Walter M Windsor - Life Story: Forks in the Road

Forks in the Road: Chapter 12

THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

Recalling my knockout impression of Orlando, it became one of the first targets of my next (and last!) job search. There had been earlier interest from Joe Brechner, owner-manager of WFTV. Yes, the same call letters as the station I cut my TV teeth on in Duluth, which had long since gone under. One of my staunchest boosters, consultant Don Menchel, highly recommended me when Brechner told him he was seeking someone who could take over day-to-day management so that he and his wife could enjoy some extensive world travel. However, he informed me that problems with the license for the station had created the necessity for a new hearing and an interim operation in the meanwhile. He suggested I contact my Lexington competitor, and still my friend, Guthrie Bell, who was involved in one of the competing applicants for the Orlando license. This happened prior to my split with Kincaid, and Bell said he would be only too glad to see me go to Orlando, both on behalf of his interest there and to get me out of his hair in Lexington. In spite of all the troubles, I had made a good dent in WLEX’s long dominance of the market. I followed up the Orlando possibility with him after my official departure from Bluegrass.

I was doing some consulting work for a station in Knoxville, Tennessee, owned by a friend named John Engelbrecht, to whom I will ever be grateful, because it kept us going while I sought out our next location. My wife was a very patient lady through all our many moves, but at this point she stuck a pin in the center of a map of the U. S., and it landed on Wichita, Kansas. She said either this was the last move, or she and the kids would move to Kansas. I could work wherever I chose, move as often as I wanted, and come home whenever I found time. Fortunately, I never had to find out if she really meant it!

One day, as I was working at Knoxville, she phoned and said Guthrie had called and the message was ”get your ass down to Orlando,” as the managership was about to be decided. Within 24 hours, I was on the scene in Florida and met with some of the people involved. The history of the matter would make a book in itself, but suffice it to say that a dispute had arisen over the manner in which Brechner and his associates had been awarded the original permit. Ex parte contact with FCC members was charged, and the regular license to cover the construction permit had never been issued, even though Brechner’s company, Mid-Florida Television, had operated the station since 1958. The matter had gone back and forth at the FCC and in the courts without final adjudication, and it had finally been ruled that new applications would be accepted, that Mid-Florida could be an applicant without credit or discredit from its prior operation, and that a new comparative hearing would be held to select the licensee. In the meanwhile, said the court, the station would have to cease operation, be operated by some non-profit agency, or be operated jointly by the several applicants and managed by someone not associated with any of them. There were a dozen applicants for the permit at one point, but as the effective date of the ruling approached, there had been withdrawals and consolidations that reduced it to five. They were in constant negotiation to try to settle the matter, but the deadline was at hand. They needed to find the “interim manager” and prepare to conform with the order of the court.

I met with a committee consisting of one person from each of the five companies. Brechner represented Mid-Florida. The interview seemed to go well. One of the others on the committee, Bob Lilley of Central Nine, Inc., told me in later years that I sealed the deal when I responded to Brechner’s questions in a forthright and logical manner. He had refused to give the other groups any information as to the present or past financial performance of the business, yet he asked me, during the interview, how much I would spend on promotion of the new tall tower that was planned. I answered to the effect that this could not be estimated without knowing how much the station was grossing and what its operating expenses were. No decision came from the meeting, as each delegate returned to report to his associates. Other candidates had been similarly interviewed.

I was informed by Guthrie, representing Florida Heartland Television, and Gordon Gray, head of TV Nine, Inc., that there was a standoff. Brechner was holding out for a caretaker type of manager, someone to “sit on the lid” while the license proceedings took place. Most of the others saw a great untapped potential that needed to be tackled promptly and decisively, and this was certainly my approach. Apparently there was a stalemate vote, two for me and two for the “lid-sitter,” with one undecided. It was suggested that I go to Cocoa Beach to talk to Ralph Hatcher, a member of the undecided group, Comint Corporation, who held the key to the choice. Hatcher had been an affiliate relations man at ABC, with whom I had dealt frequently over the years. There had been some conflict between us, as I always held out for the best interest of my station, and Ralph quite properly represented the position of the network. It had not been a bitter conflict, but I was afraid it might have colored Hatcher’s consideration of my candidacy. He had retired from ABC and now owned and operated a cable TV system in Cocoa. I spent most of the day, dinner, and the evening with him and his wife in their home. All seemed to go well. Finally Ralph asked me why I wanted this “interim” job, which might last a week or a month but certainly not over a year. Each of the five applicants had specified one of its own group to become the manager in the event it received the grant. Hatcher was the proposed manager for his company.

