| from Bob Bassett In his service as station manager, Vance Eckersley possessed many enviable virtues - integrity, honesty, patience and a fierce loyalty and dedication to the station and its employees. I never knew him to personally fire anyone, he left that task to an underling, usually Lee Tanner. God knows he had solid reasons to dismiss many of us; in my case alone, I gave him several opportunities to show me the door. I retrospect, I truly believe he enjoyed and relished in the stupid pranks, thoughtless moves and utter disregard for station policy that a number of us displayed on countless occasions. I think it broke the tedium from his daily, monthly and yearly devotion to the overall operation of WTEV, which was continually last in the Providence-New Bedford market. Something had to break his frustration. He received numerous awards, citations and honors from the towns and cities that the station served, but alas, they could never translate into ratings that would lift us from the abyss. I never knew him to take a vacation unless you could call attendance at broadcast conventions or illness and doctors' insistence that he stay home, a holiday. It was not an occasional thing but rather a standard practice for him to be in his office seven days a week! To be sure, he seldom spent a full eight hour Sunday, be he was present nonetheless. The door to his office was always open, never locked, and whenever it WAS closed, it usually indicated an ominous decision was being made or a visit from the ownership was in progress. But he was only human and displayed on occasion, a temper. It was sudden, bombastic, unpredictable and fortunately, short-lived. I was witness to three of his outbursts, and was told accurately and precisely by the engineer involved of the fourth indicent. WTEV had no elevators. Its three floors were connected by a front and rear staircase. One evening as all of us were preparing for the 11:00pm newscast, the came a loud sound of someone rushing up the rear stairway and bolting into the newsroom. It was Vance with paper and pen in hand, bellowing "I'm taking resignations, I'm taking resignations!" To this very day, no one knows what prompted his rage. We all made educated guesses, with the consensus being that he had just been told of our lowly ratings, especially the newscasts. He never explained his actions, but it was quite frightening to all. Vance took great interest in the station's news operations. He was not the Program Director, but for all practical purposes, played the role of that position. He had regular weekly meetings of the entire news staff. One night, he lost control again. A relatively new director named Andy Gerene had been overseeing the early and late newscasts. He was a likeable sort - lanky, thin, with a souther drawl that was high-pitched. At this particular meeting, Vance asked us for suggestions as to how the news persentations could be improved. Gerene began with "Well, Vance, ah think we all shud try an' do a liddle bettah than we all are doin…" -bang went Vance's fist on the table top and literally the ashtrays bounced in the air! Poor erene turned alternately pale and scarlet. He had only made a simple attempt for improvement but apparently his vocal twang just struck a nerve with Vance. To compound his shaky standing, the next week he called in sick on a Monday. He was not ill, but rather had driven to Syracuse for an interview with the station manager. There was an opening for a news director. This was nothing unusual except for two reasons that Vance would discover later that same day. He had a telephone call that went along this line: "Hey Vance - I just interviewed on of yhour directors. He drove up looking for work. Name of Andy Gerene." I was never told of Vance's reply, but the next day when Geren came to work, Tanner fired him. He had not been truthful, and had no way of knowing that the station in Syracuse was the same on the Vance had left in 1962 in order to take over WTEV! Jack Delaney was the station's first News Director and dreaded the weekly meeting's that Vance would call. Our ratings were woeful and the future was bleak. One week, in the midst of this sad standing, we had a news conference. Vance was seated at the end of the large wooden table with the entire staff, including photographers, in attendance. Expecting a long and serious exploratory discussion about improvement, Vance asked Jack for his comments. "I have nothing." Was the reply. The air turned purple and Vance exploded! In 18 years, I never heard him use profanity, but this night came close. Again the fist came down, ashtrays flew around, and the next day, Truman Taylor was made News Director and Jack became a human interest reporter where he excelled. The Providence College Friars have been a major basketball force nationally for years and were covered every season by WPRO, Channel 12 with the fine sportscaster Chris Clark, who was recognized as the "Voice of the Friars". The following incident concerns a year when PRO's contract with the college was up for bids. Naturally, WJAR, Channel 10 along with WTEV wre doing everything possible to acquire the Friars from 'PRO. The team was a guaranteed ratings booster, with the acoompanying profitable sponsorship. Vance and the entire management team saw the tremendous potential in "owning" the Friars, and in doing so, increase the station's image in Providence and finally being able to discard the albatross of "that little station in New Bedford", the view held my most of the audience in Rhode Island. With this in mind, we pulled out all stops and programmed a huge attraction: televising a live, pre-season game between Providence College and the University of Rhode Island Rams, direct form the URI campus in Kingston. For days, our engineers were busy building the remote facilities. The station hired free-lance sportscaster Gus Parmet to do the play-by-play, with me doing the game's color highlights and half-time interviews at center court with Rhode Island Governor John Chafee and both head coaches, Joe Mullaney and Ernie Calverly. Don Gray was the floor director near the Rams bench and directly in front of Gus and I. All during the day of the game, lines and connections between our transmitter in Tiverton, Rhode Island, Master Control in New Bedford and the arena in Kingston were meticulously checked to perfection. There were engineers everywhere at URI, and just ONE on duty at the station in New Bedford. He was John McKnight, a very competent guy, quiet, slight in stature, with a squeaky little voice that was never raised beyond conversational tone. The hour of the telecast was at hand. As usual, Vance was in his downstairs office with his television set tuned to the upcoming broadcast. The was to be a giant accomplishment for Channel 6. The clock wound down to the 8pm start. Upstairs, the director said "Take it, Kingston." The screen went blank. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. Downstairs, Vance was like a stricken water buffalo, but not wounded enough to prevent his roaring upstairs, passed the startled receptionist in the lobby, to barrel into Master Control, directly into the face of John McKnight. "Do Something!" barked a furious Vance Eckersley. Gee, Vance, I don't know what's wrong…" stammered John. "DO SOMETHING, I SAID!" demanded Vance. "Golly Vance, I'm at a loss…" gulped John. "DO SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING!" Vance insisted. "I, I, I, don't know what's happening!" a near petrified John blurted. At this point, a craze Vance went to the other end of the room, picked up a metal tape carton, (with a heavy 1-inch reel-to-reel tape inside!) and flung it in the general direction of the video tape machines, and according to John "It flew by me, narrowly missing my skull! I really believe he was so incensed, that he didn't realize what he was doing or where his was.", John told me the next day. Meanwhile, back at the game, pandemonium was everywhere! Maurice Wynne, the Chief Engineer took over, and was in contact with the station by telephone. Vance ordered him to instruct Gus and I to begin broadcasting the game even though we were neither seen nor heard! Adding to the mess was the fact that is was the television debut of sportcaster Gus Parmet! He never forgot it. After about six minutes, our signal kicked in and we proceeded with the telecast. At halftime, the Governor was nowhere to be found! The coaches stood in the middle of the court feeling like two frozen fools while I searched the arena for Chafee. Finally, after running throughout the confines of the stadium, I located him on the second tier. Taking him by the arm, we scurried downstairs to the delight, I'm sure, of a bewildered crowd. We found our spot in front of the camera at center court. The interview bombed. WTEV never got the Friars contract, and we had to face yet another embarrassing incident. WPRO continued to be the TV home of the basketball team. We also lost out of the Rams, who never affiliated with a permanent station. It was not tool long after that game before Master Control engineer John McKnight left for an engineering position in Boston. |
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