Price Competition
 
 
Surviving the FCC:
The Legacy of UHFs
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kathryn B. Campbell
PhD Candidate
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Wisconsin-Madison
821 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
608-262-3691
608-250-5191
[log in to unmask]
 
History Division
AEJMC
August 5-8, 1998
Surviving the FCC: The Legacy of UHFs
_
 
 
 
Surviving the FCC:
The Legacy of UHFs
 
 
        In the fall of 1945, a group of Madison, Wisconsin, businessmen - two
contractors, two merchants, an engineer, a real estate agent and an attorney -
decided to launch a radio and television station. Incorporated on Sept. 14,
1945, the group issued stock at $100 per share and promptly changed its name
from the Madison Broadcasting Company to the Monona Broadcasting Company in
honor of one of the capital city's beautiful lakes. Less than three years later,
in January 1948, the businessmen got WKOW-AM on the air at 1070 on the radio
dial; their television station, WKOW-TV, began regular broadcasts on Channel 27
on July 8, 1953. By 1955, a scant decade after its first board meeting, the
Monona Broadcasting Company boasted an extremely profitable radio station and
the largest television audience in the area. But the company's early success was
short lived. Competition for advertisers and viewers was vicious; the local
owners were buffeted by the unpredictable Federal Communications Commission, and
in May 1960, the Monona Broadcasting Company was sold to Midcontinent
Broadcasting Company.[1]
         WKOW-TV survived - but just barely - to offer local television viewers a
choice of programming throughout the 1960s until the present. It was born,
prospered, and then faltered during television's so-called "Golden Age," the
decade between 1948 and 1958 characterized by innovative, often high-quality
entertainment and public affairs programming. James L. Baughman argues that "the
more romantic interpreters of television's past contend that industry leaders
(during the Golden Age) initially held to a standard of service characterized by
the airing of not only less-profitable informational programming, but by
creative risk-taking in entertainment as well." On the contrary, Baughman says,
"Television's managers always set their schedules with the goal of larger
profits and markets," adding: "A set of entrepreneurial imperatives (and not
high-mindedness) first created and then closed the Golden Age of Television."[2]
        Although Baughman was concerned with the owners and managers of national
television networks, his argument can be extended to owners and managers of
local television stations as well. And "entrepreneurial imperatives" may not
even be strong enough to describe the driving force for local owners of UHF
stations; for the most part, their financial survival was defined by daily
triumphs of spot advertising sales and successful second-guesses about the FCC's
next move.
        The story of one group of pioneers in local television unfolds in the minutes
of the WKOW board of directors' meetings, held at least once a month from 1946
to 1960, against the background of sweeping technological change and
unpredictable government regulation. That their business survived at all is
somewhat remarkable; WKOW-TV was broadcast on an Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band
at a time when Very High Frequency (VHF) stations were thought to be much
superior in terms of potential audiences, broadcast quality and profitability.
The board's records reveal a single-minded devotion to the bottom line;
repeatedly, the directors' decisions kept labor costs to a minimum and maximized
their business interests, cutting every possible corner to keep their new TV
station from "going dark." Their corporate contributions to the community were
limited and were often made after great urging from their business colleagues.
Although these businessmen kept tabs on the radio and television programs that
they could sell to advertisers, the records of their meetings reveal little
concern about the content of their shows. Their official actions reflect almost
no interest in "public service" despite guidelines provided by the FCC that
strongly advised owners to provide noncommercial programming to offset the
influence of advertisers on the content of shows.
        This paper is divided into three sections. The first provides a brief
historical review of the development of television, emphasizing the FCC actions
in assigning television frequencies and the lip service the FCC paid to its own
public service requirements. The second section traces the fortunes of one local
corporation, the Monona Broadcasting Company. This section also provides,
through anecdotal evidence offered by some of those who were there, a view of
WKOW's public service commitment to the community of Madison. The concluding
section explores the legacy of WKOW-TV, shaped by its struggles as a pioneer
television station and a rare UHF survivor of the Golden Age of Television.
 
Television flickers on
 
        Television developed in fits and false starts beginning with the earliest
broadcast experiments in the 1920s. Its story is one of corporate and
technological competition complicated by politics, war and peace.[3] The idea of
television had occurred to inventors along with the idea of wireless sound
transmission, but television's development was hindered not only by its more
complicated technology but by the need to standardize broadcast and reception
equipment so that it would be interchangeable.[4]
        The invention of television also added intensity to an already-fierce corporate
fight to dominate the exploding communications industry. "AT&T wanted to use
telephone lines to broadcast television into homes, whereas RCA wanted to use
wireless, over-the-air broadcasting to maintain control of radio and to secure
control of television," writes Douglas Kellner. "... In the 1930s and 1940s AT&T
and RCA reached a compromise, dividing between themselves and other big
corporations the field of communications."[5] The result: AT&T got the phone
lines and RCA was allowed to dominate broadcasting.
        RCA was eventually forced to give up one of its two NBC networks, which simply
left its stronger network in hot competition with CBS and the ever-struggling
ABC (RCA's castoff) playing catch-up. Eager to get a jump on their rivals, RCA
launched its major television field tests in 1936, and NBC had a mobile
television unit in action in New York City the next year. CBS was also
experimenting with telecasting in New York City in 1939-40, as was a station put
on the air by electronics pioneer Allen B. Du Mont. In 1940, RCA persuaded the
FCC to allowed experimental commercial broadcasting; by May of 1940, there were
23 stations broadcasting in the United States, but they were doing so under very
limited conditions. The FCC forbade the broadcasters to sell air time to
advertisers, although some experimental programs could be "sponsored" to help
pay for them. [6] Finally, in 1941, the FCC adopted industrywide engineering
standards for black-and-white broadcasting, opening the way for commercial
television on a broad scale. Construction of the first 18 commercial stations
was authorized on July 1, 1941, but broadcasting hours were reduced from the
experimental allowance of 15 hour per week to four hours per week. Most of the
experimental stations promptly went off the air. Then, on December 7, 1941, the
United States entered World War II, interrupting the issuance of new broadcast
licenses as well as the manufacture of receiving sets for the next four years.
During those war years, only six broadcast stations survived: two in New York
City and one each in Schenectady, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.[7] The
war did not, however, preclude research and development of the new medium, and
more than 150 applications for television licenses were submitted to the FCC
during those years.
