When TV Was Local
By Rick Bird
Where have you gone Ruth Lyons and Uncle Al?
After leafing through a new picture book on the history of Cincinnati television, one thought is — why is there hardly any local entertainment programming these days? Why can’t that golden age of local TV at least attempt to be rekindled?
The 127-page “Cincinnati Television” was put together by Jim Friedman, a Cincinnati native who has produced news and programming for virtually every Cincinnati TV station during his 30-year career, winning 56 regional Emmys. He now does independent production through his Blind Squirrels Production Group in North College Hill.
“I wrote a book about when the TV stations were owned by essentially local owners,” Friedman said. “They were all Cincinnati people doing television shows for Cincinnati people.”
That corporate environment has, of course, changed. Programmers still talk localism, but that means news, not entertainment. While we can bemoan the lack of any present-day innovative local production creating new entertainment talent these days, it still is fun to reminisce with Friedman’s book.
The work is part of the “Images of America” series from Arcadia Publishing, a company that specializes in local history books — having released some 3,000 in big and little cities across the country with their formula of using local authors to gather pictures on uniquely local topics. The publisher has already released books on Cincinnati entertainment and music, neighborhoods and other topics.
Friedman’s picture book is pure nostalgia, stuffed with 222 images of Cincinnati’s television history — the cover, appropriately, children’s host Uncle Al Lewis.
“Uncle Al was the one that touched us all,” Friedman said recalling his first TV experience was doing the hokey pokey on the show at age 4.
It’s all there — “Midwestern Hayride,”"50-50 Club,”"TV Dance Party” and a few shows you probably never knew existed. There are all the personalities that defined Cincinnati TV — Ruth Lyons, Al Schottelkotte, Bob Braun, “Skipper” Ryle, Jerry Springer, Nick Clooney and dozens more.
“Without a doubt, Cincinnati was at the center of it,” Friedman said about the region being one of the pioneering TV markets.
Friedman even includes rare pictures documenting the first experimental television transmission in this town in 1938, which, of course, no one could see. But there is 1938 Broadway through the lens and the pretty singer Janette Davis, from the Arthur Godfrey Show, who acted as model for the first test pictures.
The medium was put on hold because of the war. For Cincinnati, it was easy to get back to development in the late ’40s because engineering and entertainment talent was already in town thanks to the groundbreaking radio programming from Powel Crosley. It was natural that spirit would carry over to the new medium
“What Powel Crosley stood for was local,” Friedman said. “Mort Watters (the pioneering general manger at WCPO) was vehement that Cincinnati wanted to see Cincinnati. As he said, ‘I don’t care if it’s a guy reading a phone book, I want something local on all the time.’ He raised the bar.”
Of course, each city in America could likely tell a similar rich TV history with their own beloved local celebrities. It’s because TV was, at first, local out of necessity. In the early days, there simply wasn’t the content from networks and syndicators.
Even if there was a will today to find an updated Ruth Lyons, Uncle Al, Bob Braun or “Midwestern Hayride” for a new TV generation, it would probably be cost prohibitive.
“It was a much simpler business then to produce,” said Bill Fee, general manager of WCPO-TV (Channel 9). “Talent and labor costs weren’t as expensive.”
There also aren’t enough viewers during the day to justify the production costs, since women entered the workforce over the last 30 years.
“Daytime revenues represent perhaps 5 percent of the overall revenue,” said Richard Dyer, WLWT-TV (Channel 5) general manager. “When you start talking about assigning a large amount of expense to that small of a day part, it doesn’t make sense.”
Ironically, it was Cincinnatian Fred Ziv — TV producer, advertising genius and educator — who helped kill local programming. He did it by developing the syndication model in the late ’50s, churning out shows that could be offered at a reasonable cost to local stations. They included “Seahunt,”"Highway Patrol,”"Maverick” and “The Cisco Kid.” Until Ziv’s syndication scheme there was little national programming available.
Slowly stations realized it was cheaper to run the slick syndicated Hollywood dramas and game shows than the more costly locally-produced shows. It’s an economic model that still exists today for stations to fill early evening and daytime programming.
“I can pay a licensing fee for a daytime show that is not that onerous,” Dyer said. “I can get that and do it far more cost effective than producing a local show.”
Dyer said local news has become the new mantra because it remains the only thing national cable channels, networks or syndicators can’t compete with.
Fee notes in the ’50s and ’60s the first TV viewers went to the medium to be entertained. “Back in that era, newspapers and radio were the sources for local news,” he said. “Television was not considered a news medium. When Al Schottelkotte came over from the Enquirer (in 1959), he only did a 15-minute news cast.”
The coming conversion to digital TV signals (Feb. 2009) may spur more local programming, since stations will have multiple signals in need of content. But the economic model probably doesn’t get any easier since multicasting also means the TV audience will get even more fractured. Dyer wonders out loud if the YouTube and Current TV models may work for local TV with Cincinnati-centric generated user content.
It’s clear in the fast-changing medium that no one is sure how the economics will work. Friedman argues we may see a pendulum swing back away from the overly saturated local news scene to a desire for local entertainment programming.
“I believe it can be done and it will be done,” he said. “I think there will come a time — likely advertiser driven — when someone says, ‘I need to connect to the community in a different way. What can we figure out?’ I think there will be a new local Paul Dixon, Bob Braun, David Letterman-type show that connects with an audience. Somebody will capture the imagination of the community and Cincinnati television will be back.”
Friedman, who started at Channel 12 producing “PM Magazine,” then going to Channel 9, can’t help but chuckle over the changing medium and the future shock yet to come.
In 1988 he produced a video called “A Day in The Life of the Bicentennial” that documented a typical day for several average Cincinnatians. The show was placed in the tricentennial time capsule.
“In 2088, they are going to open that and pull out that video tape and say, ‘What — is this? Why would anybody leave this?’” Friedman said. “I should dig it up and put a DVD in there with a player and a note: ‘Sorry, it isn’t holographic.’”
Text of fax box follows:
Signings
“Cincinnati Television” (Arcadia Publishing; $19.95) by Jim Friedman will be released Monday at local bookstores or, www.arcadiapublishing.com.
Friedman will hold signing events 2-4 p.m., Dec. 15 at Border’s Books in Crestview Hills, Ky. and Dec. 16 at Border’s Tri-County.
Originally published by Post staff reporter.
(c) 2007 Cincinnati Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.