"…DAN SAID 'I'VE BEEN LET GO'…" 

"Dan called me into his office one day and I saw he was packing a cardboard box.  'I've been let go', he said.  After Dan left I was asked about being production manager, but the whole setup seemed a little shaky to me and I passed.  Mainly I didn't want to stop directing and doing the things I wanted to do.  Carol Mountain from Creative Services became production manager and did a good job.  Carol came to me once and asked me about getting more into management but all I wanted to do was direct as I had done for over twenty years.  A few years later, what happened to Dan Boger also happened to Carol …she was let go.  At that point the department was being run by committee which included Mike House in Creative Services and the news department."
 

Jim with long serving WTVT film supervisor Maggie Kitchen

"Dave Whittaker, General Manager at the time, wanted us to get the situation squared away.  I was offered the job of running production and took it.  When Dave Boylan became general manager, he gave me the title of Director of Operations.  I had two assistants…Marc Scarpa, the A.M. supervisor, and Jack Hubler the PM supervisor. These two Directors/Supervisors are responsible for the cross-training programs implemented and the high quality production people we hired.  I continued directing for a while after that but eventually the paperwork became overwhelming.  Keeping track of the schedules and stuff only allowed me to direct once in a while."

"…MAN, WE WERE REALLY HUMMING BACK THERE ABOUT TWENTY-TWO HOURS A DAY…." 
 

Jim operates camera on The Kathy Fountain Show

A busy news production schedule kept Jim and the crew hopping at the new studio.  Although Pulse Plus! had been left behind on the schedule with the move other live programming quickly took its place.  Besides the four-plus hours of news programming daily at WTVT, The Kathy Fountain Show was produced weekdays after the noon news.  "Kathy Fountain was an ambitious four-camera show with a live audience," recalls Jim.  "There was only a ninety second break from the news to Kathy's show, which ran four or five years.  Kathy got some great guests and did a wonderful job handling them, the audience, and live phone calls." 

Technology continued to evolve and WTVT maintained its leading edge using more visual graphics and dynamic transitions from studio to live and taped reports.  WTVT needed every weapon in its arsenal as competition from WFLA, WTSP, WFST, and the 24-hour Bay 9 News operation heated up.  Gone were the days when management would look the other way when news ratings dipped because the financial rewards of audience share were too lucrative to dismiss.  The Tampa Bay area had moved from a top 25 market to a more financially attractive position on the Nielson scale: #13. 

If Jim and the other long-timers thought the departure of Gaylord, construction of a new building, and white-hot competition were events affecting their lives, nothing could have prepared them for the incredible change that occurred in 1994 when Fox Broadcasting acquired WTVT.  Not only was there another change in ownership, but a change of network too!  After thirty-nine years as a CBS affiliate, Channel 13 would become an O & O of the aggressive young Fox Network.  WTSP would be taking the CBS affiliation while WFTS would become ABC.  In one amazing moment the landscape of Tampa Bay television had changed. 

Eric Allen, Larry Pacific, Jim, and Gene Windsor were long-time WTVT employees

"It was a shock when we learned about the change to Fox," admits Jim.  "CBS was an older, conservative kind of operation while Fox was the new kid and ready to try anything.  We took a ratings hit from the transition but our News Director at the time, Bob Franklin, said to keep with it and after a time we were back on top.  We've had some great news directors and some great people who made it happen quicker than I thought it would." 

Randy Hardison serves as TD in WTVT's new control room

The switch also affected operations in master control, according to Jim:  "I remember the last year of CBS affiliation working broadcast control for two or three hours a day because of a shift schedule.  This would be during the day and it wasn't hard…a promo or commercial getting rolled in every half hour.  When Fox came in all the shows were syndicated and we were rolling spots every five or ten minutes!  Man, we were really humming back there about 22 hours a day.  We were using Beta players and machines that looked like vending machines with the tapes rotating around." 

Fox affiliation allowed WTVT to run more news in the morning and prime-time slots for a daily total of over eight hours of live programming.  "We've got thirty-four people in our production department now, whereas in the old days it was eight or nine people.  It takes ten or eleven people for the newscast depending upon the number of cameras you use in addition to the jib camera." 
 

Jim was proud of the fact that WTVT still used camera operators for news production

Camera operators are a species becoming extinct at stations around the country.  Not so at WTVT.  "Channel 8 uses robotic cameras but WTVT sees fit to keep camera operators on staff," states Jim with some pride.  "We do 8 ½ hours of news each day and about 5 on weekends.  Robotics has its place but we spend a lot of time going back and forth between studios and the production crew does it very well…at least for now, people still can give you more than a robotic camera."