Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 59

June 13, 1985 Asbury Park Press C7 i i Newest Jersey TV station has variety Andy rooney if 7 xfi i ii im ii ii WSJT-TV shows range from news to nostalgia Site --4 By KIRK MOORE Press Manahawkin Bureau V1NELAND Television viewers in southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania will get a new choice of programming when Channel 65 resumes a full schedule June 21 as WSJT-TV. Press Broadcasting Asbury Park, is purchasing the station here and introduced the new viewing schedule at a press conference in the station's studios yesterday. PBC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Asbury Park Press produces television shows for cable and operates the WJLK AM and FM radio stations in Monmouth County. Last December the company bid $3 million for Channel 65 then designated WRBV-TV which had been in federal bankruptcy proceedings since 1982. Spokesmen for the company said a closing on the sale is expected soon.

PBC president E. Donald Lass said the station's new call letters, which went into effect yesterday, stand for "South Jersey Television." The Federal Communications 1 in Vineland where officials yesterday 3 -V 'twtmfmmr Front of the WSJT-TV headquarters grams; "Super Sports America," which focuses on everything from stock car racing to major sports events; exercise shows and all-star wrestling. The broadcast format is based on the work of Dr. James P. Murphy, president of the James P.

Murphy Co. public opinion and market research firm of Philadelphia, which was hired by PBC to investigate what southern New Jersey viewers want to see. Murphy said he interviewed viewers from the areas of Atlantic City, Vineland, Burlington County and the Cherry Hill area during two-hour discussions, a research technique known as focus groups. In discussing what they wanted to see from independent stations, the interviewees cited the paucity of entertainment shows from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

a time when most network-affiliated stations are offering "highly redundant" news broadcasts, Murphy said. Plentiful sports programs, nighttime comedy or horror movies, and "nostalgia" programs shows viewers remember watching with their families while growing up were also listed by interview participants as positive offerings of independent stations, Murphy said. Murphy said the viewers expressed ft liking for high-quality old shows programs from what some, call "The Golden Age of Television" and for material reflecting a feeling of security in traditional values. However, Murphy said he did not find viewers' ages affected program preferences. Many participants said their entire families enjoy old shows, even in the original black and white.

Although the survey results showed southern New Jersey viewers would like more television news covering their local area, Lass said PBC is only studying the possibility of creating a WSJT news department. When Renaissance Broadcasting Inc. built the Channel 65 station in 1981 for over $8 million, it installed a full news department Lass said the cost of maintaining such a large news service was one reason WRBV failed. E. Donald Lass, President of Press Broadcasting Company, talks about new format for Channel 65, which serves southern New Jersey.

Burner- OAVE MAYAsbury Park Press announced new programming. years during its financial difficulties, to hold down the high power costs of operating an ultra-high frequency (UHF) station. Alfred D. Colantoni, controller for the broadcast company, said a pre-clos-ing meeting between about 14 parties involved in the sale is scheduled for today. A closing is expected soon, he said.

"Based on our projections, we hope to turn it around (to a profit) in two years," he said. Several reporters asked Lass how his company could be confident of success, when the station's previous owners and other southern New Jersey television entrepreneurs have failed. Lass, who is also editor of The Asbury Park Press, said the company saw an opportunity in Channel 65 because acquiring the facility would fit in with its corporate plans. "Obviously, because others have failed, we're at nsk," he said. Hall, Asbury Park.

He has since traded that passion for Easter eggs. The 8-inch-high eggs, each different, were created by Faberge for czars to give as gifts to their wives. Only 54 were made and several have been lost since the Russian Revolution. Forbes' new one is known as the "Cuckoo Egg." The Forbes magazine publisher put his acquisition on display yesterday in his Forbes Galleries on lower Fifth Avenue "to share the fun of it." The Cuckoo Egg, which has a clockface on the outside and a rooster that crows when the hinged jewel is opened, was presented by Nicholas II to Empress Alexandra in 1900. Its most recent owner was Bernard Solomon, a Beverly Hills record company executive who put it up for sale as part of a divorce proceeding.

