     SHEPHERD'S PIE was and remains my best achievement of my 20 years of telling stories for a living. There were some really hilarious moments, for instance - When a best dressed couple came to the NJPTV studio one evening to have dinner at our fictitious Palm Court Dining Club stands out. With lots of laugh and a bit of chagrin they enjoyed the tour of our set for that segment and I gave them directions to a great nearby restaurant.  The fan letters were amazing too.  People assumed Jean would like having stuff that they thought was worth memorializing (thinking he was the master of nostalgia which he hated) or just plain fun. The best was from a lady that sent a rubber dagger with a note that read, "Dear Mr. Shepherd, Here's another rubber dagger for your collection  as I assume that last one I sent several years ago must have worn out by now!"  We got dozens of letter each day - more than the station would get in a month for all the other shows. ...

     Television unlike many kinds of entertainment is a solitary situation (unless like The Tonight Show it's performed before a studio audience). Shepherd had great skill in making the viewer feel that he was talking directly "with" them. However, the NJN Program Manager didn't like Jean Shepherd - Doug  embodied the “proper” conservative New Englander and thought that the show was "too common" for the New Jersey public TV airwaves that he stoically piloted.  When the first season of Shepherd's Pie was near its conclusion he made it clear that the show was over.  (Most Public TV management that I dealt with during my public television years rarely cared if a show had a big  audience because selling commercials wasn't necessary.  Many of our current shows has such miniscule viewers that they could be rated by services like Nielson and Arbitron.  I quipped that our News show was so unwatched that we could save a lot of money by hiring a few ...

    Jean Shepherd and Leigh Brown visited the NJN studio, signed a very simple agreement and we went to lunch. Jean loved to do business between bites.  After we all tossed out a title for the show.  I suggested that the show be called "Shepherd's Pie" after the traditional dish of leftovers that has served as dinner for many over the years.  Jean added, “We’ve got some crust!” And Leigh gave her blessing, “I like it!”  And so the show was launched.  And in time it would fulfill its namesake and become a half hour of “odds and ends” that the great story woved together into a very good “dish”.   .Jean was never one for scripting - we produced segments on the fly.  Somehow subjects appeared before us.  Shepherd had the uncanny ability to see the very common and turn it into the uncommon - and usually top off with an universal truth.  However, he was very difficult for me to "direct" (if any one really could really do that?). He r...