The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 158

JFEW MOMENTS WITH. Ben Aycrigg A humble glimpse at Orlando's broadcasting legend By Mike James en Aycrigg invites me to his Maitland home, where he's ifirn 15) r- lt jk uvea since ioo, ana says a prayer over breakfast, a slice of toast, white, and a glass of in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to be trained. I was taken into a small room by a young man who told me to sit at a desk and read news copy while holding my hands out in the air. He said it would help me balance my presentation. I knew then the business was moving away from journalism toward theater.

"The news consultants began trying to mold the anchors to one pattern. What they failed to realize was something that might have been successful in New York or Chicago would not necessarily work in Orlando. Consultants changed our news coverage, pointed us at a common denominator. They had us aim down at the viewers." He pauses, fearing his opinion might seem malicious or militant neither of which is true. Ben Aycrigg is a gentle man, balanced and gracious, with a unique perspective on the industry.

He loves television and mourns its wayward wanderings. "Don't get me wrong. I don't want to sound like a Monday-morning quarterback, but there are some ideas I could just never agree with. "This whole concept of image polishing will eventually backfire. We should recognize our viewers are milk, also white.

He was my hero when I was 20, and although he eats like a sparrow and speaks in lower case, he's still a heck of a guy, older (much), ponderous (occasionally) and illuminating (always). At age 68, with more than 45 years' experience in Orlando radio and television and 33 years at WCPX-Channel 6, Aycrigg is, without a doubt, in the best position to render a credible opinion on the state of local broadcast news, which, he agrees, is in one of its periodic crises, buffeted by sensationalism, brutal competition and changing technology. "I can tell you when I think it all began to change," he says slowly and carefully. Without a script, his delivery can be cumbersome. "We Channel 6 stalled broadcasting in color in 1968, and I noticed that people immediately began to recognize me on the street.

I think that was the real turning point color. That was when we the on-air talent became larger than life." He is recalling his decades as the X1 Vd i 1 1 jl PHOTO BY ANGELA PETERSON much more sophisticated and literate Aycrigg doesn't like mixing 'chit-chat' with news. than we give them credit for. I believe they can see right through us when we are phony. The theory exists that it's not so important what you say as how you look while you're saying it.

I disagree with this ambition of making television people bigger than life, something we definitely are not." His comments come at a time when WCPX, under new management, has hired its third news director in as many years. The station has floundered in the Orlando ratings since 1976, the year Ay-pr'urcr was rpnlarpd as npws director. Vital statistics Background: Born in Pittsfield, in 1926. Family: Married Artemesia Demopoulos in 1955. Three children, all of whom still live in Florida.

Horse sense: Owns an 11-year-old purebred Arabian named Star's Attraction. most identified television anchorman in Central Florida, when Channel 6 News, then WDBO-TV, was the overwhelming choice of local viewers, when he was known as "Orlando's Walter Cronkite." He joined the station in 1961, when the three-man news department was only a month old and already No. 1. As a veteran local radio reporter with more than 12 years behind the mike, he'd auditioned for an on-air job at WLOF-Channel 9 but was rejected "because I couldn't ad lib. They put me in front of the camera and asked me to talk about how I met my wife.

I told them it was none of their business. I flunked the audition. Luckily, Channel 6 hired me." A crooked grin wiggles onto his face. "I still can't ad lib," he says without fear of being challenged. He sips his milk, wags his head sadly and says, "Television rewards people who can think on their feet.

Always has." To me, Aycrigg was, and still is, "king of TV." When I came to WFTV-Channel 9 as a sports director 10. -1970, at the delicate age of 20, Aycrigg was already a 43-year-old legend, married, news director at the top-rated television station in town and easily the most recognized man in Orlando. "Oh, I remember when you arrived," he recalls, smiling. "It was when local Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not, the 1 only WCPX newscast that ranks consis- I tently first or second in its time slot is television began to deteriorate. We hired a news consultant company, and they flew me to their corporate headquarters Six News at Noon with Aycrigg and.