Solomon had bought it for 196,000 at auction in Geneva in 1973. Forbes said he was offered the egg for $225,000 some years ago. "I turned it down because I didn't think it was as attractive as some of the other eggs," he said. "I still don't." Forbes, who paid a total of $1.76 million with the house commission included, said afterward, "My wallet was perspiring. I was getting to the choke point." But asked whether he was through, Forbes commented, "Eggs usually come by the dozen." Compiled by George Beecroft Playing waiting games Six weeks ago I picked up a young man hitchhiking between two small towns in Connecticut.

It wasn't like picking up a stranger on the highway and I used to do enough hitchhiking myself to feel sorry for the poor guy trying to get somewhere without a car or money. The young man told me he was going to work at a gas station the other side of town. He had a regular job, he said, but he was trying to buy a pickup truck and needed some extra money. It sounded good to me. "What do you do?" I asked.

"I work for a contractor. I'm a mason," he said. It just so happens that for 20 years I've wanted to put down a thin layer of smooth cement over the rough concrete floor in the basement of my house to make it easier to sweep. "How would you like to do a job for me in your spare time?" I asked. Before I left the hitchhiker at the gas station, he agreed to come to the house the following day to look over the job.

The next day, Saturday, he didn't show up. Two weeks later, I had almost forgotten about him when he appeared at the kitchen door. We went down to look over the job and he sounded as if he knew his business. He asked for $100 to buy materials and I gave it to him. "I'll pick up the stuff later today and drop it off here tomorrow," he said.

"Would it be OK if I put it over there in the corner of the driveway?" He was unnecessarily specific about where he'd put it. The next day he didn't put it anywhere because he didn't come. Ten days later I came home from work and found a five-gallon plastic pail of something in the middle of the driveway. It was to be used to make the new cement stick to the old. Last Saturday he showed up in his new truck with a small load of sand, a shovel and some cement and went back to his truck with a piece of paper and pencil.

"Here's the whole thing," he said, after some figuring. "You owe me another $46 for materials and $150 advance for the labor." I gave him $46 in cash, all I had, and a check for 1 SO. "I'll be here at 1 1 o'clock tomorrow," he said. "Is 1 1 OK?" "Great," I said. "I'll move everything I can lift into the back half of the cellar." "Hey," he said, almost as an afterthought as he started to leave.

"Do you have a couple of aspirins?" It seemed like a strange request and I had the feeling I was being set up for his failing to appear the next day. He was going to call in sick. I got up at 6:30 the next morning and worked my tail off until 1 1, getting the basement ready for him. I moved file cabinets, boxes of no doubt priceless old papers, tools, high chairs, broken chairs, Christmas tree ornaments and all the things that accumulate in a basement. At 1 1:15 I went upstairs to get a cold drink and looked wistfully out the kitchen window for signs of his truck.

At 1:30 I had some lunch and then sat down to watch some sports event on television. He never came. He never even called to ijse his aspirin setup. At 6 p.m. I drove to the gas station where he worked.

When I asked the manager if he still worked there, the manager shook his head with a gesture that said more than "no." "Did he cash my check for 1 50?" I asked. "He tried to but we didn't do it," the manager said. He was still trying to tell me more than he was saying. Monday morning I got to the office early. I couldn't wait.

At three minutes past nine I called the bank and asked them to stop payment on the $150 check. "The charge for a stop-payment will be $9.50," the woman said. "Stop payment," I said. It's worth $9.50 to me. I don't think the young man is dishonest.

He's just one of those people who doesn't show up. Stopping payment is the least I can do for all the people who have waited all day for the guy who says he'll come at 1 1 and never comes. Anyone want to buy a small amount of sand and some cement cheap? DAndy Rooney's syndicated column appears Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Commission approved the transfer of the license to PBC April 30. Lass said PBC has been operating the station in cooperation with bankruptcy trustee Richard M.

