Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 48

CorpMCfrfalltHH 4Sunday July 11 1993 KZTV FROM PAGE D1 Kennedy says are proud of giving scores and scores of people their first jobs in broadcasting launched some important Asked for examples he recalls Valerie Hoffs now a CNN anchor Kennedy admits that age is slowing him down a bit and he says his memory what it used to be He says useful" is what drives him to continue to work long hours The last vacation he took was his Army leave after World War II His idea of relaxation is reading which he calls his He leaves town only to attend the-' yearly meeting of CBS affiliates owners At this confab in New York the hot topic was the new Cable TV Act and whether lo-cal stations would be asking their cable companies for retransmission fees Kennedy was an early opponent of cable television In 1977 when the first cable company opened up in Corpus ChrisU Kennedy called cable TV parasite (that) pirates the work of Cable television he said then would be stain on the honor of the also a critic of public television which he says has failed as an educational medium and '1 should be run by universities The greatest television show he ever saw featured a professor discuss- ing Greek tragedy with only the aid of a map of ancient Greece That he says is the kind of pro- gramming PBS should aim for Will he ever retire from broad- casting? should he says work here an occupation I feel much He pauses again philosophize about it Philosophy is the refuge of the more than a training program for cub reporters Some of the staff are college students or recent graduates out to gain experience before moving on Few reporters stay around more than one or two years (TV station) in a market this size certainly is in a position to expect experience" says news anchor Mary Alice Salinas not an entry-level market necessarily (But) we have people here who are mobile to foe benefit of re- porters who want to progress to get out of this Salinas 31 has worked at KZTV as an anchor since 1989 She recently auditioned for a job with a station in San Jose Calif but wasn't hired expectations were much too high for the station and the area" says Kennedy indicated of late that happy here But we know that with her good looks background and training we hold onto her think Tm well qualified to move into a bigger market" says Salinas I think good? Yes Do I think room for improvement? Yes I da Do I resent the bigger salaries of other an- chore in this town? For heaven's sake no Kennedy gave me this opportunity at a point when I know that the others would have great to be able to work hard and be rewarded with opportunity" are in the says Kennedy worked all the time I was in school and was delighted to do so Having come up in foe Great Depression I know what like to be out of a job and looking for one The opportunity to learn the profession is extremely He says he has no plans to raise foe pay scale to a level that would attract more experienced journalists to KZTV content to run foe newsroom as a post-grad training ground and not lacking for applicants Hundreds of audition tapes arrive at the station every year from journalism school graduates looking for jobs wife Maly who serves as station director looks at all of them and brings in prospects for a grueling three-hour written test to check out their writing people now are spots for foe next three months But channel 10's 8 to 10 minutes of ad time per newscast are sold at a rate far lower than foe other local affiliates about $60 per 30-second ad compared to Kill's $400 per 30-second spot Ad rates are calculated based on Nielsen and Arbitron ratings Channel 10 always been the poor cousin to the other affiliates It was foe first station in town to have a satellite truck capable of providing live pictures from remote locations But Kennedy got rid of it saying foe cost of maintaining foe equipment justify needing it for coverage of only two or three catastrophic news events a year coverage as important as it once he says viewers are not that eager to have it on the air instantly unless a situation that imperils' them It would have to be a most extraordinary People who have worked at channel 10 and now work for other local stations say they think Kennedy would prefer to run foe station without a news operation but that CBS renew his affiliation with the network if he have news As it is Kennedy operates the station on the slimmest of budgets Salaries at KZTV are notoriously low New reporters and camera operators start at minimum wage with no benefits Channel 10 provide any of its employees with health insurance says Kennedy Reporter Jack Vincenl 27 started out at KZTV but jumped to Kill where pay is higher and benefits are better 10 foe only way you could make it was with overtime a lot of says Vincent Kennedy who's at the station on weekends and holidays including Christmas and Thanksgiving grouses at foe amount of overtime his employees earn big he calls it caused by employee procrastination and their propensity for deadline-pushing Keeping overhead at a minimum has made KZTV according to one longtime employee very profitable for its But KZTVs news operation has been reduced to being little Vann Kennedy: news Is highly competitive We often have more news items on our newscast than the other stations Kennedy says he no longer trusts the Arbitron ratings service saying too He subscribes to the Nielsen service but doesn't believe the 400 or so diaries that ratings surveys count on truly reflect the tastes of the viewing area CBS may be the top network in overall ratings but even topnotch lead-ins help In the heyday of which ran at 9 pm Fridays in the early 1980s there were an estimated 109000 homes in the Corpus Christi viewing area tuned in to the nighttime soap each week Even with this massive audience already on channel 10 when the 10 pm newscast began viewers turned away called it foe massive says KZTVs sales manager Joel YowelL could hear foe channels flipping all over Being an also-ran for decades sway Kennedy from his conservative approach to TV news He believe in promoting star anchors like Kill's Joe Gazin Asked about the popularity of Kill's on-air talent Kennedy calls them news is highly he says often have more news items on our newscast than the other stations He says pleased that both the 6 and 10 pm KZTV newscasts are sold out of commercial ity of the man who runs KZTV intensely private almost says a longtime employee still works every day but he doesn't spend much time in the newsroom" know upstairs but he's sort of a shadowy says a news staffer technological developments of the industry have passed him says another channel 10 insider Distant enigmatic shy out of touch