(from "Radio and Television the Hard Way" by Ray C. Smucker ©1971 by Ray C. Smucker.)

Our company, KTAR, which was headquartered in Phoenix, had opened a television station in Tucson. As was often the case in those early days of TV, with the cost of equipment so high and the skeptical time-buyers still sitting on the sidelines, there was a lot more "outgo" than "income." So the day finally came when the bonds we had been putting away went to the Tucson station to keep it operating. It was a great blow to me, because television had excited me so that I could hardly wait to get into it.

It was in 1953 that a TV station did come to Yuma, and seventeen months later I started the most interesting, frustrating, imaginative years of my life. While I was still at KYUM radio, we were fighting for our lives for the advertising dollar; but it was a losing battle. More and more TV sets were being sold and more and more advertisers were canceling radio and trying out the new medium.

The new TV station had started under a financial cloud, instead of being paid for when it went on the air, everything was owed for. The station was constructed ten miles west of Yuma in California and financed by investors in both California and Arizona. One week before the grand opening the manager quit. This left the reluctant owners in quite a bind. They had no experience, little program material with which to get started, practically no even half-expereinced help, and no network connection. The one thing they did have going for them was the enthusiasm of the people of the community. When the reluctant owners arrived on the opening day, they found no manager and no promoter. So they appointed a manager from one of the employees and went on the air.

We tried hard to hang onto our clients, but it was a losing battle. It gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I knew we were through with the heyday of radio.

Seven managers came and went during the next seventeen months. Finally, one of the owners approached me and asked if I would be willing to take over the management, thinking that I might be able to do something with it. I was consumed with desire to take it on, but I felt I owed so much to my boss that I had a meeting with him to talk it over.

He told me, "Take it. We'll put it in the little state network with Phoenix and Tucson, and if it amounts to anything perhaps KTAR will buy it out."

In March of 1955. I drove across the river bridge and out into the sand dunes to begin three years of what was to be the most valuable experience I could possibly have gotten.

Here was a station that covered an area of not more than ninety thousand people, and a sum total of about twenty thousand TV sets in their homes. The sets were divided between Yuma Valley in Arizona and the Imperial Valley in California. The station, KIVA, had to serve two separate communities, in two separate states, and most important, in two separate time zones. When it was six o'clock in Arizona, it was five o'clock in California! The California people were not interested in Arizona news, and the Arizona people were not interested in California news!

The seven managers who had run the station at different times had signed one hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars ($186,000) in past due contracts for unused films alone. The station owed over a hundred and fifty thousand on equipment and who knows what else. I tried my best, but I could never get a correct audit. There were tax liens, state and county, and every merchant in both valleys had extended them all the credit they had asked for!

On a Monday I drove over to the dismal little gray cement block building sitting on a sand dune, sat down in the manager's office, and started the war of my life. There was no network affiliation to the station, we had only the bare necessities to pass for equipment, three or four semi-experienced TV men, and about ten other energetic but totally inexperienced people.

No one could put any money into the operation until the creditor situation had been untangled. We owed so much money on unused film that the minute we put a penny in the bank, our creditors would file on it. I used every technique I could think of to stall for time in making payments. Some of them I cussed out, others I pleaded with, and with some I threatened to walk out so they would never get their money. At the same time I had to handle them in such a way that they would let us keep on using their products!

The third day I sat in that manager's chair I got a call from the Internal Revenue Service man, who happened to be a friend of mine. He told me the station was twenty-two thousand, seven hundred dollars behind on its withholding tax money. I was not surprised, after all, we owed everybody. He also said that if the owners couldn't face the responsibility, then the IRS could go after the general manager.

The situation was bad and it took its toll on me. I gained twenty-five pounds and had trouble sleeping at nights. Then the answer came to me as I tried to sleep one night. Why not have a 'stockholders' meeting? The citizens of Yuma had invested many thousands of dollars in TV sets, and we had the only transmitter that would bring them a picture! If we were forced to close up, they would be left sitting there staring at a blank tube! It was a desparate move, and I didn't know how the people would take to it; whether they would think I was trying to con them, or whether facts were facts and would have to be faced. Right that minute I made up my mind to hold a "Stockholder's Meeting of the Air."

Each Monday night from 9:30 to 10:00, I went on the air and "laid it on the line." I explained how the viewers had their investment in their TV sets, and we had what little money we had invested in the station. That made them "stockholders" in a sense. I could see the newspaper clippings ripping us to pieces, while the radio station would take great delight in knocking us down to try and get back what business they'd lost to us.

I didn't spare anything. I gave them all the details, including how the thing started. After it was over I wondered if I had done the right thing.

The next day, businessmen started calling and asking for one of our salesmen to stop by. The newspaper and radio competitors started getting calls from irate viewers saying, "Why don't you get off their backs and help us put the station on its feet?"

In those days all of our programs were on film, of course, so we could put on as many commercials during and between shows as we could sell. Soon we began getting a few complaints from viewers about the number of commercials we were running. So the following Monday night on the stockholders meeting, I explained the advantage of this policy for all of us. "Look, if you see three or four commercials in arow, don't complain. That means we're selling more time and making more money. It's when you see only one commercial that we're both in trouble." The "Stockholder's Meeting" was doing its job, and doing it well.