        Immediately after the war ended in 1945, the expected push for approval of the
backlogged applications did not materialize. Many applicants were uncertain
about committing their companies to a huge equipment investment (well over
$300,000 in most cases) until the FCC decided how it would allocate broadcast
frequencies and whether the whole process would be held up until the technical
problems with color broadcasts were resolved.[8] In March 1947, however, the FCC
announced it would not be adopting color standards in the near future. About the
same time, the coaxial cables needed for network transmission of programs were
being rapidly installed by AT&T. These developments helped prompt the rush to
television; within the year the number of stations skyrocketed to 48.[9]
        The FCC, however, had not foreseen the overwhelming need for space on the
broadcast spectrum. It quickly became clear that the wide-band requirements of
television and the need to avoid interference among signals meant that the
original 12 channels allocated to television (VHF channels 2 through 13) could
not begin to accommodate the skyrocketing demand.[10] The FCC responded by
freezing new licenses for six months while it tried to figure out how to award
channel assignments.[11]
        Six months may have been enough to solve the problem technically, but it was
not nearly long enough to resolve it to the satisfaction of CBS and NBC, who
used the nearly four years before the freeze was lifted to solidify their
positions as the dominant networks.[12] During the freeze, which lasted from
September 1948 to April 1952, only 108 stations - all VHF, including those whose
construction permits had been approved before the freeze - were eligible to
broadcast. CBS and NBC monopolized 80 percent of the 60-plus markets where
television stations were on the air, "establishing themselves," George Comstock
points out, "among advertisers and audiences alike as preeminent. ... The freeze
helped maintain the hegemony of control in broadcasting and froze out
outsiders."[13]
        During the freeze, the number of television sets in use grew to about 15
million by 1952, representing about 34 percent of all homes. And those numbers
doubled in the next three years, to about 31 million sets representing about 65
percent of homes, with about 3 percent of those households sporting more than
one receiver.[14] This explosion of consumer buying was somewhat amazing; the
cost of a set, plus antenna and installation, was a major investment for
many.[15] Sears Roebuck offered the first television set to be sold in its
catalog in 1949 for $149.95 ($15.50 down, $7 a month);[16] and in the early
1950s, console sets sold for several hundred dollars, easily a month's wages for
many people.
        When the freeze was lifted, the FCC added UHF channels 14 through 83 to
accommodate the demand for new stations. With the new UHF channels, the number
of available channels increased to 1,873 (542 VHF channels and 1,331 UHF
channels).[17] Stations broadcasting on the same frequencies were located far
enough apart geographically to avoid interfering with each other. The UHF
channels had a brief, hopeful burst of popularity, especially in markets where
there was no local competition from a VHF channel. Overall, however, UHF
channels were usually considered less desirable by both local owners and the
powerful networks. Many television sets were not equipped to receive UHF; the
FCC did not have the authority to require UHF tuners until 1962 and did not do
so until 1964. In 1956, only 22 percent of the sets nationwide could tune in a
UHF channel,[18] although in communities where the only local stations were UHF,
the reception and conversion rates were much higher.[19] UHF's inferior
broadcast signal limited its range, and non-UHF television sets limited the
audience. The combination made it much more difficult for UHF channels to
persuade advertisers to buy time or sponsor programs.
        Network affiliation was crucial for the fledgling local stations; the networks
provided entertainment and the national advertising to support it. The networks
wanted established audiences, and the VHF channels authorized before the freeze
provided them. In markets where VHF stations were granted licenses after the
UHFs went on the air, not only did the UHFs lose their audiences to the
stronger, more reliable signal, they often also lost their affiliations with the
powerful and popular CBS and NBC networks as well. When it became clear in the
mid-'50s that the FCC was not in a position to regulate the networks,[20]
affiliations in a number of cities - including Miami, Florida, in 1956;
Jacksonville, Florida, in 1957; Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1957; and Madison,
Wisconsin, in 1956[21] - were switched from UHF to VHF channels.
        With the NBC and CBS networks capturing the coveted VHF channels, their
competitors were, for the most part, relegated to UHF outlets. The FCC's 1952
decision to allow UHF and VHF channels in the same communities probably doomed
the
Du Mont network and perhaps would have been a fatal blow to ABC had it not
merged with United Paramount Theatres.[22]
        By 1957, more than two thirds of the UHFs on the air were operating at a loss,
many sustained by a still-profitable radio station. By 1960, more than 90 UHF
channels had left the air and the only economically successful UHF channels were
in all-UHF communities.[23] In the interim, notes John M. Kittross, "the UHF
operators who survived ... had little on their side but hope. Faced with
competition from VHF stations ... and facing the problems of obtaining network
affiliations, sponsors, and the conversion of ... receivers, the UHF operators
lived from day to day."[24]
        As the owners and managers of the new television stations grappled with FCC
edicts on channel assignments, they also had to contend with meeting licensing
rules and requirements. In March 1946, the FCC had issued the "Blue Book," a
programming policy document formally titled Public Service Responsibility of
Broadcast Licensees but nicknamed for its bright blue cover. It provided
examples of radio stations that were not meeting their public service
obligations, a concept based on the idea that the airwaves were public and that
a commercial entity granted the right to use a portion of those airwaves was
obligated to operate in the "public interest, convenience and necessity." It
also outlined the FCC's rationale for imposing such responsibilities, which
rested chiefly on the fact that the commission had to choose among competing
applicants for a limited number of frequencies. Their rationale was supported by
a Supreme Court ruling in May 1943 that affirmed the FCC's right to establish
program objectives.[25] The Blue Book took stations to task for airing public
service programming at hours when few were likely to be tuned in, and it
included a section showing how owners, many of whom had very profitable radio
stations, could finance the suggested improvements. Finally, the Blue Book made
it clear that the FCC would favor renewal applications from stations that had
met their public service responsibilities, which included offering shows with no
advertising (to encourage innovation, serve minority interests and provide
balance to sponsored programs), shows that originated locally and were broadcast
live, and shows that provided discussions of public issues. The FCC also
suggested that stations make an overall commitment to avoid "excessive
advertising." The Blue Book was not presented as a book of rules to be followed
but more as a guide to the FCC's thinking. It was attacked as a violation of
Constitutional guarantees of free speech and criticized as a government takeover
of radio. Nevertheless, Sterling and Kittross suggest, the ideas of public
service embedded in the Blue Book were carried forward into the licensing
criteria for television.
