MY TV JOURNEY

    During my entire career in broadcasting and public relations I had a “five year” plan.  Simply put - if I didn’t get promoted or advanced in my skills and assignments I would start looking for another position.  I left broadcasting and accepted the job at New Jersey Bell’s Corporate Television department for several reasons - the studio had the newest and best production facilities that were far better than most broadcasting stations; the studio produced 200 programs a year for training, product roll-out and public information distributed via a live network and through VHS cassettes.  But most important I once again was “my own boss” and would manage many of the best TV freelancers and work with top  NYC productions companies.        The first day on the job I experienced how much different working for one of NJ’s biggest, richest companies was from what I was used to in public supported broadcasting.  After my direct ...

 Hi Ho! It's off to work we go ...and for the first time in years I was producing what others wanted rather than for myself.  And for a year I spent mornings soliciting jobs and calling friends for leads.  In the afternoons I got to play with my son - which was the best part of being basically unemployed.  Word of my situation soon got around to many of my friends and associates.  One day even our minister stopped by to “see how I was doing.”  After a half hour he left me with the remark, “I was worried about you not working, now I worry that you aren’t worried.”  And he was right - I was confident that something permanent would eventually come around. (And that year the reality was that with my wife working the only effect of losing my full time job was that we didn’t buy a new car that year and we didn’t get out to dinner much. The work paid very well when I got it but - it wasn’t consistent. I overbooked myself many times taking two jobs in one day ...

The day WWAC sank made the national news in the print media and TV stations ran the final signoff of our 7:00 PM newscast.  (This made news because our license was the first new UHF station built from the ground up in many years).  Twenty-one of us reported for unemployment that week and I officially became a freelance producer/director (another term for being out of work).  I took a few days off and then started making calls to my long list of contacts I made during my long tenure at NJPTV. After a few calls I got a job.  One of my co-workers at NJPTV was now a manager of ATT Corporate TV.  I couldn’t believe he it when he said, “Can you be here at our headquarters tomorrow?  Wow, I was unemployed for just a weekend! I drove over an hour to the ATT’s massive executive complex in Basking Ridge Nj, a building that housed over 4000 middle and upper managers who ran the world’s communication.  Phil show me around a studio that was better than any I had wo...

The first sign that our meteoric success was short lived came a week before Christmas when Bob instructed me to “layoff” two of my people (he also canned one salesman and two engineers).  First I was totally taken by surprise!  “Bob why - I thought we were doing so well?” He replied, “Our programs are great - but our budget isn’t.”  (Bob always referred to a budget that no one in the management of the station has ever seen - since the beginning I couldn’t budget my programming expenses or future plans. I just filled the schedule and never signed a contract or knew how much money Bob had bartered or negotiated.  After the bad news sunk in my astonishment turned to anger that I contained because I had learned that Bob was famous for punching associates in the mouth or disagreed with him.  I returned to my office to decide who must go - by the deadline that was set by our fearless leader Frank - the weekend before Christmas, no less. After much angst and review...