:: Earl Green - Freelance Television Writer / Producer ::

Today marks my 17th anniversary of working in broadcasting. I am also 34 years old. I’ll let you work out the slightly depressing math there.

Having spent half my life in the local broadcasting business, however, I feel like I’m qualified to off you a little bit of advice, especially the youngsters out there (assuming any of them are reading this). And I think it’s fairly sound advice. (more…)

There were many more promos produced in the latter half of 2000 than usual due to the resurrection of the news department at competing NBC 24/51. A good sized flock of 40/29 personnel left for the new gig, including weather anchor Steve Gibbs, reporters Tobie Edwards and Rhonda Justice, and others. Their news debuted on August 3rd, 2000 (one day after the end of July sweeps), and with that in mind, management at 40/29 took the decision to treat the August-September-October doldrums like one big sweeps period leading up to the November book, just to make sure we were in the limelight at much as 24/51.

I wasn’t originally hired to do production, promotions, or even graphics. My initial job description at Fox 46 was a plain, simple, full-time board op. But overnight shifts are frightfully dull, and I wound up experimenting with the station’s Video Toaster 2000. This would have one of two results: I’d get fired, or someone would notice that I was demonstrating an interest in doing something other than manning the control room all the time. The station’s sole promotions producer at the time did notice, and soon I was helping him tag episodic promos for syndicated shows. In mid-1994, the station acquired a second-hand Video Toaster 4000, a much more powerful system…which came with absolutely no documentation whatsoever, and was on the verge of obsolescence. It sat in a room adjoining the control room, unused, until I began to feel my way around that system during the overnight shift as well. Early in 1995, Fox 46 premiered its own nightly five-minute weathercast, having acquired a relatively powerful PC-based graphics system in mid-’94. With these two tools at my disposal, I began to produce on-air work in earnest, though often unofficially.