Welcome to my Blog

We're always trying to find ways to improve our web site, KESQ.COM. People are curious about the TV and Radio Broadcasting business, so I will try to provide some insight and perhaps post a musing or two on this blog.

FYI I have been in the business for a long time. How long? When I started there were two TV stations in my home town and no FM radios. AM radio was king of the air waves. Television was black and white. Top 40 was the radio format of the day, and Lawrence Welk was till on TV. We also had some real gems like a Saturday evening Polka show. The musicians painted out some of their front teeth. I can't figure out why, but it's stuck in my mind decades later. My local TV station delayed network programs by projecting the picture on a TV screen and filming the show in black and white. Then they developed the film and played it back later. Yes, when I started only the big market stations had something called "video tape!"

My how the business has changed, and so have I. Along the way I became a disc jockey, a TV news reporter, anchor, television network producer, news director, and finally a General manager. I thought about leaving the business once and went back to school to learn to be a computer programmer. That wasn't much fun so I stayed in broadcasting. Little did I know that someday all that computer training would apply to my chosen career: broadcasting. You see we are about one year away from becoming an all-digital medium. Almost everything we do now invovles a computer. Now I don't claim to know how to program computers any more but I do understand how digital things work. That is a necessary career survival skill in the 21st Century.

Well, that's enough for now. I recall a radio commercial I heard once in my home town. It was done by a local lady who ran a grocery store and did her own commercials. She used to say at the end of the spot "Keep listening. I may sing next time."

Bob Allen