Advertisement WNOL-TV/CHANNEL 38: THE WINNING TEAM AN OPEN LETTER TO MARK LORANDO/TIMES PICAYUNE-STATES ITEM By HAL PROTTER, President & GAIL BREKKE, VP/Gen. Mgr., WNOLTV/GHANNEL 38 Thank you for your article of Monday, March 4th about WNOLTV. The article correctly captures the spirit and en thusiasm of our staff and management at WNOL-TV. They are part of a WINNING TEAM. “IT CANT BE DONE” Against great odds and the prevailing wisdom of the New Orleans Broadcast Community, WNOLTV made its scheduled air-date of March 25, 1984. Channel 38 rented diesel generators on barges, swapped microwave receivers and ob tained help from RCA and Sony. Above all, due to extraor dinary efforts by our staff and management, WNOL-TV made its sign-on date, the combined efforts of a WINNING TEAM! New Orleans had four suc cessful commercial stations prior to WNOL-TV signing on the air. Due to the high penetra tion of cable television, the New Orleans market, was regarded as a risky proposition for a second UHF Independent Station. The "experts" wondered whether WNOL-TV would achieve a measurable share of the au dience in the May, 1984 Nielsen : and Arbitron reports. Various New Orleans stations circulated research pieces on the obstacles WNOL-TV faced in making the minimum reporting standards of Arbitron and Nielsen. WNOL-TV not only made minimum reporting standards, but achieved a sign-on to sign- off 5 share of audience in both Arbitron and Nielsen. This was the result of a WINNING TEAM! - WNOLTV competes with one of the nations biggest, richest and most successful broadcast groups in the coun try. Despite their vastresources, - WNOLTV has been able to tie their local station in three key adult demographics in the November, 1984 Arbitron, as reported in the February, 1985 issue of Television/Radio Age, a respected industry trade jour nal. This achievement illustrates the success of the WNOLTV WINNING TEAM! WNOLTV has already pro duced substantial results for advertisers directing their message towards adults as well as children. Our rating perfor mance continues to surpass our original expectations. We achieved a 6 share of audience sign-on to sign-off in both July and November of 1984. This was in both Nielsen and Ar bitron and made WNOLTV the second most successful UHF In dependent Station in the last five years anywhere in the United States. The result of a . WINNING TEAM! TV PIONEERS WNOLTV tried and succeed ed in establishing technological leadership among New Orleans stations. Our goal was to pre sent the New Orleans viewer with the best quality picture. HAL PROTTER, President We obtained 35mm prints of many of the shows and movies we purchased, allowing us to present our programming and movies at a higher level of quality than was achievable here in New Orleans or in any city except the top three markets: New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. We demonstrated that an entire sta tion could operate on Vz inch Sony BetaCam technology. After some initial automation problems, we achieved favorable results. Our quality is so good that experts from around the nation have flown to New Orleans to see the new technology at WNOL-TV. POWERED BY PEOPLE WNOLTV has, like many new television stations, strengthened its team in its first year of operation. Ten percent of the current WNOLTV staff worked for either of us in other cities and chose to move to New Orleans to join the team. Many GAIL BREKKE, VP/Gen. Mgr. of our original employees came to us with an educational background related to televi sion, but no actual work ex perience in the industry. We. gave them the opportunity to learn actual station operations and grow. These people seized upon the opportunity and delivered, both to us and the viewer. Some of the outstan ding members of our manage ment and staff have moved on to larger markets and. more prestigious stations. Some team members have increased their responsibilities at WNOL-TV. Some have dropped by the wayside. Based upon our suc cess in the industry, some of the very best broadcasters in the na tion have recently joined our WINNING TEAM! WINNING TOGETHER We sincerely hope that WNOLTV has added to the pleasure of our viewers. We will continue to present programs and movies that are technical ly correct while preserving their artistic integrity. We thank our local and na tional advertisers for giving us the opportunity to prove ourselves. We thank our pro gram suppliers for believing that we could transfer our previous success to New Orleans. We thank our viewers for the opportunity to enter their homes and for being discerning enough to first find, then con tinue to view, quality program ming presented in a superior way. And most importantly, we -thank ALL the staff and management at Channel 38 for making us WINNERS! DON! STAY HOME WITHOUT US WNOLTV NEW ORLEANS