with the fast-moving trends and changes in television a conservative businessman who watches every dollar spent how Kennedy is described by people who work for him His unflashy personality and conservative outlook on how TV ought to work is directly reflected in the style of channel news operation On the air the newscasts are low-tech and low-energy produced in the no-frills way small market TV newscasts were 20 or even 30 years ago There are no zooming colorful computer-generated graphics to liven up the visual impact and no fancy edits The news backdrop is an unfashionable pinkish-purple The weather forecasts are done with the aid of outdated circular dials mounted on the studio wall The anchors read straight off the old-fashioned crank-style Tele-PrompTer and seldom engage in happy cross-chatter with the weather guy or the sportscasters Even the wardrobe of evening anchor Mary Alice Salinas jackets and blouses with silk ties or a strand of pearls that Salinas says she chooses herself is prim and plain For a man who says he believes as architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe did that is in the Vann Kennedy seems to be concentrating on the wrong set of details Kennedy keeps a close eye on what Mary Alice says a channel 10 staffer call down to the newsroom and say dress was too or should wear one strand of pearls not But he so involved in the content or production style of the channel 10 newscasts He watches it he always has a TV on in the office he occupies up to 12 hours daily but keeps the sound off get to pay attention to much of the he says are too many A typical edition of offers canned reports from CBS affiliates in Dallas San Antonio and Houston but too little hard local news The eight fulltime KZTV reporters are young Most are just out of college on their first jobs in television They report without polish rarely digging below the surface Weekend anchor Dave Johnson been at the station longer than any of the other reporters doubles as a reporter during the week and his delivery only emphasizes how inexperienced his KZTV colleagues are 10" also depends too much on repetition Its 6 and 10 pm newscasts are frequently stoiy-for-story identical guess guilty of says Walter Furley who has worked as news anchor (now at noon) and news director at channel 10 since 1937 we often get calls from viewers asking if going to repeat something at 10 because they want to see it has a history of on-air blunders In 1991 it twice aired the faces of juvenile offenders once intentionally once accidentally Underage suspects are usually not identified by the media On their newscasts videotape often is cued up at the wrong time stories are sloppily edited voiceovers match visuals Morning anchor Charles Bradley recently reported that a murder suspect his story on the witness when he actually meant Noon anchor Walter Furley has trouble pronouncing words like The video for a recent story on ailing former governor John Con-nally continued for many uncomfortable seconds after Mary Alice Salinas had gone onto the next report do says Furley newsroom and the booth get pretty hectic when on the air The wrong buttons get pushed if not Channel noon newscast which earns high ratings because sandwiched between top-rated CBS soap operas Young and Bold is curiously devoid of vid-eosoundbites illustrating stories Kennedy sees nothing wrong with his newsroom performance saying always finetuning the And he seems to believe in a style of news He even discounts the importance of the visual aspect of TV news saying public now demand every item to have pictures Not every news item is This way of thinking is a throwback to the early days of CBS when Walter Cronkite criticized the network news for being a headline service that left little time for in-depth reporting enterprise stories or background investigations In sophisticated media environment viewers are used to CNN's almost-instant live broadcasts from wan natural disasten and other major events around foe world They expect foe same from their network affiliates -even in a small TV market like Corpus Chrisfi which is 122nd out of about 200 markets nationwide has outranked both KZTV and KRIS in ratings for many years Kill's weeknight 10 pm news draws nearly 30 percent of the viewing audience according to Nielsen and Arbitron News attracts 25 to 30 percent draws less than 10 percent of viewers Grading the niwscasts' TODAY: ftrwnalHybf ownar Vann Kennedy reflected style iaf KZTV: a Monday: KRIS owner Frank Smith Jr discusses TVf': strategy-i'M: Tliesday: The secret of Kill's success in local TV news Rcclvfced Between the Malls 99271 61 9ES9HH9flSMHMESS A women mens isUmmer shoe sale Save On These Designers: Cote Haan Rangonl of Florence Sesto Meucci Van EUfMartinez Valero Johnston Murphy Brown Dexter Victoria's Jewels 4938 Staples Staples Center FASHION SHOE 3849 ALAMEDA (The Village) 851-0094 The Neurological Clinic Is Pleased To Announce Michael Burke MD Is Joining Their Practice ILeisme Time HOBBIES ARTS CRAFTS Sale Prices am July 17 Sale limited to Stock on Hand Com FROM PAGE D1 ter-inch or so Tm very So now I knew how com is eaten The next question was which way is correct? Well I looked into foal too and foe answer is: none of your business And you can tell your friends that Miss Manners said so have to make a line between etiquette and said Judith Martin the syndicated columnist who writes Miss Manners etiquette rules are relatively few a delightfully messy dish and you want to serve it when people are wearing fragile clothes and not when discussing serious LOSE 20 FOUR WEEKS! i The only real rule she said is to be sure you provide your guests with good sturdy napkins none of that flimsy paper stuff Otherwise go ahead and cut loose you don't even have to use those silly plastic prongs fun of eating com-on-the-cob is getting it all over your she said seems overly genteel to use tongs unless of course fishing it out of boiling But for those who insist on knowing Martin suggests should be eaten left to right in even rows The typewriter method for those who remember 855-5888 5443 Everhart Ste A System of Weight Loss' KNOCK karting July 5 1993 Dr Michael Burke will be joining the practice of Dr Paul Zanetti Dr Alejandro Echeverry and Dr Philip Willman at the Neurological Clinic Dr Burke giaduatcd with honors and served his Neurosurgical Residency at the University of Gilomdo Health Sciences Center in Denver His particular area of interest is in Pediatric Neurosurgery Dr Burke is board eligible in Neurosurgery Dr Burke and the Neurological Clinic have offices at 3006 Alameda Fur tin appointment call 883-1731 between 8:00 and 5:00 on weekdays OFF! Spohn Hospital A Part OfYour life fi BARIATRIC.