Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409060058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COLLINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
A tornado touches down in Henry County and rips a path of destruction almost 5 miles long.
Workers at Martinsville's Tultex Inc. vote to form a union in one of the largest organized-labor drives in the South in the past decade.
Susan Stone, a former Martinsville bank employee, pleads guilty to embezzling up to $1.5 million from a wealthy heiress known for her kind heart and generosity.
For seven days in mid-August, the Martinsville area was the place for news.
But none of those happenings piqued national media interest like the ongoing saga involving Henry County's competing local television stations - Cable 6 and Channel 57. Since Cable 6 dug into the personal lives of two employees at the other station this summer, a media frenzy has ensued.
The Washington Post sent a reporter and photographer down to do a story.
Maury Povich signed several of the personalities involved to appear on his syndicated tabloid show.
"The American Journal," a national show produced by the same company that owns "Inside Edition," swooped into Martinsville on Thursday.
A writer from People magazine will arrive in Martinsville this week.
"Hard Copy" is considering the story.
The story revolves around Cable 6's exposure of an affair between Bill Wyatt, an on-air personality and principal stockholder in Channel 57, and Ramona Hines, an advertising representative for Wyatt's station.
Cable 6 owner and producer Charles Roark, known for his penchant for the outlandish, jumped on the story from the get-go, first airing a July interview with Hines' husband, who revealed the affair, and then broadcasting a series of interviews with Ramona Hines. She was fired by Channel 57 after the story broke; Wyatt was not.
Wyatt took a three-week leave of absence before returning in early August to make an on-air apology to his wife and children as well as the Southern Broadcasting Network, Channel 57's parent company.
The story's the talk of the town. Both stations have a lot of call-in shows, and viewers have been lighting up switchboards to give their opinions on the matter.
The local newspaper, the Martinsville Bulletin, has all but ignored the story, leaving any references to the issue to readers' comments on the editorial page. "We're staying out of this," said editor Ginny Wray.
But Lori Siegel, who produced the "American Journal" piece that will air in two weeks, says she read other newspapers' articles about the scandal and was fascinated by the personalities at the stations.
"It's really amazing," she said. "Of all the things that have happened here recently, from what we've seen, the community is paying more attention to [the cable television wars]."
Roark, Wyatt, Ramona Hines and Bob Sharp, a reporter who does Cable 6's investigations, are becoming local household names. They've been the main topic of gossip sessions at beauty parlors, convenience stores and anywhere else the grapevine grows.
Tammy Coleman, assistant manager at the Wilco Food Mart on East Church Street, said customers talk frequently about the scandal.
"Bill Wyatt was in here the other day, and a man started questioning him," Coleman said.
Sharp, a former Henry County sheriff's deputy, chain-smokes and has been known to go on the air wearing shorts and tennis shoes, with a coat and tie for the camera. He says he's now recognized more than he would like.
"I wear a hat and sunglasses out to eat sometimes," he said. "Every time I go somewhere, people want to come up and start talking about something."
Roark, 29, moves at only one speed on the job - full throttle. He juggles the daily production of news stories and advertisements, answers phone calls, and still manages to be a reporter from time to time.
Roark's aggressive approach even has some of his employees worried that his life may be in danger.
"He goes after powerful people who have a lot of money," said Tim Shoulders, a Collinsville minister and host of a call-in show on Cable 6 called "Straight Talk." On one of Shoulders' shows, Roark appeared as a guest and listened as the minister criticized him for publicizing the affair between Wyatt and Hines.
Roark - who says he doesn't have time to worry about his life being in danger - took the criticism in stride.
"That's Charles," Shoulders said. "Where else could you sit and openly disagree with the owner of a television station on his own station?"
A native of Brookneal in Campbell County, the short, stocky Roark is enjoying every minute of the publicity his station has generated. He has accepted all interview requests and says he will take no compensation for them.
"You've got to ride the wave while it's there," he said with a chuckle. "Besides, if I turned down interviews after all the people I've interviewed myself, I think that would look a little suspect."
Roark said he hopes the national attention will help Cable 6 get a spot on a new rural cable television satellite system that could put his station in close to a million homes.
"It's a pipe dream right now," he said.
Ramona Hines also is granting interviews, and has hired a lawyer to try to force Channel 57 to reinstate her. Hines, who was compared to Jim Bakker's publicity-seeking secretary, Jessica Hahn, by a Winston-Salem, N.C., television reporter, says she is no "dumb, blond bimbo."
Hines and her estranged husband, Glen, have signed contracts to appear on the Maury Povich's show. So have Roark and Sharp. The show will be taped Sept. 13 in New York.
Wyatt, who has done selected interviews since the story about the affair went public, apparently will not be going to New York. Wyatt read a letter from the Southern Broadcasting Network's board of directors on the air last week that stated that neither he nor his wife would appear on the Povich show.
"This station will channel its energy in a positive direction, and Cable 6 will no longer control us," Wyatt read from the letter. The letter also said Wyatt would do no more interviews.
Southern Broadcasting stockholders who were contacted have refused comment on the Wyatt-Hines episode.
Pete Bluhm, owner of WMVA Radio and president of Southern Broadcasting, did discuss Channel 57's philosophy. He said the station will continue to be "community-oriented" and is attempting to be the television equivalent to talk radio.
Realistically, can two local television stations survive in a market of 20,000 homes? Roark doubts it.
"How can [Channel 57] survive when Cable 6, whether you like it or not, is doing stories that are interesting?" Roark said. "People don't watch television stations, they watch programming. And we're not doing garden shows [like Channel 57]."
Roark, convicted of stealing $100,000 in television equipment from an Asheville, N.C., station several years ago, also has taken offense to statements that Cable 6 is all smut with no substance.
"Sure, we do sensationalize at times, but we also shoot straight at times, too," he says. "And that's the future of local television. It's fast-food journalism."
by CNB