Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 229

3 no av AUG. 26-27-28 OWENS-CORNING FOIL FACED FIBERGLASS INSULATION 6.78 par R-11 Roll Covers 70 sq.ft. Excellent Varjor Barrier Adds Reflective Thermal Value 9.88 R-19 Roll Covers 61 sq.ft. 1 V. ii Quality Mill Runs 532" Lauan Mandango 3.38 532 Winter Bm 3.88 Quality Paneling SECONDS AS ADVERTISED BY OTHERS 'A" Huntington Walnut 5.58 316" AgedPecan 7.18 316" Mountain Chestnut 7.18 316" Rosewood Manor 7.68 1 Sawmill Stiver Oak 7.78 Roseburg's 1st quality 7 16" Mark Old Spanish 10.88 The lay-off created a lack of job security that hangs like an ax over the staffs heads, according to Lassiter.

Employes never know, he said, when they'll find a letter of dismissal in what proves to be their last pay envelope. His arrived April 6. Advertising sales are a television station's major revenue source and WGPR's success in this area has been mixed. Early pre-broadcast response in the business world was very encouraging. According to advertising manager Ed Snyder, the Big Three auto companies will account for over nine percent of the $1.6 million in ad revenue the station already pulled in this year.

Other companies, like Coca Cola and TV Guide, have pledged support. "But it's the small businessman who keeps us going," said Snyder, "that's the blood." WGPR has received five percent of the $65 million spent yearly in the tri-county area for broadcast advertising, and with aggressively competitive rates. A 30-second spot costs between $100 and $130 depending on the show. Snyder says these rates are only half those of other local UHF stations and l30th of those of the. big VHF stations.

The potential audience for WGPR advertisers is considerable. Metro Detroit has 883,972 black consumers. Detroit blacks rank tenth nationally for food consumption they consume more than the total population of Pittsburgh. Detroit's black population is larger than the entire population of Louisville, or Nashville, Tenn. McMurtry, whose Inner City Business Improvement Association loans money and gives management advice to minority enterprises, said that the minority businesses in the tri-county area are getting only about 10 percent of potential minority dollars.

WGPR, he feels, could be a tremendous boon for minority businesses to acquaint the black public with black-run businesses. "I get calls from people saying, 'I want to put a new cnnrmELoa CONTINUED experience, but all except a year has been in radio. (He is credited with turning WGPR-FM into a moneymaker.) George White, the program director, is a for: mer radio newscaster and disc jockey as well as a songwriter and drummer. But radio is one thing and television is quite another. Technical problems and embarrassing breaks in transmission still occur.

And Banks concedes that WGPR is not now "giving service as good as other stations." If management is frustrated by inexperienced staff, staff is frustrated with management inexperience. From the reports of former WGPR employes whose relations with the station have been terminated, criticism of management understandably abounds. Richard Lassiter, 23, is now a summer replacement cameraman for Channel 7 where he says "everything runs like a system." He says that "chaos" was the order of the day at Channel 62. While the equipment is up-to-date, says Lassiter, there's just not enough of it, and no back-up equipment. "They don't know anything," he says, "and they refuse to listen." Lassiter is bitter.

A black, he came to work at WGPR partly for the thrill of being "part of history." He was laid off, and the history, as far as he's concerned, is being botched. Glen Pearson, a director, started with WGPR late in April after being hired away from WJBK (Channel 2). He says he wanted to "help them out because they're a black station," but soon became critical of Banks' management. "Banks doesn't know beans about television but he wants to run it himself," Pearson said. Exactly two weeks after he started work, Pearson was laid off, along with a number of other people in what George White termed a "financial crisis." FREE COFFEE fNU A KM.

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