KTTV TO AIR SPECIAL : BILL WELSH MARKS 50TH YEAR IN BROADCASTING

He’s never made it to the networks, and now he concedes he probably never will. But that’s just fine with Bill Welsh. In a business where faces change as often as some producers change their socks, Welsh can point with pride to his 50-year career in broadcasting.

“The records will show that nobody has been active in television as long as I have,” Welsh claimed the other day in an interview at KTTV Channel 11, his employer since 1951. “There were people who started before me, of course, but no one has lasted as long as I’ve lasted.

“Somebody wrote for me to the Guinness Book of World Records, trying to get me in for having the longest continuous television career. We haven’t heard from the book.”

The Guinness publishers may not be rushing to acknowledge Welsh’s lengthy career, but his 50-year anniversary is not being overlooked by his colleagues at KTTV.

In a 90-minute special set to air Friday at 8:30 p.m. on Channel 11, Welsh’s half-century of work in radio and television will be feted by old friends such as George Putnam--a fellow KTTV newsman since 1952--and relatively new ones, like “Entertainment Tonight’s” Mary Hart, his Rose Parade co-host for the last two years.

Welsh’s career has included stints as a reporter for both radio and television and as an announcer for 63 different sports--everything from USC and UCLA football and basketball to wrestling, lawn bowling, cricket and golf. He’s worked as a bit movie actor, hosted beauty pageants and game shows.

But Welsh is perhaps best known for his coverage of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade. Every year since 1948 he’s described the floats and marching bands in his folksy, low-key style, and he plans to be back in the announcer’s booth next New Year’s Day.

“I just feel like I’m talking to people,” Welsh said of his parade commentary. “I’m not talking down to people or up to people. We’re all on the same level and we’re all friends. I’m lucky enough to be beside the parade route and tell other folks about it. I’m sure going to tell them how it looks to the kid from Greeley, Colo.”

Welsh’s enduring enthusiasm for his broadcasting duties can indeed be traced to that small Colorado town where, in 1935, a younger, but no more youthful, man was hired at his first radio job--part-time announcer for KFKA.

The station owner “listened to me and I went to work that evening,” Welsh said. “I was a disc jockey reading commercials and playing records--big band music. Nobody told me what to do except, ‘This is the switch. You push that switch and the microphone’s up. You push it that way and the microphone’s off.’ ”

His job at KFKA paid $7 a week, “but sometimes I only got $3 or $4,” Welsh recalled. “They just didn’t have enough money to pay me, so I kept a record and I know that they still owe me $22.”

Despite the shaky pay situation, Welsh gave the job his all, often suggesting some innovative programming, such as a remote broadcast from the Friday night dance at the college.

Welsh also persuaded the station owner to try some news broadcasts. During the day he canvassed City Hall, the courthouse, the fire department and police station. In the evening, he reported his stories on the air.

One night, Welsh was obliged to report the murder of a friend, a police sergeant who was killed inside the Greeley police station. Welsh happened to enter the station just after the murder and his on-the-spot coverage was picked up by the Denver newspapers. Denver radio station KFEL took notice and offered him a job.

As a reporter for a big-city station, Welsh was able to make use of more sophisticated equipment--and to cover bigger stories.

“The station maintained a series of circuits at major points where events might take place. I had terminals at the state Capitol, the police station, the train station. We could drive there with a truck with amplifiers and microphones and hook up to these existing terminals and go on the air.”

One day Eleanor Roosevelt came to town and Welsh planned to broadcast his interview with the First Lady from the train station.

“We could not get on the air for about an hour,” Welsh recalled, “and this gracious lady sat in the railroad car that they had put on a siding and waited.”

They passed the time discussing “her family and, of course, her husband. Then she walked with me to the station and let me do an interview with her. She wrote a column in those days called ‘My Day,’ in which she referred to the ‘young man who had persuaded her to wait and to be interviewed at the railroad station.’ ”

Welsh’s goal was to come to the West Coast and, in 1944, an offer from an advertising agency brought him to Los Angeles. The following year he began broadcasting USC and UCLA games on radio and, in 1945, made his television debut on KTLA Channel 5 as the announcer of an ice hockey game at Pan Pacific Auditorium.

The fact that there were only about 300 TV sets in Southern California at the time did not discourage Welsh. “I saw television as the future. People would say, ‘You’re making a terrible mistake. This television thing--it’s never going to happen in our lifetime.’ Three years later, the same people came back and said, ‘Hey, Bill, how do I get into television?’ ”

Welsh continued sportscasting for KTLA and also covered special news events for the station. When 2-year-old Kathy Fiscus fell down a 90-foot well in San Marino in 1949, Welsh was dispatched to the scene.

For 27 1/2 hours he broadcast live with colleague Stan Chambers. “We put ourselves on the air and just started talking. The equipment kept operating and we were still there when they were able to drill a second shaft beside the well and to find that she was dead.

“Television was a little more sensitive to people’s feelings in those days. We did not stay on the air to watch them bring up the body.”

Welsh was asked by the sheriff to break the news to the family. “They lived about a block away and I walked over to the house and knocked. There was no television there. Just the family and me. They let me in and I said, ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Kathy is not coming back.’ ”

The telecast “shut down the town,” Welsh said. “Nobody went to the theaters. Nobody went to the restaurants. They all stayed home.”

The Kathy Fiscus story marked a turning point for television, Welsh believes. “Television was like home movies. You turned it on for a few laughs. Suddenly, here came this event and people said, ‘This thing really has impact. This television has a heart and a soul. It’s more than just entertainment.’ And they realized for the first time how it was going to affect our lives.”

Welsh’s ability to conduct a lengthy live broadcast without the aid of script, as he did that day in San Marino, has served him well throughout his career.

“The secret of being able to ad-lib,” he explained, “is you’re not really thinking about what you’re saying at the moment. You’re thinking about what you’re going to say next. You’re framing that in your mind and your mouth is on automatic.”

Welsh prefers ad-lib, location events to in-studio broadcasts. “The structured telecast with cue cards does not appeal to me. I think we’ve lost something by becoming more structured. The charm of television has disappeared. If you stumble on a word, they do a retake. In the old days, when you stumbled you’d apologize to the audience or you kept on going. I think that made you more of a human being to them.”

Welsh says he’s retained by KTTV because “when they want to do something live . . . they need somebody who can talk and talk and talk.” He currently divides his time between the station, where he acts as director of sports and special events, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, where he serves as president.

As for retirement plans, he has none. “Somebody else is going to have to retire me,” he said. “I’m not going to take myself out of the picture. Retirement almost frightens me because the lack of purpose in life would be very devastating. And now I’ve got more purposes than I ever had. I’ve never worked harder.”