bpatrick said:
WFAA Dallas/Ft. Worth used to be a hotbed of local programming; when I
lived there in the late '70s, besides "Peppermint Place," it had "Inside Television"
with Belo president Mike Shapiro answering viewers' questions; "Que Pasa?" for
the Hispanic audience; the local franchises for "PM Magazine" and "Bowling
For Dollars"; and "People" with Michael Brown (husband of novelist Sandra Brown,
who also worked at Channel 8 at the time). I'm sure I'm leaving something out,
but I don't see the likes of any of this on Channel 8 anymore.
The recent news of Gannett buying out the TV (or non-newspaper) company/assets of Belo (the split off A.H. Belo still runs/owns the Dallas Morning News and other local papers) started a mini-nostalgia floodgate of old pix in the Dallas paper this week, including a much younger Mike Shapiro (whom I have met once after he retired) and
Mr. Peppermint (done by the late Jerry Haynes).
Let Me Speak to the Manager (which was later
Inside Television) was, to me, a really relevant and ground-breaking show. None of the other stations were interested in devoting a half-hour a week to throwing open the door to an "office" and letting management take comments and questions from their viewers about operations/programming/why-did-you/why-don't-you/etc. Shapiro's show (which used a co-host whose name I can't recall right now) came off professional without going stodgy, stiff, and upper-management (and certainly not the perky/PYT mood that most entertainment-style shows are in these days).
As for the others, KDFW/4 had (I don't know if it's still on or not) a longtime local public-affairs show called
Insights about issues and notables in the local African-American community.
4 Country Reporter (which would move to WFAA/8 later as
8 Country Reporter followed by syndication to other local stations as
Texas Country Reporter) was a half-hour weekly show about folks locally and around the state in feature/local-character style that might get a blip or brief mention on a local newscast otherwise. When the show was on KDFW/4, it had a simpler style, while in it's latter years on WFAA/8's schedule and as a syndie, it got a little too slick and even tried in recent years to jump sharks by doing features in other states outside Texas. This took away from it's local relevance IMO and original spirit of the show. KXAS/5 has done a local public-affairs show called
5 Talk Street for many years; I haven't watched it in a while so I don't know what it's status is nor what tone the show takes if it is still on. They did have a weekend children's show called
The Children's Hour that IIRR was a memory by the late 1980s; it was a combo-meal of puppets,
Davey and Goliath shorts, and other kid-oriented features. KTVT/11 had the longtime morning show
Slam Bang Theater (which in it's last years was a repository for
Three Stooges shorts IIRR) as well as weekend shows later on that had country music acts (one of which was taped or live (can't remember which) with bands on stage at Fort Worth's Panther Hall, another show they did on weekends was
Cowboy Weaver). A WCCW wrestling match show was huge for them especially in the 1980s. One thing that set KTVT/11 apart in the 1980s and early 1990s was that it was made available as a satellite "superstation" so more potential viewers got to see what the station was airing at the time. Most local shows that KTVT/11 had done before the mid-1990s were gone by the time the station flipped to CBS in 1995.
Most local content done now in DFW is really features within newscasts. In recent years WFAA/8 has done a public-affairs show called
Metro relevant to the African-American community; you really have to hunt around the schedule to find it (if it's still on). KERA/13 does a monthly interview show called
CEO which highlights a different local company executive (the DFW area has many locally-based companies for the show to choose from) each episode. Also
Good Morning Texas is a morning staple on WFAA/8 after
GMA but much of it's programming now is infomercial-ish (cooks from self-promoting local restaurants, locally-made or -sold products, etc.). The only other localized stuff is 30-minute car dealer infomercials and local church services/preachers.
