Pledge Breaks

During the month of November, WUSC-FM is in the middle of its Fall fundraising drive. I just checked the web site and at the time of this writing we have raised $5,839 towards our goal of $6,000. We have 6 days left to raise the final 3%.

Left: On the air at SCETV with Tom Fowler explaining how the computer department was involved with the pledge breaks. I am no stranger to non commercial broadcasting doing pledge breaks. I cut my teeth on the SC Educational TV pledge breaks back in the 80s. Like SCETV, WUSC-FM does not get enough financial backing from state or university funding to operate each year so we have to make up the difference through our fundraiser periods.

At SCETV, this meant that we would be doing live pledge breaks and that meant a lot of extra work for everybody. Live television productions are labor intensive. The minimal crew consisted of a director, an audio operator, a production assistant, a video operator, a broadcast engineer, a Chyron operator, a lighting director, three camera operators and a floor crew chief. In addition to the crew, there were 2 -3 co-hosts in front of the camera along with 15 – 20 volunteers answering the phones. During pledge periods the computer department also was involved with a supervisor who managed the running numbers of the dollars raised on the screens on the set and oversaw three temporary data entry operators who entered the pledge information into the system.

My normal 8 – 5 day expanded with a return to the studio after teaching my 6 PM aerobics class at the YMCA to work from 7 – 10 PM making sure that every pledge was counted and the totals that were displayed on the screen were accurate. Wednesdays and Fridays were easier since my aerobics class met on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Mine is but a small example of the increased hours that everybody on the operational side of SCETV put into the effort. I think the poor director and production assistant who were assigned to the fundraising effort had it the worst of all. They were there during every live moment of the fundraising period. No, they did not have weekends off; in fact the weekends were some of the longest days for them. Weekdays, the fundraising breaks began around 4 PM and ran till 6 PM. They resumed during prime time after the 6 PM news block and continued until 10 PM or later. Weekend fundraising started shortly after noon!

I especially liked the programming that we ran during the fundraisers. When I did my first fundraiser in 1980 the programming consisted of PBS presentations of classical and big band performances. Toward the end of my tenure there we had transitioned to folk music and oldies. I remember those oldie and doo-wop stage shows hosted by the “Ice Man” himself. No not the mob killer; Richard Kuklinski but the awesome 60s singer, Jerry Butler. Jerry has had over 55 Billboard Pop & R&B Chart Hits as a solo artist, including some 15 Top 40 Pop Hits in the Hot 100, and 15 R&B Top 10's.

A short digression here; Jerry Butler was also a politician having served as a Commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, from 1985 to 2018 when he retired from politics. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Impressions in 1991. I agree with the music writers and critics who think that Jerry also deserves a second induction as a solo artist, based upon his successful career as a recording artist and songwriter after leaving that group.

The pledge breaks also got me a chance to be in front of the cameras for a time in the late 80s; first being interviewed about the involvement of the computer services department in the pledge collecting and reporting process. And even for a time as a co-host during the afternoon children’s programming. Hundreds of times I said, “Hey boys and girls, it’s time to find Mommy and Daddy because I need to tell them about something important. The volunteers answering the phones would not take a pledge from a kid. It was not unusual for my train of thought to be interrupted by hearing one of the volunteers tell a child that they needed to talk to Mommy or Daddy. That invariably resulting in me repeating the message one more time.

I must admit to running hot and cold as a co-host. It had been a while since I had been on the air and it was tricky getting back into the presenter mindset. There was no script for these pledge breaks, just a few talking points to assist 15 minutes of nonstop adlibbing with my co-host. If I got distracted, I would drop back into DJ chatter mode and that was not a good mix for fundraising on television. Some of the time, I’d look back on those videos and say “not too shabby.” Other times I’d be thinking “OMG!” All in all, I thank the producers for the opportunity to come out from behind the scenes at least for a little while.

It was during this time that my involvement as a crew member of the PBS Firing Line Show began. William F. Buckley was faced with the problem of trying to convince his high powered debate guests that each was being given an equal amount of time to make his or her case. Henry Cauthen, the president of SCETV at the time, thought of the fundraising display which was written by a member of my computer services staff and asked me if it could be modified to show the time each debater had. We migrated the display from the Digital Equipment Corporation VAX system to a DOS laptop and piped the video output to 4 monitors on stage where all the debaters could easily see them. When I demonstrated the system to Bill, he asked if I could begin travelling to the Firing Line Debates and operating the system for the show. That relationship began in 1985 and continued even after I left SCETV until 1999 when the last firing line debate occurred in December in New York City. The Firing Line show ended a couple of weeks later when Buckley retired from broadcasting.

I want to take a moment to thank the listeners of The Backbeat Show on WUSC-FM for donating over $600 towards our $6,000 goal. You guys are the best! My last show during the fall fundraiser is Monday at 10 AM. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could raise the last $161 to make our goal then? Oh MY!