I told him I hoped to be able to prove myself so invaluable during the interim operation that the winning applicant would surely want me to remain . If not, I said, the market would have additional TV stations in the future, there were several radio stations, and Disney would be involved in many fields of entertainment in which I could function. There would be plenty of other opportunities in Orlando. This did it. In my presence, Hatcher called Gray and told him I had his vote. The next day, the choice was ratified by the combined groups, and I had the job.

Bell and Gray came to my room at the hotel to inform me of the decision, bringing along a lawyer and a contract that had been drawn up. It provided a nice salary and a percentage of profit bonus based on 2% of the first $200,000 per year, 3% of the next $200,000, and 4% from $400,000 to $500,000. I asked what happened if it went over $500,000. They roared with laughter, and one of them said:

“You bring in more than $500,000, and we’ll give you the station!”

Well, I never asked them to make good on that statement, but they agreed to 4% on everything over $400,000 and stood firm on the deal as the station prospered and the earnings rose to a much higher level than they had ever anticipated.

A “Governing Board” was established, one member and one alternate from each of the five companies, and I would report to this body, which met monthly. The operation was established as a “joint venture,” a partnership of corporations, called Channel 9 of Orlando. At one of the first board meetings, a written ”Statement of Management Responsibility” was approved. It gave me the authority I needed to operate the station in the future best interest of the property, regardless of which applicant would win the license. It clearly specified the major actions which required board approval and left the rest to me. This document became the key to the successful operation which followed. I had always said that, if someone would leave me alone and give me authority commensurate with the responsibility, I would produce the desired results. I now finally had that opportunity.

On the evening of March 31, 1969, I entered the station for the first time. Brechner and I talked in the manager’s office; then he held a staff meeting, explained the situation to the employees and introduced me. I said a few words designed to allay any fears that there would be wholesale changes. Then Brechner left the building, vowing never to return until the day he did so in triumphal vindication. The next morning, I took over. It was April Fool’s Day!

One of the first priorities was to let the public in on what was taking place. I drafted a full-page ad in the Orlando Sentinel which explained the almost unexplainable legal entanglement. The text was followed by a roster of the shareholders in each of the five companies, which included many of the most prominent people in the city - doctors, lawyers, accountants, car dealers, educators, civic leaders. Most of the names were local; only a few, such as the Kentucky folks, were outsiders, and none of them controlled any of the five companies. We assured the public that we had its best interest at heart and would operate as good a station as possible until the license matter was settled.

Many of the people who became involved in forming the new applicants did so because they were in philosophical disagreement with Brechner, who was a strong liberal politically. Many sources in the community felt that this political bias affected his programming and news operations, and in particular, his station editorials. These people did not get into the Channel 9 contest because they wanted to get rich; most of them were already rich. They wanted, insofar as was practical within an advertising-supported operation, a quality station rooted deeply in the life of Orlando and its environs. I had long operated on the theory that dedicated community involvement was the key to a station’s success - that and an efficient news department.

WFTV had a very humble home, located on the edge of the Parramore district, which was Orlando’s equivalent of a ghetto. Over the course of the next several years, its exterior and interior appearances were improved somewhat, and there was a small addition of space. But the station operated with a handicap, due to the location and limitations of its offices and studios.

During my first few days on the job, I was invited to join a media group that was taken for a tour of the Walt Disney World site and a briefing by Roy Disney. I remember vividly standing on a little knoll of land where there was a stake in the ground. There was a string attached, at the top of which was a Mickey Mouse balloon. Our guide informed us that this would be Cinderella’s Castle.

Another invitation soon after coming to Orlando was from NASA at the Kennedy Space Center, to witness the launch of Apollo 11, the flight that placed a man on the moon. Sitting in a VIP section fairly close to the launch site, it was awesome to behold; the impact and the sound were overwhelming, a truly unforgettable experience.

I lived in a small apartment near downtown for several weeks, Mary and the family remaining in Lexington until school adjourned for the summer. So I had unlimited time to devote to re-shaping the operation of the station. Brechner did not attend any of the meetings; he was represented on the Governing Board by his attorney, Lester Levine. At first, Levine’s vote on various matters, dictated of course by Brechner, was contrary to the direction all the others wanted the station to take. I used to say that the only 5-0 votes were on motions to adjourn. But, as progress became obvious, more harmony developed. I was on a “hot seat,” trying to keep five partner groups happy with what I was doing, while they were at the same time warring with one another in competing for the license. It was indeed a bizarre situation, and many of my friends in the industry thought I was crazy to take it on, that it would end in a very short time if I even survived to that point.