        But the guidelines actually were just that; no station was ever shut down for
violating them.[26] The FCC has historically been reluctant to regulate the
communications industry, a product, perhaps, of its "responsibility with little
authority" burden complicated by its political roots. Its jurisdiction is
unclear and it has little power to enforce rules; in addition, its rulings have
been subject to and victim of court reversals. The concept of operating a
television station in the "public interest, convenience and/or necessity" has
remained somewhat fuzzy.[27] As Kellner points out, "Although this concept has
guided communications law and public policy for five decades ..., it has never
been adequately clarified or specified by official FCC policy or rulings, or by
presidential and congressional policy and statements."[28] Television stations
that ignored the public service guidelines were not punished; stations that
tried to follow the guidelines found themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
The FCC's refusal to provide a clear definition of "public interest" left the
broadcasters in a position to define and fulfill it as they saw fit.[29]
        Not only were the public service guidelines relatively toothless, but FCC
actions were frustratingly unpredictable. "The FCC failed to abide by a
consistent procedure in new license cases, even after promulgating one in 1952,"
Baughman writes. "Instead, applicants competed against one another by stressing
various strengths, any one of which might be the basis for a grant. In one
instance, the placement of the men's room entered deliberations."[30] The FCC
was not immune, of course, to political pressures and corporate incentives, a
situation that further exacerbated its unpredictability.[31]
        Related to the public service guidelines was the notion of localism, the idea
that local business people should own television stations because they were
uniquely situated to divine and respond to local needs. This idea contributed to
the FCC's decision to open UHF frequencies for television and to intermix UHF
and VHF channels in a single market, despite the obvious market advantage
enjoyed by the VHFs. The FCC's reasoning was that as many communities as
possible should benefit from having local outlets responsive to local needs.[32]
The FCC concepts were rooted in several assumptions: first, that local owners
have a stake in the community and are more likely to be concerned with its
welfare; second, that local owners are familiar with social and economic
conditions in the community; third, that local owners should be established
enough in the community to assure a full range of views on local issues; and
fourth, that local owners, by virtue of their interconnected business and social
networks, would be held accountable for the performance of their stations.[33]
        The FCC publicly supported the prospects for UHF stations, announcing in its
Sixth Report and Order (1952) that "we are convinced that the UHF band will be
fully utilized and that UHF stations will eventually compete on a favorable
basis with stations in the VHF."[34] Nevertheless, the FCC continued to discuss
moving all television broadcasting to UHF,[35] leaving local applicants and
owners scrambling to reposition themselves on short notice if necessary. When it
became apparent by the late 1950s that UHF channels were mired in the financial
mud, one FCC commissioner made it clear that the FCC was accepting no
responsibility for the disaster. "I do not believe the Commission can be blamed
for those who display bad business judgment in trying to move in on the UHF
channels without making a thorough assessment of the availability of equipment
both for receiving and transmitting as well as the economic factors which they
might be confronted within the communities in which they proposed to establish
service." Critic Vincent Mosco adds: "(The commissioner) did not discuss the
Commission's own rosy forecasts for UHF, nor its own contribution to the
creation of a system where, in most cases, the only good business judgment for
prospective UHF operators would (have been) to stay out of the market."[36]
 
WKOW-TV: First in Madison
 
Local Fortunes and the FCC Follies
 
        WKOW-TV prided itself on being "First With Television in Madison."[37] The
directors of the Monona Broadcasting Company had gone to some lengths to be able
to make that claim. When shipment of the transmission tower was delayed in April
1953, the board sent director and contractor George Icke to Pittsburgh to try to
expedite it. The station's debut had been set for June 21; but by the end of
May, the tower had still not arrived. Icke was again dispatched east to help
hurry matters along.[38]
        The tower finally arrived on June 30 and was erected; a test pattern was
broadcast successfully for several days, and July 8 was set for the official
opening program. It was planned as a 30-minute introduction, featuring the board
of directors rather than all of the 30-odd stockholders, as it was determined
that the studio would not comfortably contain them all. The "studio," as it
turned out, was simply a small office in a building at Icke's construction yard
- the WKOW-TV building was not yet finished. "We were first on the air - and it
probably cost us several thousand dollars to set it up there," Icke recalls.
[39] The next day, newspaper reports said the "dedicatory" program began at 5
p.m. and lasted 15 minutes. The members of the board of directors were
introduced as planned: President Stewart Watson, vice president E. B. (Ted)
Rundell, treasurer E. C. (Ole) Severson, George Icke, Otto Sanders and Jacob
Feldman. (Board secretary and company attorney Benjamin Huiskamp was in Europe
and missed the historic event.) The dedication program was followed by a
five-minute broadcast of "Crusader Rabbit"; news, sports and entertainment
filled the next seven hours, and WKOW-TV was officially on the air.[40]
        WKOW-TV was just a week ahead of another local UHF, WMTV, Channel 33. WMTV (now
Channel 15), began broadcasting its test pattern on July 8, 1953, the same day
that Channel 27 inaugurated its regular programming. Both stations were right in
the middle of the great rush of stations jockeying for FCC licenses during 1952
and 1953, just after the freeze was lifted. The number of stations jumped from
just over 100 in 1952 to 350 by the end of 1954, but Madison's WKOW-TV and WMTV
were among only 41 UHF stations operating by the end of July 1953.[41]
        Madison merchants made the UHF channels easily accessible for those TV set
owners and new buyers who wanted to get the local stations and could afford to
do so. Large display advertisements for the converters and UHF-equipped sets ran
in the Wisconsin State Journal as Channel 27 debuted.[42] This cooperation among
businesses made sense, of course, and was probably not unusual in all-UHF
markets. Leo Bogart notes that in areas where UHF stations began broadcasting
before the "V"s, set manufacturers provided retailers with UHF-equipped
sets.[43] Some Madison-area set owners, however, had been receiving seven VHF
channels, such as Channel 2 from Chicago and Channel 3 from Milwaukee. UHF
converters were needed, and WKOW kept its test pattern on the air during the day
to help local servicemen get converters and antennas installed properly for the
best reception.[44]
        By December 1953, a front-page story in the Wisconsin State Journal was
headlined: "Record Christmas Buying Splurge, Rush on TV Indicated in Madison."
The story, a typical holiday-buying booster piece, reports that with "the advent
here of better viewing facilities, TV dealers in Madison are experiencing the
first major holiday rush to purchase of new sets." A television set represented
a major investment for many. "Cash is apparently a little short for large
purchases," the story continues. "About three quarters of TV sets are purchased
on contract, most of them running 18 to 20 months."[45] Perhaps not so
coincidentally, the WKOW stockholders, at their annual meeting just six days
before the front-page story appeared, had heard from WKOW-TV manager Vincent
Vanderheiden, who asked "if they all had TV sets and about four-fifths of those
present indicated they had. It was suggested that a banner Christmas present for
1953 would be a TV set."[46]
        During that Christmas season in 1953, Monona Broadcasting Company's financial
future was relatively bright. The owners and managers had established a
successful radio station, navigated their way through the FCC freeze on
television licenses and the resulting scramble for channel assignments, and
reluctantly accepted their lot as a UHF station. WKOW radio was profitable
enough to offset the losses the new television operation was sustaining, and the
directors were assured by an optimistic manager that soon both would be
operating in the black. It looked as though the founders' years of careful money
management would pay off handsomely in the "Golden Age of Television.
