Advertisement

THE BIG TIME: Anaheim a broadcasting center?...

Share

THE BIG TIME: Anaheim a broadcasting center? Well, perhaps once the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame and Museum opens at Anaheim Stadium in May. . . . Retired publisher Arthur S. Schreiber founded the museum in small-town Freehold, N.J., six years ago, but says it needs Anaheim’s tourist traffic. And to help attract it, he’s scheduled a banquet Oct. 15, and on his list of inductees is America’s highest-ranking broadcaster: onetime play-by-play announcer Ronald Reagan.

BROADCAST NEWS: Nowadays Los Angeles TV newscasts include Orange County items, but all-Orange County news programs have been short-lived. Public station KOCE and commercial station KDOC both tried and eventually quit--too expensive for small broadcasters, says a KOCE official. . . . But cable may be the key to success. Orange County NewsChannel, the 24-hour-a-day cable news station, is now seen on all cable systems in the county. TV ratings services don’t include its small audience, says a spokesman, but during the Laguna fires, “viewership was so high in Orange County that it passed the threshold” for measuring ratings.

PIONEER: Six Los Angeles and Orange County television stations have stationed news crews in Orange County, but once Jim Cooper had it all to himself. . . . Assigned here in 1966 by Channel 2, he spent the next years rushing film to Hollywood, sometimes while dangling from a helicopter’s rope ladder. . . . Now, says Cooper, “they just microwave it in.” Cooper, now retired, still produces occasional specials for KOCE.

Advertisement

SUMMER SCHOOL: Brace yourself. This summer, some 100 Fred Roggin wanna-bes will invade Orange County in their quest to become sports announcers. . . . Sportscaster Camps of America in Newport Beach offers a weeklong workshop in which students practice studio newscasts and try calling games at UC Irvine and Anaheim Stadium. . . . L.A. Kings broadcaster Bob Miller, a camp instructor, says hockey is the hardest sport to call. “It’s hard to be accurate and still keep up with the action.”

Advertisement