Shoestring operations

[Kevin]

The thing I love about WAKY and WDRB TV 41, besides all the great memories, is that they seemed to be shoestring operations when they first started and had a quality to them hard to put in words. (maybe fly by the seat of your pants is a better term).

There is something fascinating to me about a start-up, or a new format, or a new technology, a challenger to the norm, etc., etc.

I guess its the value of creating something out of nothing. Other examples include, the ABC network (well, all the networks if you go back far enough), Atlantic records, or all those one-hit record companies that had awesome art work on those old 45's, ABA basketball.
I am even thinking back to the guy who made the Chicago White Sox wear shorts one year.

I don't know if all the above is making a good point, or if I am just looking at it from a bias. But there seemed to be a more independent spirit before the mighty CORP monster bought it all up and homoganized it into a neat little overpriced package.

Or maybe I am just getting old.

[Mike Griffin]

A good thing about WDRB and it being a shoestring operation is that many many people who work in TV in Louisville got started there. It was like going to school and yet they paid you rather than you paying. While it may have been difficult to survive on the salary paid...there was an education that could not be gotten elsewhere. Elmer Jaspan cut every expense that he could. He didn't skimp on a Chief Engineer, the equipment he bought was quality, but he didn't buy more than he needed. But he cut every other expense he could. Those of us there at the time sometimes thought he was a rotten old bastard but in retrospect, he did what he had to do and made something good. It probably wouldn't have worked any other way.

I have never thought of WAKY as a shoestring operation. Although looking back on radio from the perspective of having worked in TV...I see any radio station as shoestring in comparison. A TV station, by any count, is much more expensive to operate than a radio station. Even a station with some expensive talent such as WAKY.

As you say, the seat-of-your-pants descrition might be a better description. I don't remember what Mr. Jaspan's background was but I do expect that he didn't have a clue about all the details required to set up a TV station. That makes him a brave man, putting himself on the line and getting a job done. He picked a few good people. I know he put a lot of trust in his Chief Engineer, Bob Cleveland. Bob in turn hired the best he could on the budget and had some people he trusted like Pete Boyce. There was also a consultant, Dave Barnes. Togehter they got the station built. Bob kept it running and set up a bulk training program for engineers. In 1971, Engineers made $100/week at channel 41 and after six months or a year could make $350/week at any of the other TV stations in town.

It was all seat of the pants. Other people with little or no experience were hired given just a little training and they caught on as people do. Lots of mistakes on air happened, then it smoothed out.

I had never thought of WAKY as seat of the pants. People were hired in who already had high skill sets. While there was lots of flexaility in the way the place was run and always new challenges, it was never a case of just being out there in the way WDRB was at the beginning. But that's day-to-day at WAKY in the seventies....McClendon clearly was making it up as he went, this is what you are talking about. Does anyone remember the very interesting story of the clever, leveraged deal, that brought Lin Broadcasting into existance? I think that's what you are talking about too.

Maybe you are asking can a guy with an idea still bring something into existance...or have we lost another freedom in this country?