The Rock & Roll of JET News!

A Very Short History of a Local News Legend.

A few posts back I made an observation that each news organization tries to stake out a unique style or point-of-view to attract a certain audience. To the average observer, all news is news and all of it is the same, but is it really?

As an example, let’s take a local news legend, WJET, and trace its roots. More than a half a century ago, a young engineer put a radio station on the air to play what was known at the time by some as “demon music that was taking the souls of our young.” Rock & Roll had not only arrived it had its own station in WJET Radio 1400.

That young engineer was Myron Jones. He knew that the new music sound was going to attract the burgeoning baby boom generation, but what about their dads and mothers who preferred Hoagy Carmichael to Elvis, Chuck Barry or (god forbid) Little Richard?

Myron thought the trick to get the widest possible audience for the new station was to put extraordinary emphasis on news. Not just a re-write from the newspaper, but fast paced snappy news that just gave the key important facts of the story and then moved on to the next one. A radio format that wasn’t afraid to break-in with local live stories from the scenes of fires, murder, car accidents, burglaries or cats living with dogs. (That’s my Bill Murray moment)

The public didn’t want a lot of details; (they could get that from the newspaper) they wanted a Jack Webb newscast, “just the facts.” Myron didn’t want to compete with the newspaper for detail which he knew would bore a listening audience faster than dead air. It became important that the 5 minute newscast be crammed with as many different stories as possible and move like thunder to the listener’s ear.

The job to accomplish this news phenomenon was given to Erie’s own version of the legendary Walter Winchell, Bob Sutherland. An excellent reporter in is own right that was also capable of teaching a new breed of broadcast newsmen the trade he had learned. He also had the godlike voice of authority which didn’t hurt either.

The combination of rock and instantly breaking news presented a powerful combination that did exactly what its young founder had hoped. While I lived as a young boy and teen through this period, it wasn’t until I had entered the local advertising scene in 1968 that I fully appreciated what this broadcaster had wrought on Erie media. The first rating book I had seen (The Pulse), had WJET far and away the number one station in every demographic from 12 to 72. The genius could be seen in viewing the hour by hour audience movement. Every time a newscast came on, that quarter hour would jump with older adults and soon after it would give way to the boomers. The net effect was to make WJET appear a solid “must buy” for any product or service for every demograhic.

Let’s fast forward to 1966 and the advent of WJET-TV. They attempted to bring the same formula (minus the live remotes not possible in those days) but not with the same results. WICU was the longtime TV powerhouse with a bevy of mature and sophisticated announcer/anchors who really knew the TV medium.

What happened to Bob Sutherland? Bob didn’t change but TV changed the perception of the image that listeners had of Bob. My professors in college used to call that the power of radio to create “theater of the mind.” It really was similar to the impact that talking motion pictures had on silent film stars. The magic was broken when Valentino spoke with a high pitched voice and the same with Bob Sutherland when he wasn’t the handsome stud that everyone had pictured him to be.

The basic formula was still kept to get as many stories in as possible. Nobody knew this better than Eric Johnson who came from WICU to manage a major makeover of the WJET TV news operation. While the faces changed and a new trend of “happy news” delivery was born, the original formula that inspired WJET radio was fine-tuned for television. Eric determined that the first 7 minutes of news was critical to get and hold an audience. (Sound familiar now?) The idea was to get as many news stories of fires, crashes and political goings on at city hall in those first few minutes as possible. Again just the pertinent facts or basics were all that was important.

This revamping took a decade to accomplish its goal but eventually became the number one news leader that still holds to the last rating book. (Except at 11)

As did Bob Sutherland decades before, Eric Johnson mentored a new group of young broadcast journalist. One from that class is now the latest news director of WJET TV, Lou Baxter.

The formula has gone though some adjustments as other media have adjusted to meet the JET competition. The basic elements of getting as many stories as possible with the bare facts are still really the essential part of the WJET news strategy.

If you don’t believe me, take a few moments and TIVO the first 5 or 7 minutes of each of the local stations newscasts. You will find that, on the average, WJET TV has more stories than the other two stations.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying the other stations are incorrect in what they do. I am just saying that this is the successful style or point-of-view that WJET TV has followed to reach an adult 18-49.

By the way, if the young Lou Baxter had his way, he might have wanted to be one of those professional dancers on “Dancing with the Stars” instead of a news director in Erie. I hear he can do a wicked Samba.

Congress passed a law on February 1, 2006, setting a final deadline for the DTV transition of February 17, 2009. Most television stations will continue broadcasting both analog and digital programming until February 17, 2009, when all analog broadcasting will stop.." FCC http://www.dtv.gov/

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