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The Station Across Town: A Lincoln Boyhood, the Federation I Did Not Watch, and the Second Half of a Television Diptych

When I was sixteen, I had a television show called Kidding Around on KOLN/KGIN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was 1981. I was a teenager hosting a teenager-aimed program on a commercial CBS affiliate, three blocks of which I have no doubt were paid for by advertising for Pepsi and Levi’s and the Lincoln car dealerships that kept American local television alive in the early Reagan years. The format was loose. The show featured kid interviews, viewer letters read on air, and unscripted segments of the kind that the FCC’s mandates for “ascertainment of community needs” were supposed to encourage and that the FCC’s 1981 decision to deregulate radio, followed by the parallel television deregulation of 1984, was designed to kill. Kidding Around did not survive into the late 1980s. It was a casualty of a specific federal policy decision documented in the book I published earlier this year, Selling Saturday Morning.

Continue reading → The Station Across Town: A Lincoln Boyhood, the Federation I Did Not Watch, and the Second Half of a Television Diptych

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Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

[Author’s Note: This poem was written in honor of Gene Bunge’s retirement from the Nebraska ETV Network.]

As in earlier times the Town Crier might report very
reluctantly
“The saddest news of the day concerns our good friend
Gene Bunge.”
Distinguished by a heritage of Minnesota’s sons and
daughters who are
Long on character and rugged strength, his record
Reflects dedication to their truths which he
learned at length
From those fine people who believed and taught
honest effort and sincere dedication
to honorable causes.
And to whom he listened, took their words to heart
without doubt or hesitation.
That his years of constant effort here in Nebraska
have certainly made sense
Is demonstrated happily in our common
cause of network excellence
And have resulted in a distinguished record
that cements
Nebraska’s pride in the network’s fine accomplishments.
We’ll remember too Gene’s interest in supporting
symphonic music and the arts
And in the local theatre he became a man of many parts!
So Gene’s reached high in his lifelong quest
You have to agree he’s done his best!