        In fact, however, the radio station carried the television station for nearly
all of the next seven years, building on its early success in dominating the
Madison radio market. WKOW radio had nurtured its rural Wisconsin audience from
its first days on the air in 1948 and capitalized on its affiliation with CBS,
"The Stars' Address," to become the top station in the Madison area. The
directors had initially hired a well-known farm expert, former director of the
state department of agriculture Ralph Ammon, to manage their new radio station.
Ammon also owned the monthly Dairyland News, which shared office space and some
staff with WKOW radio.[47] The Dairyland News carried large display
advertisements for the radio station, emphasizing its farm coverage and keeping
the station well connected throughout the years to its rural listeners.[48]
         The radio station's eventual success was hard won. In July of 1949, four years
after the new company incorporated, it was still struggling financially. Ammon
reported to the board of directors that the radio station had lost $6,000,
despite paring expenses such as the engineers' salaries down to a minimum. Ammon
was hopeful the fall advertising contracts would improve the balance sheet,
however.[49] Nearly 50 years later, former board member George Icke recalls that
the managers were always upbeat. "Money-wise, every meeting the manager would
say, 'Well-l-l, things went good but you know we're running out of money' and
there were always requests for more money. But always he was optimistic, saying
things were going good ...," Icke said. "(We) felt like quitting a good many
times! It was hard to keep pouring money in because it was bleeding us."[50]
Nevertheless, at that same meeting in July 1949, the directors authorized Ammon
to prepare an FCC application for a television license[51] after learning that
the FCC had decided to make several television channels available in Madison.
        The fledgling radio station continued to struggle. A new manager and the
directors provided a full report to the stockholders at their annual meeting in
December 1950. (Although Ammon had survived a small uprising from unhappy
stockholders in December 1949,[52] he was replaced in September 1950.) Financial
losses continued, but the company had hired Atlass Amusement Company of Chicago
as consultants, agreeing to pay them half of their profits for five years.[53]
Atlass had helped WKOW radio get out of its contract with the weaker Mutual
Broadcasting Company and affiliate with CBS, the premier radio network.[54]
        But it was the potential of television that intrigued the stockholders. At the
end of their annual meeting, the floor was opened to questions. According to the
minutes, "The only question asked was whether the station was considering
television."[55] President Watson answered that WKOW, along with two other
Madison stations, had television license applications in to the FCC[56] but that
"because of the present war picture a freeze on any new television installations
would probably again be going into effect."[57] The stockholders were warned
that starting a television station would cost at least $300,000 and the company
would have to be prepared for "substantial" losses at first.[58]
        In May 1951, as the FCC was still vacillating on how to allocate channels
across the broadcast spectrum, the directors voted to lobby for the allocation
of three UHF channels to Madison and to ask that VHF Channel 3 be reserved for
educational purposes to remove it from commercial competition. Stockholder and
company engineer Walter Kean of Chicago was employed to carry out the necessary
feasibility studies.[59] At their February 1952 meeting, two months before the
FCC licensing freeze was lifted, the directors authorized a down payment on a
10KW transmitter, cameras and other equipment, an expenditure of more than
$300,000 excluding the needed land and building.[60]
        By May 1952, the company had been showing a profit consistently for several
months. But the board was keeping a close eye on the company's finances; the
manager was asked to explain why the advertising salesmen were "getting
considerably more in total wages and commissions than any of the other
employees." The manager was requested to check into it and come back the next
month with "some scheme of keeping our sales expense down."[61]
        The directors also learned in May 1952 that the FCC had assigned to Madison
Channels 3, 27 and 33 for commercial use and Channel 21 for educational use and
instructed all previous applicants to reapply. Although this would lead the
board in future meetings to try to outguess the FCC on WKOW's chances of winning
the prized VHF station, it decided to authorize up to $300,000 in debenture
bonds to finance a television station and deal with the channel assignment
later.[62]
        The June 1952 minutes reflect a report by the station manager that WKOW had its
"best month in its history in May, with a profit before consultant's fees of
over $7,000." The minutes then noted flatly that expense accounts for the
salesmen had been cut as requested.[63]
        The next month, July 1952, the directors spent considerable time debating the
advisability of applying for Channel 3, the preferred VHF position, versus
Channel 27. They learned that the FCC order reserving Channel 21 for educational
purposes was not final; there was still some talk that Channel 3 would be
assigned that spot. The directors opted to complete a second application for
Channel 27, to be held at the ready should Channel 3 be reassigned.[64]
        By midsummer, business was booming for the radio station, with a net profit
before the Atlass commission of about $8,000 and an audience survey that
reported that WKOW radio was the top station in the five-county area. The board
was also doing its best to prepare for the FCC's final decision on television
channel allocation, but it was a complicated plan. Competitor WISC had switched
its application from Channel 3 to Channel 27; an out-of-town group, Bartell
Broadcasting Company of Milwaukee, had applied for Channel 33. Finally the board
decided to prepare applications for all of the available frequencies, submit the
Channel 3 application if that frequency was finally assigned for commercial use,
and let the executive committee make a quick decision on the alternative UHF
applications if Channel 3 went to education.
        In September 1952, the matter of the salesmen's compensation was also addressed
again. "The manager then stated that since we appeared now to be the leading
station in Madison, it seemed no longer necessary to be paying the salesmen 12%
commission when (local competitor) WIBA operated upon a 10% commission." The
board approved the change, and "the manager requested that he be allowed to
break this to the salesmen in his own way, which was very acceptable to the
Board."[65]
        Meanwhile, the game of musical chairs that the FCC's indecision had provoked
was somewhat resolved; the Channel 3 controversy had gone to court and Monona
Broadcasting had opted to submit its application for Channel 27.[66] And, the
financial news was good; the second week of October was the best sales month
ever.[67] At their annual meeting that December, the directors had more good
news for the stockholders. The company had a net profit for 1952 of about
$30,000. The contract with Atlass Amusement had been canceled because the FCC
frowned upon the profit-sharing arrangement. Although the Atlass-WKOW contract
contained explicit language explaining that the duties of Chicago consultants
were to "advise and conduct studies of our business, not to direct or control
it," and Atlass had not exercised its stock-purchase option,[68] the board did
not want to complicate its FCC applications. Left unsaid was the fact that the
company would now retain 100 percent of its profits.