We leased a house for a year in suburban Maitland, in a fairly exclusive little spot called The Cove. It had all the space we wanted, and a small swimming pool. But the woman who owned it, and had lived there until recently, was a “hippie.” Among other eccentricities, she kept a motorcycle in the living room, and had several dogs who had the run of the house. Cleanup and repair were badly needed, even after Mrs. Clean (Mary) did everything she could. The improvements agreed upon were never accomplished, and we had to sue the landlady, eventually winning a judgment that partially compensated us for the problems we had suffered and the extra expenses we had been forced to incur.

At the end of the year, we bought a beautiful home in the Spring Valley subdivision of Altamonte Springs, a bedroom community on the north side of Orlando. It had five bedrooms, a huge yard and just about everything (except a pool) we had ever wanted in a home. Mary made it a beautiful place to come home to, and she kept it as immaculate as any place could be with four children. She had part-time help now, but Ethel Robinson was more friend than maid; she mostly did the ironing, which was the only part of homemaking that Mary disliked. The house would be pretty well cleaned before the maid arrived, because Mary didn’t want the maid to think she kept a dirty house!

One of the first substantial personnel moves I made at WFTV was to hire Charles Stump away from Channel 2. Charlie was a meteorologist and had long reigned as the number one weatherman in the market. But he was an extremely intelligent and able man and was interested in being more than just a weatherman. So I made him Office Manager; he took charge of personnel and supervised the clerical and maintenance functions. He fit this situation beautifully, and his weather reports became our lead card in the news competition. He was so popular that at first we led off our newscast with weather. At a Press Club function where skits were employed to roast the media, there was a mock WFTV newscast.

“World War Three broke out today,” it began. “Details later, but first here’s Charlie Stump with the weather.”

In time, as the other aspects of our news developed, Charlie remained a key element. He was my right-hand man for nearly five years, until New Year’s morning of 1974, when the phone rang and it was Charlie’s wife Barbara, to tell me that Charlie had died the night before of a heart attack. Later Barbara became my secretary and moved up into the job of Community Service Director at the station.

Other key jobs were gradually filled with individuals of greater competence and with dedication to the station itself, rather than to its former operators. I involved myself in local organizations: Chamber of Commerce, United Way, Junior Achievement, Florida Symphony Orchestra, Civic Theater, Tangerine Bowl. I found that a newcomer to Orlando who had something to offer had no trouble breaking in but was welcomed with open arms. I appraised my counterparts at the other stations. Arnold “Doc” Schoen at Channel 6 and John Haberlan at Channel 2 were able operators, but not very visible. They did not appear on their stations. Long being an advocate of the theory “Zig when the other fellow zags,” I made up my mind to be as visible as possible, not only within the affairs of the community but on the air. I took part in frequent programs. I hosted telethons to raise money for local causes. I conducted viewer response promotions concerning the movies being shown, then went on the air to discuss the results. I became host of a weekly Filmography, featuring the classic movies of all time. I resumed the station editorials, taking positions on local controversial issues. It didn’t take long for me to become, at least in the eyes of the audience, the best-known station manager in town.

I also earned a reputation, for better or worse, for rejecting certain movies and other programs from the network because of what I believed to be objectionable content when viewed in the context of the majority opinion in our community. A liberal TV columnist in the Sentinel called me a “blue-nose,” and I took a lot of heat. I still think I was right, and while I am far from a prude in my general outlook on the field of entertainment, I cannot believe the depths into which television, not to mention movies, has sunk. The Hollywood people claim they are just responding to the tastes of the American people, but I am confident that they have led the way - down.

Then there was the matter of the new tower. There had been an agreement between Brechner and the owners of Channel 6 (WDBO-TV) that they would jointly build, own, and operate a tall antenna structure located east of the city. Delays caused by the WFTV license problem had annoyed WDBO to the point that they went ahead with construction on their own, with the stipulation that WFTV could come in as half-owner when it was in a position to do so. By the time WDBO moved to the new tower, we had succeeded in obtaining a permit, in the name of the interim operation, to join them. A corporation was formed, called TV Tower, Inc., to own and administer the facility, with each station responsible for its own transmitter building and equipment located on the site.

