On the subject of Small Town News

"You have to pay your dues in a small market to get anywhere in this business"

      - Every Television Teacher I ever had.

Tyler, Texas... Hagerstown, Maryland... Savannah, Georgia... Spokane, Washington. That should have been the path if my teachers were right. 

Instead my career path began in Dallas, Texas, then continued in small towns like Washington, DC, Atlanta and Seattle. If it weren't for the boycott  of 1980's Olympics, chances are that it would began at a network called NBC.

That being said, I have a lot of respect for those who do "small town news." They are the true warriors of the television news business. The lines between grunt and star are very blurred here, especially in sports where the glossy 8x10 anchor, usually right out of college, has to shoot all the high school football games, edit them and be in coat and tie to present them on the nightly news.  (Many of them are glossy 8x10 ex jocks... but some, as you will read later, don't fit into the 8x10 category... and bring something more to the table.)

As a comparison, the station that is my main client now has sports department with three anchors, an executive producer, two full time producers, one dedicated sports photographer (meaning he does sports not news) and a slew of editors and photographers from the news department. That's close to the size of the whole news department working at some stations on a particular night.

Today, I watched part of a Tivoed marathon of Making News, Savannah Style on the TV Guide Network. Savannah is located on the northern border of Georgia and South Carolina. They are the home of the SandGnats baseball team, and the closest market to Hilton Head Island, a big resort. I have been there once, and vacationed at Hilton Head. 

The market is very similar to Charleston, SC, where I spent many a summer in the 70's and 80's. There are recognizable personalities who seem to stay there forever like Bill Sharpe and Warren Peper. There are those who have left and gone on to bigger things like Steve Bartlestein (who went from there to Portland to NYC) and my former co-workers Van Earl Wright who went to CNN and now is the voice of American Gladiators, and Brad Adam, who now hosts Mariners coverage on FSN here in the northwest.

People who start in small markets usually only stay there for one contract, so turnover is huge. To get any kind of momentum, stations either have to have big budgets, or get lucky.

Making News is the story of WJCL, the Coastal Source, an ABC/Fox Duopoly in Savannah. It shows the trials and tribulations of what being the last placed station in a small market is really like. Bad equipment, staff departures, more bad equipment and resume updaters are the order of the day. Yes, I am being redundantly repetitive.

I can identify personally with "The Big Guy" - sportscaster Frank Sulkowski. He is the kind of sports guy that reminds me of Glenn Brenner, who in my opinion, was the greatest local sportscaster of all time. Both are Big Guys. Glenn looked like an old time minor league pitcher. tall with a few extra pounds. Frank looks like a former football player (and so he is, having gone to the same high school as one of my best friends, Scott Hudson, of WCW announcing fame)

Frank has a long way to go to reach Glenn, but he resonates with a kind heart, a love for sports and a love for what he does. A recent pair of episodes displayed the two sides of "the Big Guy." One was the guy who hadn't prepared a speech for a team banquet (I know the situation all too well.) He went in with nothing and came out with dozens of new friends, because he spoke from his heart, not a piece of paper. The next episode, he came in from shooting a game and found that his news team needed him. He volunteered to get a live truck out to a breaking story, even though he did not have the knowledge to get it done. Through some trial, error, and a few phone calls, he and another reporter got the station a much needed live shot, and basically saved the day.

Okay - make it three things - when he improvised his way through a St. Patrick's Day Parade broadcast with a very perky and petite co-host, doing anything to make the broadcast entertaining from holding his co-host up in the air to having his foot accidentally run over by an interviewees car.

On one of the episodes I saw today, Frank had a decision to make. Would he leave the station for a bigger market, or stay where he was a part of the family, as his own family had just started with a four month old? He chose family over stardom. He will get his big chance some day with that work ethic, and even more so, his kind heart.

I am looking forward to new episodes of the show (I have it on season pass on the Tivo). I think the reason I like it so much is I can relate to them, even though I have not been in that kind of market. Sometimes you just have to do what it takes to get it done, whether it is in Savannah or Seattle. Appreciation may be the better word rather than relation. If these people remember the toughness it takes to make it through a small market day, and work just that hard when they make it to the big market, they will be appreciated by viewers and co-workers alike. I have been thankful to work for and work with some of those types.

So best of luck to the underdogs at WJCL... from a Seattlelite who watches on Satellite, which thankfully for me, works better than their live truck.

Tomorrow, another sports anchor story... this one about a small market anchor who shot straight to the top, and decided the view was better down on earth.

Good night, Savannah!

Yours truly,

Johnny Blogger