        The directors then tried to disentangle the FCC application mess for the
stockholders, finally assuring them that "the whole matter of the development of
TV was a question requiring further study and action by the directors, and
stockholders were assured that careful attention was being given to the matter."
The manager acknowledged that with three TV stations in the Madison market,
"aggressive salesmanship" would be needed to make WKOW successful, and that
although a UHF channel assignment would make the job more difficult, it could be
done.[69]
        Eighteen days later, Dec. 20, 1952, the directors met to hear officially that
WISC (owned by the Badger Television Group) had filed for Channel 3, leaving
Monona Broadcasting Company as the only applicant for Channel 27. Despite "some
sentiment to the effect that Channel 3 would always be the big TV station with
the widest coverage and that it was worth battling over," the directors voted
4-1 to put their efforts into getting Channel 27 on the air as soon as possible.
From between the lines of attorney Benjamin Huiskamp's carefully typed minutes
wafts a feeling of the directors' general exhaustion with the whole affair and
their relief at finally making a decision.[70]
        At the same December meeting, the directors, ever mindful of their business
relationships, canceled their advertising contracts with a local business, the
Towell Agency, "as the president, ... Arthur Towell, was affiliated with the
Badger Television group," the successful Channel 3 bidders.[71]
        During the first few months of 1953, as the company geared up to get its
television station on the air, various members of the board and the manager
visited UHF stations in California, Oregon, Indiana, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. The manager reported in January that he'd already had inquiries
from advertisers about sponsoring local shows and in February he would talk to
CBS about extending the radio station's affiliation to the new TV operation. By
the end of February, the CBS affiliation had been cemented, and in one of the
few discussions about program content recorded throughout the years, the manager
told the board that rival network Du Mont's national programs would "dovetail
well" with the CBS offerings and could be used to fill any programming
holes.[72]
        WKOW's experience was being repeated across the nation as companies scrambled
to get their new stations on the air. For the Monona Broadcasting Company,
prospects were good. The radio operation was getting stronger all the time; WKOW
had the highest radio penetration in the most counties of any Madison station
and a new audience rating had "dissipated sales resistance" among advertisers.
The listening audience had grown by 42 percent in three years, one of the
highest rates in the nation.[73]
        A profitable radio operation was clearly crucial to the company's success in
introducing television, which was expected to operate at a substantial loss for
some months. Construction was to begin on the television station and tower on
March 1, 1953. About a third of the roughly $300,000 investment was to be
financed by RCA, which was providing the equipment, and a shortfall of about
$35,000 was to be met by calling in a portion of the directors' subscriptions in
the amount of $5,000 each. As the company's TV debut date approached, business
was looking good. The manager reported in May that the company had an April
profit of about $8,500; May, he said, was running ahead of April and could be
the biggest month in the history of the company. The CBS affiliation contract
had been signed; WKOW would get shows on kinescope and broadcast them one week
later than their original broadcast dates in New York. Enough advertising had
been sold to cover 50 percent of the television station's operating costs; and,
the manager reported, "Although WMTV (Channel 33) is working hard using high
pressure, with our CBS affiliation and the opportunity of showing the best TV
shows, we are able to sell spots around these shows with little or no sales
resistance."[74]
        In June, the transmission tower finally arrived (hurried along by George Icke's
visits to the Pittsburgh builder), and on July 8, 1953, local television came to
Madison. For the next couple of years, WKOW-TV prospered financially. A new
manager, Ben Hovel, was creative in promoting the station, trying out
advertising contracts that combined radio and TV spots. By early 1956, the
television station was outperforming the radio station. Then disaster hit. CBS
canceled its longtime contract with WKOW-TV and affiliated with WISC, Channel 3,
the VHF station that was just getting on the air. Hovel was not particularly
surprised; after all, the powerful CBS and NBC networks were abandoning the
pioneer UHFs in droves as the FCC "intermixed" more markets, leaving many of the
"U"s, including WKOW, in the hands of the ABC.[75]
        Hovel understood at the time that CBS was making a good business decision. The
new VHF channel had a stronger, more reliable signal and could deliver a bigger
audience. "They had the right in our contract with them to give us six months'
notice of their intention to cancel it, which they did," Hovel recalls, but not
before notifying the station informally and giving their Madison affiliate a
chance to respond. "I said, 'Well, if you've decided you're going to do it, I'm
not going to assume you'll change it regardless of what we have to say, but I
have a problem,'" Hovel recounts. "I said, 'We owe contracts for equipment
payments for installment payments and it will take us at least nine months to
clear those up before we have to take the nose dive,' as I referred to it." CBS
responded by giving WKOW the requested nine months before handing their
top-ranked programs over to Channel 3. "They were very good to us, the network,"
Hovel says now. "We had no fault to find with them at all." [76]
        When WKOW-TV lost CBS, Hovel and the board decided that second place in the
Madison area would still be a profitable spot. "We settled on a sort of theme
for the entire staff and that was... our GQ - our Good Quality, as we referred
to it. Our Good Quality was that our signal reached the primary Madison trade
zone - five or six counties (and) our signal was equal to Channel 3 in the
primary Madison trade zone. (We had) sales meetings every Saturday morning and
we forgot all about our competition and concentrated on doing what we had to do
- that was the kind of atmosphere we worked in, which was ideal for surviving
the transitions."
        Hovel was also adept at establishing a "family" feeling among the staff, most
of whom worked at a variety of jobs in front of and behind the camera, that
helped compensate for the long hours and low pay. Peter Mortenson was a
part-timer on the production staff when the television station went on the air;
for him, the family connection was real. He remembers driving his mother,
Luella, to the station for her first television broadcast. Luella Mortenson had
been a mainstay of women's programming on WKOW radio for years and as soon as
she took her cooking and interview programs live on camera, she became even more
popular as a local television celebrity. Mortenson says that Channel 33 tried to
woo his mother away from Channel 27 before the rival UHFs went on the air, but
she opted to stay with WKOW where she would be able to do both radio and
television programs.[77] Advertising was easy to sell for Luella Mortenson's
programs and airing them was always profitable for the station.
        Getting the station on the air was very exciting for young Mortenson and his
coworkers; he had a number of jobs at the station during the next decade, from
burning the trash to writing the news. "I loved the work, loved being out
there," Mortenson says. "I had no interest in being on camera - that was not my
thing - but I loved the production side of it. You knew you had to have it right
because there was no retaping!"