It is the general theory in television engineering that, when two or more VHF antennas are mounted on the same supporting structure, the lighter of the two takes the upper position. The higher the TV channel, number-wise, the lighter the antenna. So the one for Channel 9 should be above the one for Channel 6. However, WDBO had already put its installation on top. We had to work out a very unorthodox side-mounted type of antenna from General Electric that would permit Channel 9 to operate from the lower position. When the day came to throw the switch and change over to the newly expanded facility, the customized antenna was still unable to meet its specifications, although the result was still a great improvement and a substantial coverage increase. We continued to battle with GE to solve the antenna problem. But the new tower was a great competitive boost, our revised programming was catching on, and the ABC Network was enjoying great new success nationwide. So WFTV was making giant strides and reaping a tidy profit.

The joint venture owned very little of the physical assets, only those things which were acquired during the interim operation. The complete installation, as it had existed before, was rented to the joint venture by Mid-Florida. Thus Brechner’s group was drawing a substantial rent in addition to its share of the station income. The income was regularly distributed to the five venturors, 20% to each. It was sufficient for the groups to continue to employ the best attorneys who practiced before the FCC and thereby keep the contest going. No group was faced with providing any additional financing. The results at the station were sufficient to perpetuate the litigation, and soon to provide the members of each group with healthy dividends every month.

The new hearing was finally held. It takes a long time for the FCC to conduct these proceedings, and then to arrive at its decision. Finally, it announced a ruling in favor of Mid-Florida. This was, of course, subject to appeal, first at the Commission itself, then in the courts. All such avenues were utilized, and the case went on and on, becoming not only one of the most unique items in FCC history, but the longest-running as well. I just kept working to make WFTV a better station and increase its value to the ultimate owner.

About a year after I took over, one of the five groups had an appraisal made of the value of the station. The experts said it was worth $9,000,000, but, if the present management were allowed to continue its progress, it would be worth $13,500,000 in another year or two.

It was about this time that I renewed acquaintance with orchestra leader Lawrence Welk, whom I knew slightly in my radio days. By then, he had a tremendously successful television show, which had been on my stations, one after the other, since it began in 1955. ABC, in its effort to emphasize a young audience, proposed to cancel the show. I mounted a letter-writing campaign at my station, and persuaded other ABC station managers to do the same. The cancellation was rescinded, and Lawrence expressed his appreciation. He invited Mary and me to dinner when he visited Disney World, and we soon became fast friends. The first time we visited him in California, he called to find out what time I wanted to play golf. It was the only time in my life I wished I could play the game! He made a beautiful Santa Monica apartment available to us whenever we visited, and we also stayed at his home in Palm Springs and, later, in his resort at Escondido. We brought him and his “Musical Family” to Orlando for concerts, including one that coincided with his seventieth birthday. We actually had a cake with seventy candles, which were lit upon receiving a signal from the lobby that he was on his way into the room. Unfortunately he was waylaid by autograph seekers, whom he always cheerfully accommodated, and the delay caused seventy candles to wilt and bend into U-shapes.

In November of 1971, Fred Johnson died in Danville. He had lived somewhere between 85 and 93 years, depending on whose theory as to his year of birth one chooses to accept. But he had lived to see his only son, Steve, graduate from the University of Virginia.

On June 7, 1972, the tower collapsed. WFTV and WDBO had agreed to permit the public station (WMFE, Channel 24) to occupy antenna space on the tower for a small rental. Riggers were working on the tower doing this installation when it fell. I was in my office, with the monitor tuned to the station as usual, when the signal went off. This was nothing new, as it happens to every station once in a while. But one of the technicians burst into my office, white-faced and shaking, to tell me that the tower had gone down. WFTV was off the air, presumably for the foreseeable future. WDBO, on the other hand, still had a 1,000-foot tower at its studio location, and was able to switch back on from this alternate plant in about seven minutes.

The tower site was a maelstrom of activity and confusion. The structure had gone straight down into the ground at its base for a considerable depth, the remainder toppling over to lie on the grass in a northerly direction. The main portion looked like a huge bowl of spaghetti. The two riggers were killed, and there was an injury to the WDBO engineer on duty. The WFTV engineer was saved by the fact that, when the collapse occurred, he was, to use the vernacular, ”on the john.” Had he been in his usual seat, he would have been killed or at least severely injured. As it was, he was only frightened half to death. People from the rigging company and from the company that originally designed and built the tower were offering conflicting theories. The riggers claimed that, when they loosened certain bolts to permit the cable to be threaded up through the tower to the antenna, they were doing nothing that had not been done on similar towers many times before without harm. If the tower were sound, they maintained, it would not have fallen. The tower company claimed the riggers’ procedure had been totally improper and had caused the collapse.

