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 ...
From the days of black and white live broadcasts to the digital age - a look back at the evolution of broadcast television from "behind the lens" - that led to a second career in the world of big business and new destinations. Copyright © Calvin Iszard 2022 All Rights Reserved