        Although he wasn't privy to the financial status of the station, Mortenson
recalls the first few years as reasonably successful. He remembers a colleague
reacting to a statement about how much money the station was making with the
exclamation, "Well, it doesn't show up in my paycheck." It's a comment that has
stuck with him for four decades. And Mortenson is still indignant about the
seemingly endless demands from the engineers for wage increases, especially
during the lean years that followed Channel 3's arrival on the scene. "I was
very incensed about how much the union engineers made," Mortenson says. "It was
terrible, terrible. It always hurt me because I thought 'You're hurting the
company, you're hurting the people who are trying to keep this company going.' I
thought they were overcompensated. Other stations just hired kids off the
street."
        The directors did try to hold the line with the engineers, often going months
without signing a new contract until Hovel could negotiate an agreement
acceptable to both sides. But meanwhile, the "nose dive" the manager had
anticipated at the loss of the CBS affiliation steepened. Director Ole Severson
reported that sales of all-channel television sets - those that could tune in
both UHF and VHF stations without converters - were dropping.[78] On-the-air
personalities were leaving for better-paying jobs at VHF stations in other
cities.[79] The company made less than $3,000 in 1957,[80] and the directors
wanted out. Some even voted to form a separate corporation to handle the
television operation; resolutions were passed, incorporation papers were drawn
up but never filed. Severson resigned at one point, stating that the duties of
treasurer and board member "had been aggravating a highly nervous
condition."[81] He remained active as a stockholder, however, and was reelected
to the board nine months later at the annual meeting.
        The staff's willingness to work long hours for low pay was rewarded by
well-attended summer picnics at Benjamin Huiskamp's lakeside home and lavish
Christmas parties in the good years. As the company's fortunes dipped, the
Christmas parties turned into potlucks; but the directors continued to present
the staff with health insurance as a holiday bonus. Altruism gets little of the
credit for the latter: "Well, we were all in business and we knew that would
help!" George Icke recalls. "Some of those people we didn't even know."[82]
        For the next three years, the board members looked anxiously - and very
discreetly - for a buyer. Their official minutes contain no hint of the strong
desire to sell and the relief at finding a buyer that is still vivid in the mind
of George Icke. "We were way in the hole. We were tickled pink to find somebody
who would buy it and ... we got this offer from the company out in the Dakotas
(Midcontinent Broadcasting). We had a little meeting there and Ole Severson, one
of the directors, was there and I voted 'Let's sell!' We hadn't made a penny.
Let's sell, I said, because there was a chance to get back our investment. I
told Ole Severson, 'Sit down and write the letter and I'm going to drive you
over to the mailbox and pull your ear until you put that offer in there.' It was
an offer I never dreamed of would go through. Well, it went through, one of the
happy moments of my life, and that was the beginning of my giving away to my
children. I took that money and divided it into four parts and I gave it to my
kids. That was the end of TV for me."[83]
        Midcontinent Broadcasting paid $925,000 for WKOW radio and television in 1960.
When Peter Mortenson first heard the details of the sale, he was shocked. "When
Midcontinent bought the station, I was frightened frankly because I thought
oh-h-h-h, this is a change; it's outside people coming in here. ... When that
announcement came through I can still remember just being panicked. When I found
out the (sale) figures, they didn't make a lot of sense to me. I found out the
radio station was valued at something like $600,000 and the TV station was only
$325,000. Oh my heavens (I thought), this little thing I'm working for is worth
only half the radio station (and) I began to realize that this (had been) a
tough situation."[84]  Public Service and Politics
 
        If there was a concern for public service in WKOW's programming, it came more
from the station staff than from the owners or managers. George Icke says he
paid little attention to what the station put on the air; his job was to monitor
his investment. The directors did record in their minutes a number of
compliments to various telethon efforts.[85] Director Jacob Feldman commended
the staff on raising more than $20,000 in January 1957 in a weekend "Poliothon,"
and he compared the effort most favorably to that of arch-rival WISC, which had
managed only a paltry $3,000 for their Christmas fund a month earlier. But
overall, the directors' concern for politics and community involvement was
reflected more in their notes about advertising revenue and corporate
contributions than in philosophical discussions about the role their station
could play in the civic life of the community. For example, in February 1952,
the directors discussed the need to develop a policy for political advertising
on the radio station. The next month they adopted a voter-friendly policy: They
ordered the salesmen not to sell less than five minutes of ad time to any one
speaker, to refuse to air "dramatizations," and to limit political advertising
for any one candidate on the day before the election.[86] In September 1952, the
minutes of a special meeting report, "It was mentioned by one of the directors
that our policy on political advertising has lost us a considerable amount of
political business prior to the primary election and he suggested that this
might call for a reexamination of our policy." [87] But two weeks later, at the
board's regular monthly meeting, the manager reported WKOW and WTMJ of Milwaukee
were the only two stations not selling political "spots" (ads of less than five
minutes). "The manager stated that we could not make a sale to some without
sales to others and our regular advertising business was sufficiently good and
the spots so taken up that there would not be enough to go around among all
candidates," reported board secretary Benjamin Huiskamp in the minutes. The
policy remained unchanged.[88] In the end, their decision paid double dividends.
"Our policy to refuse spot political announcements, although appearing at first
to hurt us, was now paying off with many political sales for longer periods,"
Huiskamp concluded in October.[89]
        In February 1952 the directors succumbed to the manager's persuasive argument
that other stations were making pledges to the Red Cross of $100 and authorized
the same. (In other decisions, the directors routinely ensured that their
business connections were mutually beneficial. Icke's construction company got
the contracts for building the station and erecting the towers.[90] The
directors divvied up their bank account between Bank of Madison, which had spent
about $4,000 one year in advertising on the radio station, and American Exchange
Bank, which was willing to give the company a letter of credit in support of its
TV application.[91] As noted earlier, when Monona Broadcasting was competing
with Badger Television Group for an FCC license, the Monona directors dropped an
advertising contract with a company whose owner was a stockholder in the rival
television group.[92] )
        Even the highly successful telethons served a dual purpose. Recalls Peter
Mortenson: "Channel 27 did more of that than anybody else. It was really very
costly for the station, but they did it - they just insisted that was something
they wanted to do for the community. It was not something you had to do for your
FCC license but it certainly looked good, I'm sure. It was a civic thing that
the station did that involved a lot of people, and probably it was also good
from a business standpoint because we were able to have some of the wealthier
people in town on who then might sponsor something."[93]
        Throughout the late '50s and beyond, Mortenson and his coworkers continued to
work the long hours needed to keep the station on the air. He believes his
mother, Luella, who not only continued with her radio and television shows but
taught at the University of Wisconsin, saw that television could be an
opportunity to educate people and he remembers the station as a whole "bending
over backward" to provide viewers with information on the community and "not
only because they had to because of the FCC rules."