Milstead under an FCC-approved agreement. WSJTs format will feature original PBC programs and older programs that once were at the top of network ratings the western "Marshal Dillon of Dodge," the James Arness program and forerunner of the "Gunsmoke" series, "The Millionaire," "Peter Gunn," and comedies like Phil Silvers' "Sergeant Bilko." PBC officials said the independent station will try to attract viewers with a broadcast schedule different from those used by competing stations an approach they based on the results of a market survey of television viewers in South Jersey. Lass said the station format will be "unorthodox," but responds directly to the research. "We're counter-programming the market," said Carlo Anneke, a consultant who coordinated the new programming for PBC. Anneke formerly was general manager of WTAF and WKBS, Philadelphia, and KTLA, Los Angeles.

From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Channel 65 will broadcast the popular half-hour shows of past years, followed by CNN Headline News at 7 p.m. News will also be telecast at 6:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The two evening news segments will be followed by feature movies. The syndicated Accu-Weather weather reports, consisting of computer weather graphics and an Accu-Weather meteorologist's narration, will be shown every hour on the half-hour during the 18-hour broadcast day. Other programs scheduled are a complete range of music variety and video shows including country, soul and rock; financial news reports; outdoors and travel programs; nature programs; U.S. farm reports and educational pro- 1 mmttim nmyfitH 1 submitted the final draft in August 1981, the appeals court said. This was only four months before Doubleday had to either accept a publishable "Starstruck" or forfeit a $200,000 contract to sell the paperback rights.

Two Doubleday editors testified that they agreed that "Starstruck" could not be edited into shape. They suggested turning the book over to a "novel doctor" for rewriting, but Curtis refused. Doubleday then rejected the book and demanded return of its advance. Going for a dozen Malcolm Forbes paid $1.6 million for a Faberge egg at a sale in which the auctioneer banged his gavel and announced: "The score now stands at the Kremlin 10, Forbes 1 1." With his record purchase Tuesday, Forbes forged ahead of the Armory Museum in Moscow as the world's biggest holder of the golden, be-jeweled Easter eggs. You may rememrjer r-oroes vroom-vroom- ing into the local spotlight some 10 years ago when I iv nuJ iiuiiivw "Motorcyclist of the Year" (believe it) and posed at the opening of the N.J.

Custom Motorcycle Show at Convention I i uauMtij US 1 -X i 'it Anneke said he is counseling PBC officials against getting into news. "The news business is well-serviced," he said. "For us to get into it would be ludicrous." Lass said PBC is considering a number of local programming possibilities, which he would not describe in detail. The company is planning to include a college football schedule in the fall and basketball next winter, he said. Later this month the Channel 65 transmitter in Waterford Works will be increased to its full 4.1 megawatts power output.

WSJT program manager Brian Eckert said the station's service area will cover a radius of about 35 miles, equal to most television stations in the Philadelphia-southern New Jersey market. PBC officials said the coverage area will include all of southern New Jersey, including Ocean County. Robert McAllan, director of broadcasting for PBC, said the station has been operating at half-power in recent I Jit u'" Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko (top) and TV western stars James Amess (Matt Dillon) and Amanda Blake (Miss Kitty) are still popular with viewers. Channel 65 also has movies, news, music videos and sports in new format vhJ-'mk ID IT if yjfl Personalities Not 'write stuff Actor Tony Curtis must repay a $50,000 advance he received from Doubleday Co. because the manuscript he submitted was unpublishable.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court ruling that dismissed Doubleday's claim against Curtis as well as a 1 50,000 counterclaim Curtis filed against Doubleday. CURTIS Return the money. Curtis, with the help of a Doubleday editor, published a commercially successful story called "Kid Andrew Cody and Julie Sparrow" in 1976. The following year he signed a contract to write "Starstruck," a tale of an aspiring starlet and received a $50,000 advance against future royalties.

The deadline for submitting "Starstruck" to Doubleday's editors was Oct. 1, 1978. But scheduling problems and a divorce interfered, and Curtis 's If ii a a ill I II; I iif i FORBES Egged on..