Tv 62 Great New View

FINE ARTS
THE SUN
"KULCHUR"
TV 62 Great New View
By Bill Adler

The huge, airy building on E. Jefferson that houses WGPR-TV, Channel 62, was jumping. Set designers and carpenters continued studio construction, announcers read through their copy in resonant voices, cameramen and editors reviewed taped reports fresh off the streets, wire service tickers chuckled, and phones rang and rang again. The building itself, eventually to house both WGPR-TV and WGPR-FM, was still under construction, and all the doors to all the rooms were open. There was a palpable sense of shared excitement and energy. After all, these workers were in on the ground floor of the nation's first black owned and operated television station.  
Consider that ten years ago there were no black faces on TV. To this day, only 33 of this nation's over 7000 radio stations are black-owned and operated. As of noon, September 29, 1975 Detroiters can tune in a station with an on-air staff that is 99% black, and what's more, a station which pledges that fully 60% of its programming will be conceived and produced by local black talents. Television has reflected an absolute white hegemony since the day it first winked on. Now Detroiters have a station that programs with their interests and unique viewpoints in mind. 
George White, WGPR Vice-president of Programming, outlined the void that Channel 62 will fill: "There wouldn't be any need for a station of this type if things were running as a democratic society should be run. The problem with the general media, and this refers to TV stations too, is that they haven't considered us important enough. Therein lies the need."
Until ten or twelve years ago Blacks were represented on TV only by the likes of Amos and Andy. Came the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement and the diligent viewer could find the rare black face showing up on commercials and variety shows (good ol' Sammy Davis). It was a breakthrough of sorts when Bill Cosby, in 1965, was co-starred on "I Spy" (although it took the network three years to allow him any romantic interests).
1972 saw the advent of "Sanford and Son," starring Redd Foxx and occasionally written by Richard Pryor, which was the first primetime situation comedy show about working-class blacks as opposed to "Julia" which starred Diahann Carroll and depicted "respectable" black folks. Even so, "Sanford and Son" is hardly a hair above the rest of televised fare. With the exception of some locally-originated programming (like Project BAIT's) television is designed to appeal to what the executives conceive of as the "lowest common denominator" of the potential viewing audience, an ideal which tends to perpetuate the ignorance that abounds in America while using it as their justification for continued low-level programming. 
Ironically, television is at once the most oppressive medium and the most potentially liberating. "Power," according to Huey Newton, "is the ability to define phenomena and make them act in a desired manner." People can only act on the information available to them and if you control the information flow you control their possible action too. Television executives, in collaboration with the federal government, know this and deliberately keep things low-key so as not to shake people awake. 
WGPR-TV has the potential now for providing a real alternative, a rare opportunity indeed. The "Big City News," for example, plans to look events in depth which the other "news" shows brush off in 90 seconds. You can be sure that if there's another "riot"- as the white media termed the community response to the shooting incident on Livernois this past August- there will be at least one TV station on the scene with reliable, level-headed reportage. Events in Detroit which are ignored by the other media will be covered on WGPR. Whites should find the approach a refreshing change as well.
How did this miracle, a community-oriented television station, come to pass? So far, every penny of the over $4 million sunk into the station for its studio facilities, brand-new state-of-the-art equipment, and staff has come from the International Free and Accepted Modern Masons (also known as the Black Masons), a 350,000-member international black fraternal organization founded by Dr. William V. Banks, twenty-five years ago.  Dr. Banks, a 72-year-old lawyer-minister, is president of both WGPR-FM and WGPR-TV. He said that the Black Masons raised much of the money by liquidating real estate holdings across the country.  Originally they'd attempted to get bank loans to finance at least half of the project but were turned down cold. "We fooled around with that for about two years." Banks said.
With Black Mason funding assured, Banks went ahead undeterred and applied to the Federal Communications Commission for a license. President (at the time) Nixon was fully behind their effort, according to Banks, and promised to do everything he could to help. After Nixon's removal, Ford likewise pledged support and, indeed, came through when the station needed steel to construct its antenna (now located at 8 1/2 Mile Road and Meyers). At the time Banks was told that there was a 13-month backlog because the federal government was using most of the available steel. "Well," laughed Banks, "he [Ford] put through an order and within two weeks we had the steel."
As the area's eighth television station, there might have been some cause for worry concerning tis continued funding and the search for the advertising dollar. But many advertisers have already recognized the specialized market represented by WGPR-TV, and both national and regional firms have bought time. These include each fo the Big Four automakers, Sears, S. S. Kresge, Stroh's Beer, and many others. In addition, GPR offers a small business package that gives a rate break to many local businesses which might otherwise never have the opportunity to advertise effectively on TV. (WGPR's revolutionary new portable cameras will also cut production costs in this area.) One can only hope that the WGPR-TV advertising and production staffs have more respect for their audience that WGPR-FM who aim their manic commercials at some mythic, mindless consumer. They might also guard against the explicit politics of the auto and oil companies infecting the programming. 
So what, in particular, will we see when we tune in Channel 62? The twice- daily "Big City News," for one thing. Former WWJ-TV anchorman Jerry Blocker heads a young, capable news team of 13 (most area TV stations make do with news staffs of 50 or 60). The "Big City News" has no obligation to the suburbs and consequently serves Detroiters with concentrated coverage of events of importance to them, events either overlooked or skimmed over by the other stations. (See related box.)
Approximately one week from now, as soon as their big studio is completed, Vice-president of Programming George White and the writers and producers who work with him will begin to meet the challenge of their announcement that 60% of WGPR's programming will be locally-originated. The boldness and necessity of this design must be appreciated. Although the population of Detroit is 60% black, one can walk from one end of town to the other and find pitifully few movie theaters which run films with a positive slant on black experience. This isn't always a matter of conscious exclusion. It's simply that black writers, directors, and producers have for so long been barred from Hollywood that virtually no such suitable product exists. White and the WGPR staff had no choice but to do it themselves from scratch. 
A full schedule of the GPR fare in its present state appears at the end of this article. Highlights include:
* "A Time to Live" - black situation drama.
* "The Scene" - dance party featuring live acts, including local artists and records, hosted by GPR-FM dj's Ray Henderson and Nat Morris.
* "Speaking of Sports" - with a local emphasis, including high school athletics
* "Corners of Black History"
* "Detroit Open Line" - TV call-in interview show.
Television stations across the country will be looking to WGPR for quality black-directed programs, and the prospects for syndication are very high indeed. A company in Puerto Rico has already expressed a desire to distribute "A Time to Live" and "The Scene" throughout the Caribbean and even in Argentina, where black information is sorely lacking. 
When WGPR-TV first began broadcasting on September 29 (and the signal is good and strong, by the way), the local media responded with headlines that read "Detroit's 8th TV Station Takes to The Air." It's precisely that type of odd, not to say racist, perspective which should tip off the astute viewer that not only is WGPR the nation's first black-owned and black-operated television station, but it is also Detroit's first television station of any real consequence. 
As George White put it, "Essentially, we are the real Detroit station."