        "We had a series on every Saturday night at 6:15 or something like that, the
mayor's report, and the mayor came out (to the station) and did a live show 15
minutes every week ... There was (also) a county government show. The television
stations made time available - and not (just) twilight or the early hours of the
morning either. I think the stations did as much as they possibly could to
promote things that were going on in the community. I know because I wrote a lot
of the stuff myself; (I) would take whatever community service messages that
were local and promote those ahead of something that was national."
 
Conclusion:
WKOW-TV: Surviving against the odds
 
        The Monona Broadcasting Company was actually remarkably successful. Nationally,
few of the UHFs of its generation survived. The year WKOW went on the air, 1953,
was the last year that new UHFs outnumbered abandoned ones, 123 to 2. In 1954,
29 UHFs "went dark" and only 25 took the plunge. By mid-1959, just about the
time Monona's owners were getting frantic to sell, only 75 UHFs remained on the
air out of the 165 who had started broadcasting after July 1952.[94]
        This group of local businessmen, embodying the very qualities that the FCC had
philosophized would ensure responsive and responsible local programming, took
every curve ball the regulators threw and managed to stay in the game long
enough to recoup their investment and leave Madison with a legacy of competitive
news and programming. Caught between the major players - CBS, NBC, and the FCC -
and unable to do much except react, the Monona investors kept their attention
riveted on the ledger sheets. Many of the recorded minutes open with the
notation that a financial report "had been prepared on five multigraphed
sheets";[95] although the directors were often less than happy with the bottom
line, they regularly complimented the fine presentation of the bad news.
        The political and corporate maneuverings of the FCC and the national networks
buffeted all the struggling UHFs for more than a decade, but in the end,
politics saved the investors in the Monona Broadcasting Company. According to
Blake Kellogg, who was hired by Midcontinent to run the stations' news
department in 1960, the new owners bought WKOW-TV because they thought they had
enough political power to get the Madison market de-intermixed,[96] that is, to
get Channel 3 removed from commercial use and reassigned to a UHF spot. Kellogg
recalls that Midcontinent had "some kind of pipeline" to Newton Minow, who had
been tapped by President John F. Kennedy to head the FCC;[97] WKOW's new owners
were confident that de-intermixture was possible and potentially very
profitable.
        They were mistaken. In 1967, the FCC rejected WKOW's plea to move WISC-TV from
Channel 3 to a UHF band. The FCC said its 1964 "all-channel" ruling that
required new television sets to be equipped for both UHF and VHF would rescue
the surviving UHFs. The FCC was unmoved when WKOW's owners pointed out that
Madison's sole VHF channel, WISC-TV, made nearly a million dollars in 1965; WMTV
made about $90,000, and WKOW-TV lost $100,000. During the hearings, said the
newspaper report, "WKOW insisted the all-channel concept 'hasn't worked in
Madison and will never work anywhere.'"[98]
        Although the story of this hardy UHF television station opens just a small
window on the history of early television, it might be argued that had the FCC
equalized the broadcast playing field across the country by limiting the VHF
band to educational programming, television might have developed quite
differently. Local programming might have developed on a number of UHF channels,
diluting the influence and power of the networks and nurturing a sense of local
community through public service.
        WKOW probably survived on the strength of its local programming. Popular
personalities such as Luella Mortenson were synonymous with WKOW and delivered
the audiences needed to sell advertising. Marsh Shapiro, who became a local
legend as kid-show host "Marshall the Marshal," arrived at WKOW after Monona
Broadcasting sold the station, but he inherited Channel 27's good reputation in
the community. "When I got into the broadcast business back in 1960," he points
out, "most of the on-the-air people were local, people who had come up through
the ranks. They had a basic background in what Madison was, they knew people,
they had good news contacts, they were able to make judgments that could relate
to the community interest."
        Shapiro firmly believes the two UHF stations did a better job of covering the
local community than did the more powerful VHF station, Channel 3. "We had to
work twice as hard to get to where Channel 3 was," he recalls. "We were
constantly climbing the mountain because they had oodles of money (but) their
news and sports and weather were really kind of inferior at the time. Generally
15 and 27 were super competitive. (Channel 3) was more the regional station
because they had the VHF; they were more the snobby kind of station. (Channel 3
owner) Morgan Murphy had deep pockets, but he didn't even have to get into his
deep pockets just by the mere fact that they were here and they were the 'V.'
They could have put a chimp on the air and they would have got the same
ratings."[99]
        The story of WKOW-TV suggests that, had the FCC handled the UHF vs.VHF problem
differently, many more local television stations might have emerged from the
heady days of the Golden Age of Television financially sound, committed to
public service, and filled with local programming. The frustration of such a
counterfactual, however, is that history cannot tell us the ending of a story
that never happened. Perhaps other events would have conspired to snuff out
local television's potential; perhaps not. But clearly, understanding how the
politics and power of government regulation so effectively limited local use of
a new medium may inform our thinking about the challenges of new media that lie
ahead.
 
 
[1]  Monona Broadcasting Company document collection, State Historical Society
of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, Boxes 1-2. All subsequent references are to the
official minutes of board meetings, numbered sequentially in the collection.
[2]  James L. Baughman, "Television in the 'Golden Age': An Entrepreneurial
Experiment," The Historian 47 (February 1985),180.
[3]  For a highly readable overview, see Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The
Evolution of American Television (NY: Oxford University Press, 1990).
[4]  Sydney W. Head and Christopher H. Sterling, Broadcasting in America
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982), 179.
[5]  Douglas Kellner, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1990), 37-38.
[6]  Barnouw, Tube of Plenty, 83-92.
[7]  Head and Sterling, Broadcasting in America , 184.
[8]  Christopher H. Sterling, Electronic Media (New York: Praeger Publishers,
1984), 16-18; Head and Sterling, Broadcasting in America, 184. The fight between
RCA and CBS to get their rival color technologies endorsed by the FCC is
fascinating and well-chronicled in Christopher H. Sterling and John M. Kittross,
Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Publishing Co., 1978), 296-298.
[9]  Head and Sterling, Broadcasting in America, 187.
[10]  Leo Bogart, The Age of Television (NY: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.,
1972), 302.
[11]  Sterling, Electronic Media, 16.
