West Palm NBC affiliate turns 50 this Sunday with a lot of achievments under it’s belt like being the 9th most watched station in the country, top NBC affiliate in Florida, and 7th in audience share natiowide. NBC5 also has the longest running lead female anchorwoman, Laurel Sauer, who’s been with the station for decades. WPTV may also be 50 but it’s enjoying a shiny new studio worth a good $24 million with 2 control room and capabilty to handle up to 7 TV stations.
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Top-rated WPTV turns 50
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Top-rated WPTV turns 50
By Bob Betcher staff writer
September 23, 2004
WEST PALM BEACH — WPTV Channel 5 can trace its roots back to a potted palm.
A greenhouse in Palm Beach, complete with ferns, indoor foliage and potted palms, was the original home of Channel 5 when the station signed on the air 50 years ago Sunday.
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“We needed a big open space, and that greenhouse was perfect,” said WPTV Program Director Bernadette O’Grady. The station operated from the renovated site, at 5 Coconut Row, for its first 17 years.
Since that humble start, the Scripps-owned NBC affiliate has dominated TV viewing across the Treasure Coast and in Palm Beach County.
The outlet continuously outdraws the competition. In May, Nielsen Media Research proclaimed WPTV the top-rated TV station in all of Florida.
The most-watched program, not just on WPTV but of all stations, is often News Channel 5’s 6 p.m. local newscast, which attracts about 136,000 viewers ages 18 and older on a typical night, according to Nielsen.
A Stuart-based advertising agency, Cotton and Co., has placed numerous ads for clients on WPTV over the years.
“The station is very credible,” said Mary Lewis, vice president of media. “People have grown up with them. They’re almost like family. Their news staff has always been very professional and the longevity of their anchors, their top-ranked NBC shows and NBC News — it all translates across the board.”
To mark its anniversary, WPTV plans to air a string of on-air promos through the end of the year featuring local celebrities. The celebration will culminate in December with a one-hour special marking the station’s half-century of broadcasting.
The early days
At 1 p.m. Aug. 22, 1954, WPTV signed on. The first words were uttered by control room director Vern Crawford, who later became a fishing reporter for the station: “The power has just been turned on for WJNO-TV Channel 5 by Frank M. Folsom, president of the Radio Corporation of America.”
Channel 5 was known as WJNO-TV until 1956.
In the early days, the station didn’t have its own developer and had to send film out for processing.
“Film used for newscasts had to be in by 2 p.m. in time for that night’s early-evening newscast,” recalled Buck Kinnaird, the station’s sports director and public relations executive from 1962 to 1990.
“We’d take it to a fellow in southwest West Palm Beach, he processed it for us and hung it out to dry on a clothesline. In those days, local news ran only from 6:30 to 6:45 p.m.”
Anchors stick around
Longtime employees and former staffers say the seed of the station’s popularity was planted decades ago.
“Part of station’s long-term success has to do with the longevity of anchors,” said Kinnaird. “For 17 years, it was (weatherman) Tony Glynn, (news anchor) Bill Gordon and myself. We helped build the foundation.”
“Viewers liked to see the same people, they don’t like change. We had no contracts. It was a handshake deal and I never had to ask for a raise in my life. They knew how to treat people.”
Even when NBC was No. 3 in the ratings nationally in the late 1970s, WPTV was No. 1 here, according to Nielsen.
Part of Channel 5’s success also had to do with limited competition in its early years.
Channel 12 (then known as WEAT-TV) took to the air Jan. 1, 1955 as an ABC affiliate. At the time, the network had limited appeal with such forgettable shows as “Ozark Jubilee,” “Medical Horizons” and “Down You Go.”
CBS, meanwhile, with its popular schedule of Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan and Arthur Godfrey programs, was top-rated nationally, but difficult to tune in here. The nearest CBS affiliates were in Miami and Fort Pierce, and the latter outlet didn’t debut until 1965 and initially only reached St. Lucie and Indian River counties with a decent picture.
The Brooks era
Bill Brooks was the station’s colorful general manager from 1975-1999. An ex-Roman Catholic priest, Brooks set the tone for years, bringing Joey his dog to work, kibitzing with employees and passing out carnations to all staffers each St. Patrick’s Day.
Brooks was known to tell an off-color joke or two and easily mingled with reporters in the newsroom. A platoon of young reporters — some even from Channel 12 — sought his professional and fatherly guidance and about their careers.
“Consistency is always a virtue,” said Brooks, who is now a consultant to the Florida Association of Broadcasters and a member of the town council of Palm Beach. “I was never going to be able to hold on to good reporters as this market kept on growing. But we had our strength in our front lines.”
Tony Glynn, known on the air as “your Atlantic weatherman” and dressed in a gasoline station attendant’s outfit, also would double as host (dressed in black tie) for openings at the Royal Poinciana Playhouse.
Station’s success
“General managers, particularly Bill Brooks, have been a big part of our success,” said anchor Jim Sackett, a fixture at WPTV since 1978. “He knew how to get the most out of people without being overbearing or having a ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ mentality. He let us do our jobs and that certainly brought out the best in his employees.”
Said Brooks of Sackett’s longevity: “He’s got believability, no mood swings — what you saw every day is what you got. He has no hidden agendas.”
Sackett’s on-air partner, Laurel Sauer, has been an on-air presence in West Palm Beach for decades.
“As far as I know, I’m the longest-running female lead anchor in South Florida since Ann Bishop (of Miami’s WPLG Channel 10) died and I’m proud of that accomplishment.”
The station believes part of its continued success is dispatching reporters to far-flung corners of the world to cover breaking news. For example, Tim Malloy, who lives in Jupiter, has been assigned to such hot spots as Iraq, Korea, Italy and, most recently, Punta Gorda, where he covered Hurricane Charlie and came home with an injured knuckle from flying debris.
New state-of-art digs
WPTV moved into its current $24 million home at 1100 Banyan Boulevard in 2001 with about 150 employees.
There are a few potted palms still around but the 70,000-square-facility which is built for both analog (traditional) and high-definition TV and also includes two control rooms, a green room, anchor prep room, and a mural depicting past and present WPTV and NBC personalities and logos — including the old NBC peacock.
And its master control operations can handle six or seven different TV stations. Already, control rooms within WPTV handle the output of Channel 5, Channel 55 (WPTV-HD) and WPXP Channel 67 (Pax TV).
Looking ahead
When WPTV debuted back in 1954, its market ranking was well over 100 (that is, the West Palm Beach-Fort Pierce TV market was somewhere north of the 100th largest TV market in the country out of 211 markets nationwide).
Today, this market stands at 39 — and rising fast. “We’ll likely be in the top 30 within 10 years,” said program chief O’Grady.
Added Brian Lawlor, WPTV’s vice president and general manager: “When we started out over on Coconut Row, this was a sleepy market. We’re poised to continue to offer cutting edge television here. I don’t think we’ve ever been stronger or with a better commitment to television that we are today.”
– bob.betcher@scripps.com
WPTV at a glance
• Cable channels: Channel 3 on Adelphia Cable in Martin, St. Lucie and Palm Beach counties; Channel 5 on Comcast Cable in St. Lucie and Indian River counties.
• Address: 1100 Banyan Blvd., West Palm Beach, FL 33401
• Phone: (561) 655-5455
• Number of viewers: Within any given week, 590,000 households watch the station at least once, according to Nielsen Media Research.
• Web site: www.wptv.com
