Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202210359
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COLLINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
TABLOID TV HITS HOME
Even while flipping burgers, Charles Roark never lost his dream of building a cable TV empire.Roark envisioned the day when he'd be invited to talk shows where Phil and Geraldo would inquire about his improbable rise to power and fame. Of course, they'd also ask about the burglary conviction that temporarily put him out of TV and landed him at McDonald's.
He would revel in their questions - his brush with the law would add to the Roark mystique. Not even his idol, Ted Turner, could say he rose from burger flipper to cable mogul.
"It makes a better story, doesn't it?" Roark says.
Indeed, it does.
Roark got back into the TV business two years ago and now owns a video production company that provides local programming for cable subscribers in Martinsville and Henry County.
The venture has grown into Cable 6, a 24-hour station that reaches more than 19,000 homes with a mix of local news, high school sports and community affairs.
Cable 6 is a cross between "Mayberry RFD" and "A Current Affair."
Hometown Trash TV.
A feature on a local lingerie shop was spiced with footage from a steamy video. A report on a crime-infested neighborhood featured a man exposing himself. Roark even considered showing scenes from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" during a news story about a local man who sacrifices animals for religious purposes.
"Charles knows that trash sells," said Tim Martin, a former partner. "His philosophy is that the only bad publicity is no publicity."
Roark - always thinking big - says he has developed a formula at Cable 6 that one day will make him the next Ted Turner.
As Roark sees it, cable will continue to erode the profitability of the big three networks and their local affiliates. Enter the low-budget cable access station that can tailor programming for local audiences and target advertising for local businesses.
Cable 6 is a makeshift operation run out of a strip shopping center. With no money for a first-class studio, Roark's staff took hammers and paint brushes in hand and did the work themselves.
Roark arrives each morning with no firm idea of what will appear on the air that day.
The production crew constantly improvises without the top-of-the-line cameras and editing equipment that network affiliates can afford. The cameraman doubles as a talk show host; the news director handles the play-by-play at high school basketball games; the office manager hosts a community affairs show.
Roark, a pudgy ball of energy, bounces around the Cable 6 offices doing three or four things at the same time. He is so restless that he doesn't have his own office because he can't stay put long enough to use it.
"He was born running, and he's been running ever since," said his mother, Azile Roark, a real estate agent who helps out around the office by answering phones and keeping the books.
Roark takes time out from his morning schedule to talk about his ambitions. He is seated behind a desk, listening to questions while he glances sidelong at a TV monitor to his right.
Is it unrealistic to think that Cable 6 will make Roark a household word one day?
"No," he says. "Look at what people said about Ted Turner when he started Cable News Network."
Roark excuses himself and returns in a few seconds later with a book on the history of CNN. He flips to photographs on facing pages. On the left is a rundown house where Turner began his network. On the right is CNN's imposing office building in Atlanta.
Does Roark think his company will have an equally impressive address one day?
"No question about it," he says without hesitation. "What I'll do is revolutionize local television."
Roark, 27, noted that Ted Turner did not get into the business until after he had turned 35.
"I've got eight years' head start," he said.
Roark became obsessed with the tube when he was a small boy growing up in Brookneal, a small tobacco town in Southside Virginia.
Roark drove his family crazy by flipping through the channels while they were trying to watch a show or by climbing up on the roof to tinker with the antenna so that no one could watch anything.
Roark's life changed forever when his family became the first in Campbell County to own a satellite dish.
The dish was wired directly into Roark's bedroom, where he had four or five television sets. He would stay up all night, basking in the glow of exotic images beamed from all over the planet.
His father and grandfather ran a department store, and everyone expected Charles and his older brother to join the family business.
But Charles had no interest in becoming a merchant. He saw TV as a means of escape and an opportunity to succeed on his own terms.
"I think he has an incredible desire to not live in the shadow of his own family and to make a name for himself," said David Hungate, technical director at Cable 6.
After high school, Roark spent a couple of restless semesters at a junior college in North Carolina. In 1985, he moved to Lynchburg and went to work for a clothing store his father had bought.
"He worked for me a while," Wallace Roark said, "but he was more interested in his television."
