VH-TV : This Medium Massages Fresh Talent

Minutes before the Verdugo News started, anchor Lisa McCutcheon tossed her chewing gum into a trash can.

During her report on the Halloween murder of a Los Angeles police officer, sparkles of light bounced off reporter Bobbie Dean’s braces.

And the entire set came to a dead stop to listen to Vivian Jurado’s breathlessly dramatic reading of the horoscope for Scorpios.

Welcome to VH-TV, the Sunland-Tujunga television station that is run and staffed by the students of Verdugo Hills High School.

Verdugo is the only school in the Los Angeles Unified School District with a television production course that actually broadcasts students’ work, according to Thomas Mossman, manager of the district’s television station, KLCS Channel 53. According to the Assn. of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, only a handful of the nation’s secondary schools offer courses in television production.

Ahead in Ratings

But even more remarkable are VH-TV’s ratings. According to ELRA Group, a San Francisco-based marketing research firm, in some time periods more of the 16,800 Sunland-Tujunga households with King Videocable Co. service are watching VH-TV programs than are watching programs on local independent television stations such as KTLA Channel 5, KHJ-TV Channel 9, KTTV Channel 11 and KCOP Channel 13.

“Finding out that VH-TV was beating the independents was great news,” said Morrie Prizer, president of King Videocable, which uses VH-TV as its public-access station. “The survey also showed that awareness of VH-TV and its shows was right up there with awareness of the networks.”

VH-TV was born in 1971 when Verdugo teacher Monty Hart was experimenting with ways to dramatize the work of students in his creative writing class.

“I realized that television should be taught as a subject of itself,” Hart said. “At the time, the school district was encouraging teachers to originate new curriculum, so I wrote a proposal for a class, it was approved and 1972 was our first year of operation.”

Began in Black and White

Hart said that he had to “beg, borrow and steal” cameras, lights and other equipment for the fledgling television station. The first studio was in a dressing room underneath the stage in the school’s auditorium. The control booth was in a closet.

The first broadcasts from Verdugo High were in black and white and the station’s yearly budget, which came primarily from donations, hovered around $8,000.

But things have changed. In 1976, VH-TV began a two-year transition to color broadcasts. A classroom was turned over to the station and converted into a set and a series of control and production rooms.

In the early 1980s, when the communication industry was deregulated, VH-TV was one of the beneficiaries. The new regulations encouraged local cable companies to give financial help to local broadcasters covering community news. New guidelines allowed small broadcasters to try new fund-raising techniques.

This meant that VH-TV could receive money from King Videocable and solicit King Videocable’s Sunland-Tujunga subscribers for contributions.

Budget May Hit $90,000

The deregulated atmosphere helped increase VH-TV’s budget to a point where Hart can hope that it will reach $90,000 next year. He said the station does not need any district funds to pay for equipment or operating costs.

“We’re like a young performer just about to leave his salad days,” Hart said. “We are just about to hit our stride.”

The half-hour Verdugo News isn’t the only program broadcast by VH-TV. “Open Camera” covers the activities of clubs and community-service groups in the area. “Spotlight on the Foothills” is VH-TV’s magazine show. Similar to its competitor, “Two on the Town” on KCBS Channel 2, it tries to focus on the people and the places that make its community unique.

VH-TV also broadcasts Verdugo Hills High sports--from football to girls’ volleyball.

“About 70% of our kids come from families where both parents work, so the parents don’t often have the opportunity to come to our athletic events,” Hart said. “We think that broadcasting sporting events at times when parents and children can watch together provides a service and creates interest in our school.”

King Videocable and ELRA Group officials would not disclose ratings for the individual VH-TV programs.

To become one of the 15 members of the media production class that staffs Verdugo News and the other VH-TV shows, a student must have successfully completed a photography, journalism, drama, speech or electronics class. Some students are also drawn from the introductory production or English classes that Hart also teaches.

Once in the advanced production class, students must be complete 10 “remote” or field assignments. These can range from covering a varsity football game to interviewing students on their opinions on a proposal for a high school health clinic that would distribute contraceptives.

The report on the health clinic was the first story on Thursday’s edition of the Verdugo News. That story was followed by a report of efforts by Verdugo Hills’ 25-member jazz band to earn money for a trip to Canada. A story on how the local Von’s supermarket is faring through the meat cutters’ strike did not run because the students ran out of time.

Hart said that some VH-TV students have graduated and gone on to jobs in the creative and technical sides of the television industry. Joe Davenport, for instance, worked on VH-TV in 1974 and is now the chief video engineer for Group W Cable operations in the South Bay.

“I knew that I wanted to go into the technical side of TV, motion pictures or theater, but I just didn’t know what I wanted to do and how to do it,” Davenport said. “When I was there I got to do everything. I worked with the cameras, the sound equipment, I wired the whole place. Verdugo’s TV production class is a good way to find out if TV production is what you really want to do.”