[12]  George Comstock, Television in America (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991), 15.
[13]  Ibid., 15.
[14]  Sterling, Electronic Media , 236.
[15]  Ibid., 235.
[16]  Barnouw, Tube of Plenty, 113.
[17]  John Michael Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy in the
United States (NY: Arno Press, 1979), 3.
[18]  Ibid.,319.
[19]  Ibid.,342. For example, in 20 all-UHF communities in 1956, the conversion
rate averaged 74 percent.
[20]  See Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy, 324-344, for a
comprehensive chronology of the affiliation disputes.
[21]  Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy, 337; Monona papers, Box
2, Folder 2, 512.
[22]  Gary Newton Hess, An Historical Study of the Du Mont Television Network
(NY: Arno Press, 1979), 217.
[23]  Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy, 9, 298. Beginning in
1954, the number of UHF channels that went off the air exceeded the number going
on the air every year until 1959.
[24]  Ibid., 288.
[25]  James L. Baughman, Television's Guardians: The FCC and The Politics of
Programming, 1958-1967 (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1985),
10.
[26]  The preceding discussion draws heavily on the description provided by
Sterling and Kittross, Stay Tuned, 304-305.
[27]  Sterling and Kittross, Stay Tuned, 463.
[28]  Kellner, Crisis of Democracy , 185.
[29]  Baughman, Television's Guardians, 36.
[30]  Ibid., 13.
[31]  For a concise summary of the political follies of the FCC, see Baughman,
Television's Guardians, 3-19.
[32]  Vincent Mosco, Broadcasting in the United States (Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Publishing Corporation, 1979), 75.
[33]  Richard Bunce, Television in the Corporate Interest (NY: Praeger
Publishers, 1976), 17-18.
[34]  Sterling and Kittross, Stay Tuned, 317. This was in direct contradiction
to the assessment in the report of the President's Communications Policy board,
issued a year earlier, which stated flatly: "There is little possibility that a
UHF station can compete successfully with a VHF station." (Sterling and
Kittross, Stay Tuned, 303).
[35]  Ibid., 325.
[36]  Quoted in Mosco, Broadcasting, 77.
[37]  Display advertisement,Wisconsin State Journal, 9 July 1953. This small
2-column advertisement appeared only once in July 1953, the day after WKOW began
broadcasting. It was embedded in the television listings.
[38]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1, 394-397.
[39]  George Icke, interview by author, tape recording, Madison, Wisc., 28 April
1997.
[40]  "WKOW-TV On 7-Hour Schedule," Capital Times, 9 July 1953. "Today's TV
Highlights," Wisconsin State Journal, 8 July, 1953, 1, 8.
[41]  Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy, 297.
[42]  Wisconsin State Journal, 8 July 1953.
[43]  Bogart, Age of Television, 303.
[44]  Report to the board prepared by Vincent Vanderheiden, Monona collection,
Box 2, Folder 2, 10 March 1954. Vanderheiden also noted that dealers kept
television sets tuned to the WKOW test pattern and gave favorable mention to the
advertising message that appeared with it.
[45]  Wisconsin State Journal, 6 December 1953.
[46]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1, 420.
[47]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1. "Ammon named WKOW Manager," Wisconsin
State Journal, 14 October 1948.
[48]  See, for example, display ads for WKOW, Dairyland News, January 1952,
February 1952, May 1952, April 1954.
[49]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1 , 243.
[50]  Icke interview.
[51]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1, 243.
[52]  According to an article in the Wisconsin State Journal following the 1949
meeting, headlined "Ammon Given Approval on Job/Stockholders Defeat His Foes at
WKOW," a small group of stockholders tried to replace several members of the
board of directors, apparently in an attempt to gain enough support to fire
Ammon. The body of the article fails to explain the "foes" of the headline,
although the company's engineering consultant, Walter Kean of Chicago, was one
of the unsuccessful candidates for a board seat.
[53]  This arrangement proved problematic when the station's FCC license came up
for renewal. According to an article in The Capital Times, published June
14,1950, the FCC questioned the Atlass contract because of the commission's
"well-established ... principle that a local corporation, granted an FCC
operating permit under one set of conditions, cannot later turn over virtual
control of the station and federal license to an outside corporation."
[54]  The radio contract with CBS was important because it gave WKOW an
advantage in securing its television affiliation with the powerful network.
[55]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1, 298.
[56]  Ibid., 343. The company's original FCC application was submitted in 1948.
[57]  The "war" reference is to the Korean conflict, 1950-1953. This discussion
took place midway through the 1948-1952 FCC freeze on new television licenses,
which likely had less to do with wartime restrictions than with national
politics and network maneuvering.
[58]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1 , 298.
[59]  Ibid., 312.
[60]  Ibid., 339.
[61]  Ibid., 345.
[62]  Ibid., 345.
[63]  Ibid., 348.
[64]  Ibid., 350.
[65]  Ibid., 356.
[66]  Ibid., 356.
[67]  Ibid., 359.
[68]  Ibid., 296.
[69]  Ibid., 369.
[70]  Ibid., 372.
[71]  Ibid., 372.
[72]  Ibid., 382.
[73]  Ibid., 382.
[74]  Ibid., 396.
[75]  The Du Mont Television Network officially disbanded in September 1955. For
a full accounting, see Hess, An Historical Study of the Du Mont Television
Network.
[76]  Ben Hovel, interview by author, tape recording, Madison, Wisc., 26 April
1997.
[77]  Peter Mortenson, interview with author, tape recording, Madison, Wisc., 22
April 1997.
[78]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 2, 525.
[79]  Ibid., 542.
[80]  Ibid., 559.
[81]  Ibid., 539.
[82]  Icke interview.
[83]  Ibid.
[84]  Mortenson interview.
[85]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 2, 539.
[86]  Ibid., 340.
[87]  Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 1, 354.
[88]  Ibid., 355.
[89]  Ibid., 359.
[90]  Ibid., 375.
[91]  Ibid., 356.
[92]  Ibid., 372.
[93]  Mortenson interview.
[94]  Kittross, Television Frequency Allocation Policy, 298.
[95]  For an example, see Monona collection, Box 2, Folder 2, 593.
[96]  Blake Kellogg, interview by author, tape recording, Madison, Wisc., 15
April 1997.
[97]  Baughman, Television's Guardians, 57-59. Minow was a native of Milwaukee.
[98]  "FCC Says No to Plea by WKOW," The Capital Times, 9 March 1967.
[99]  Marsh Shapiro, interview by author, tape recording, Madison, Wisc., 29
April 1997.