Charles Roark would sneak away from the job and work on a combination apartment/TV studio he was building in the rafters of his father's downtown warehouse.
With makeshift equipment that would later become a trademark, Roark and some pals produced an underground TV show called "Video Cellar" that debuted in 1986 on Lynchburg Cablevision.
Calling himself "Mad Dog," Roark was the show's "veejay" who introduced music videos purloined from satellite transmissions.
The sophomoric show fell by the wayside in 1987 when Roark moved to Roanoke and began began taping commercials for Cox Cable. The job led to Roark's first big break - a chance to share the spotlight with Ted Turner.
Roark produced "Roanoke Headline News," a local program that aired every 30 minutes during CNN Headline News on Cox Cable.
Roark pushed his equipment and inexperienced staff to the limits, but the show was plagued by production values that seemed amateurish when aired along CNN footage. One reviewer called it "one of the most juvenile acts of broadcasting" he'd ever seen. Roark could not afford to upgrade his equipment on his salary.
What Roark couldn't buy, he decided to steal.
In May 1988, Roark broke into WLOS-TV in Asheville, N.C., and loaded more than $100,000 worth of cameras and editing gear into his compact car. He was stopped for speeding a few hours later in Collinsville.
He pleaded guilty to grand theft and was placed on probation for three years.
In retrospect, Roark says he was so afraid of failing and so terrified at the prospect of asking his parents for help that he acted in desperation to save his fledging company.
"I'm married to this medium. Just like everyone would do anything for their kids, that's the way I was.
"Looking back on it, it was a silly, stupid thing to do. But look what's happened," he said, waiving his arm around the Cable 6 studio. "It may be one of the best things that ever happened to me."
Roark launched Cable 6 in April 1990 with a $40,000 loan co-signed by his father and the production gear he had been accumulating since his "Video Cellar" days.
He leased a cable access channel from Adelphia Cable and began selling commercials. Cable 6 now produces more local programming than many big city cable systems, including Cox Cable in Roanoke.
There are no surveys available on the size of the station's audience, but advertisers say somebody must be tuning in.
"Everywhere I go someone has something to say about it," said Terry Mitchell, co-owner of Mitchell-Howell Ford, the station's largest advertiser.
Roark sees himself as nothing less than the savior of cable TV.
He believes that technological innovations such as inexpensive, miniature satellite dishes will enable viewers to bypass cable companies.
He says the only thing that can save cable is local programming that a national satellite company cannot provide. Each town will have four or five local stations - news, sports, talk shows and classified ads.
"Local programming is what is going to keep people tied to a wire," he said.
His ambition is to put Cable 6 on firm footing and then start similar operations around the United States. Eventually, he hopes to tie together all the local stations through a satellite network that would eclipse CNN.
He believes it will be another two years before he's ready to expand to other cities.
Roark has been talking about becoming the next Ted Turner for so long that it's unclear whether it's his destiny or his delusion.
Is he a creative genius waiting for his opportunity to redefine television? Or is he a child of the satellite age playing out his fantasies?
Those who work with Roark say his potential is unlimited.
"Would I be surprised if he become the next Ted Turner? Hell no," Hungate said.
"Let me put it this way: Charles will be incredibly successful or he'll be destitute. There will be no middle ground."
Some say Roark's downfall is that he underestimates the amount of money and business experience needed to run a television network. Ted Turner came from a wealthy family and a solid business background before he got into TV; Roark has never held a steady job and would rather tinker at the editing board than think about the bottom line.
"He's impatient. He can't wait to pay as you go," said Wallace Roark. "He knows how to work hard, but he needs to make sure there's a profit at the end."
Charles Roark said he is improving his business skills. Cable 6 has run numerous promotions - including a "Best Waitress" contest - aimed at local advertisers.
Roark now tries to stick to a daily schedule and his mother has put him on an allowance to help manage his money.
He claims that Cable 6 is breaking even after two years, but declined to release the company's advertising revenues.
Azile Roark, who keeps the books, had a different perspective on the station's finances.
"The prime thing is not money, but just satisfying what he wants to do," she said. "We live dangerously."
Keywords:
PROFILE