My first priority was to get WFTV back on the air. There was a succession of emergency meetings of the board and our attorneys. Brechner broke his vow not to return for the only time, when he came in, paid me a compliment for the progress we were making, and offered to do anything he could to help. I located a little 100-foot tower, which was brought to the site and erected with a temporary antenna. We were operating again in three days, but our signal barely made it back to town, much less being in any way competitive. Then we located and bought a tower of some 500 feet, and managed to get it into operation in a month or so. In the meanwhile, our business was severely affected by the lack of signal. The second tower was an improvement, but we were still at a great disadvantage versus WDBO and WESH.

The tower went down in early afternoon. That night there was a meeting of TV Tower, Inc., at dinner, attended by David Henderson, president of Outlet Company (group operator owning WDBO) and me as the two voting members of the tower board, and other key management people from both stations. We were in agreement that everything possible should be done to expedite the reconstruction of the tall tower and return to normal operations.

“Dave,” I said to Henderson, “you’ve been on top of the tower for some time now; isn’t it our turn to be on top?”

All hell broke loose. I had struck a nerve. They soon made it clear that there was no way they would give up the top position, no matter what sound engineering or safety precautions might dictate. I was equally adamant that Channel 9 deserved the top spot and determined that I would solve the problem of the under-performing side-mounted GE antenna by replacing it with what RCA called a “traveling wave” antenna, which could only be mounted on top.

There was no real advantage to either station to be on top, except for engineering soundness and safety. There is no noticeable difference in coverage, at more than 1,500 feet, from being about a hundred feet higher or lower. There was already written into the TV Tower, Inc. contract a clause that neither station could advertise that it was in a higher position. But of course WDBO was able to list itself as 1,460 feet, whereas WFTV was shown as nearly 100 feet lower. This slight advantage caused Channel 6 to stand in the way of reconstruction.

While TV Tower, Inc., WDBO, and WMFE all pursued their insurance claims without difficulty, the problem was far more complicated with WFTV. Our coverage was with Insurance Company of North America (INA), through a local agent who assured us he would exert his every effort to see that we were treated right. What this turned out to be was an offer of reimbursement for the lost equipment and compensation for the time we were totally off the air, with possible negotiation concerning the period on the 100-foot tower. This was totally inadequate, as, by the time we reached the critical stage in dealing with INA, we had been at a business disadvantage for several months that amounted to many thousands of dollars in lost revenues. Negotiations continued.

In one of the several confrontations with Henderson over the "top of the tower" controversy, he made the statement that WDBO would not accept one inch lower than its former position, but that we could go above them if we could obtain authorization for greater overall height. Since obtaining approval of the original height had been extremely difficult, he felt sure any more height would be impossible, but I saw our opportunity. I located Lowell Wright, the aeronautical expert who had cleared the KTAL tower in Louisiana against seemingly impossible odds. He was more or less retired and living in nearby Winter Park. I asked him to look at the problem, and he expressed the opinion that he could get us 125 more feet, enough to handle our proposed new antenna. We engaged his services; he went to work, and he produced the approval. Henderson had, quite unknowingly, showed the way, and the new tower was built with the proper positioning of three TV antennas, WFTV on top, WDBO in the second position, and WMFE below. WFTV was now at 1,543 feet and WDBO-TV at 1,484.

These constructions take a lot of time. We had the new tower designed, built, and erected by a different company than the one that built the original, as it was still involved in the dispute over whether they or the riggers were at fault in the collapse. The day finally came when we commenced operation from our fully authorized facilities in October of 1974, nearly 28 months after the fall. Luckily, Lawrence Welk was in the area at the time, and he participated in the on-air changeover, he and I together throwing The Big Switch to commence operation from the new tower. The resultant improvement in coverage was immediate and immense. Unfortunately WDBO was never happy with the new antenna that it installed, at the same height as before, but below ours!

Our claim to INA now included the reduction in our revenues for more than two years. At one point, we offered to settle for less than a million dollars; they just laughed at us. Finally I went to Philadelphia with our attorney, John Robertson, and met with the president of INA. We outlined our position, expressed our wish to get this whole thing behind us and concentrate on the future, and begged him to settle for about half a million. Their best offer was less than half of that, and they refused to budge. We came home and filed suit.

Billy joined the US Army Reserve in 1970.