Later on, we started getting programs on film from NBC, CBS, and ABC. This meant that we'd have some big ticket shows (with no compensation to us), but we wouldn't have to buy so much other programming to fill in the time.

The station was getting better, but still had money problems. The equipment was breaking down a lot and there was no money for spare parts.

The wildest thing we did was to get connected to see the World Series -- live. There wasn't any direct connection of any kind to a network, everything we saw was on film, we had no microwave link to hook us directly.

About two weeks before the start of the World Series, my chief engineer came in and said a salesman from Lambda-Pacific had been in to see him, and they were sure they could put a link in to deliver the World Series live, off Mount Wilson in Pasadena by way of the Laguna Mountains, if we could buy the link. The cost would be close to fourteen thousand dollars. I thought it over and came up with an idea. On Monday morning I went down to the bank and laid the plan out with them. The bank liked the idea and then I told a few other people I knew. That gave me the courage to tell our "stockholders."

"As most of you know, the World Series is coming up in a couple of weeks. If you and your wife were to go, it would cost you at least ten dollars a seat, and that would be for just one game. There is a company that makes microwave links for carrying live television. They claim that they can construct a microwave link that will bring the World Series into Yuma, but it will cost nearly fourteen thousand dollards. As you know we've been gaining on our indebtedness, but even if we did have the money to spend it wouldn't be fair to bring in the World Series. Our obligation would be to use that money to increase our payments to our patient creditors. So here is my proposition.

"If there are enough of you who would like to see the World Series and would be willing to put up ten dollars for the privilege, we'll go ahead with the plan. I've arranged with the bank to collect the money and issue a receipt to each of you who participate. If we don't collect enough money, or if the microwave link doesn't work, you will only have to present your receipt at the bank and your ten dollars will be returned. There is just one hitch in this whole operation. You all know our financial situation, and you know how many creditors we have waiting to get a shot at any money we take in. That means you'll have to trust me and make the checks out to me personally. If I decide to head for Honolulu and never come back, that'll just be your tough luck, so it's a matter of trusting me. We'll be at the bank at ten o'clock tomorrow morning and see what happens. We'll have a short stockholders' meeting at this same time tomorrow night, and I'll fill you in on what has happened."

When I got home that night I said to myself, "Smucker, you have to be some kind of a brand new crazy fool."

I was at the bank promptly at ten o'clock the next morning to see whether my idea had worked or whether I'd turned out to be the world's biggest jerk! My eyes popped when I got there. The people were lined up like it was a soup kitchen in reverse, plunking down their ten dollars and more. Four women were writing receipts as fast as they could. When the bank closed at three o'clock that afternoon, we had over fourteen thousand six hundred dollars in the vaults, and all in my name! I was tempted to look at a Brazilian travel folder, but decided against it!

That night I went on the air and gave the good news. We ordered the link. Three days later it arrived. We showed it on camera and the engineer who had been sent to install it drew a diagram on a blackboard to show how it would work. We would pick up Mount Wilson, then beam to the Laguna Mountains, then shoot ninety-six miles across the desert of the Imperial Valley. Ninety-six miles! It was the longest hop ever undertaken by a microwave link at that time. The people saw what they had bought. Now would it work?

The interest around the valley for the next couple of weeks was at a fever pitch. World Series parties were planned. TV sets were being installed in theatres for those people who had no sets, and other people went out to buy sets. Sponsors were calling to get in on the act, and for the first time, the entire population was getting ready to see the World Series live.

The engineers worked feverishly, driving the 126 miles to the pick up point in the Laguna Mountains. They had to set the microwave dish and adjust it while the pickup point on Pilot Knob had to be wired. We had spent the people's money and it just had to work.

The series was to start on Wednesday, and by Monday the link was installed. But it still had to be lined up. Then came Tuesday morning, they were still trying to get the picture to span that ninety-six miles. The picture would bounce in and then they'd lose it. Whenever they got some kind of picture we'd interrupt whatever was on to let the people know how we were coming along.

But time was the enemy now. As dawn broke, we were five hours away from the game, and the signal still wouldn't sit still. We kicked the transmitter on at six o'clock in order to keep the viwers informed. We were scheduled to hit the network at nine-thirty for the pre-game warm-up. By ten o'clock the thing still wouldn't work. I knew I had to face the audience.

I must have looked like death warmed over, having been up all night and not having shaved or changed clothes. But it was the only thing I could do. I didn't go into any too technical details, because people wouldn't have understood them anyhow. Again, I just told it like it was, and said that if anybody wanted their money back, we'd return it to them. However, I explained that we were not giving up, and that by the next day we fully expected to have a picture. Only one man asked for his money back, and he apologized for that, too.

Sure enough, by working another 24 hours, we were able to get a picture; and by the time the series ended, we were giving them a really clear and concise picture. And not a soul complained. We used the link for the next year to bring in live events, and then finally hooked in with A.T. & T. from the coast. But the people of Yuma got to see ttheir first live World Series, and that was what we had set out to accomplish.