Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408150055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
Take a philandering newsman, his talkative mistress, a convicted felon and a deadbeat dad. Mix them all together, and what do you get?
A cable television war, Henry County style.
Like it or not, smut sells, says Charles Roark, owner of Henry County television station Cable 6.
Roark didn't blink when he had the chance to dig into the personal lives of two people employed by W57BZ, a competing station in Martinsville that broadcasts over the air on Channel 57 and can be found on the local cable company's channel 20.
"The story was just too good," he said.
Meanwhile, viewers and advertisers are eating it up.
"Our response has been phenomenal," said Vicki Belton of National Glass & Mirror Corp. in Collinsville, a company that advertises with Cable 6. "The gossip and the hoopla are what seems to keep people watching."
This is how the story developed:
Since Roark started Cable 6 four years ago, the station has become known for its penchant for sensationalism.
On May 1, a group that includes Pete Bluhm, the owner of WMVA Radio in Martinsville, started Channel 57 as a community-oriented station that bills itself as a provider of programming with class.
Several weeks ago, Roark aired an interview with the husband of a Channel 57 saleswoman who claimed Bill Wyatt, Channel 57 vice president, had stolen his wife, Ramona Hines. Wyatt is also Channel 57's news anchor and a principal stockholder in its parent company, the Southern Broadcasting Network.
Hines, who lost her job at the station after Cable 6 broke the story, then did an interview with Roark and later responded to questions from viewers during a live call-in show.
The same night Hines was live on Cable 6, Wyatt returned from a three-week leave of absence. He opened his own call-in show on Channel 57 with a wrenching confession, during which he admitted to the relationship with Hines and apologized to his family and Southern Broadcasting.
On Cable 6, Ramona Hines and Roark's investigative reporter, Bob Sharp, watched Wyatt's confession. Sharp and Hines then discussed the meaning behind Wyatt's words, and callers lit up the telephone lines on both stations in a gossip free-for-all that would have made Geraldo Rivera blush.
Before the show ended, one viewer called Hines names and another called Sharp a deadbeat dad for shirking child support.
It's all in a day's work for Cable 6, with its skewed definition of news and its willingness to follow the outlandish.
Channel 57, though, is battling Cable 6 for advertising dollars and viewers, and continues to promote itself as a classy alternative to Roark's no-holds-barred approach.
How two local television stations can survive in a small market of 20,000 homes is a story in itself, but the conflict between Cable 6 and Channel 57 has people talking - and watching.
An informal poll conducted at two convenience stores revealed that people not only knew what was going on, they had strong opinions about it.
Said a manager at one of the stores in Martinsville: "I'd like to get Sharp and Bill Wyatt in the same room together. I'd take care of both of 'em."
Even U.S. Senate candidates are paying attention.
Marshall Coleman made a live appearance with Roark on Cable 6 in July. Asked why he decided to spend time at the station, Coleman said, "One of my supporters [in Henry County] told me I needed to come to Cable 6."
Coleman also visited Channel 57.
Roark, 29, has been convicted of theft three times. One of those convictions was a felony: He was found guilty of grand larceny after he stole $100,000 in television equipment from an Asheville, N.C., station.
Sharp, a former Henry County sheriff's deputy, has been in jail twice for failure to pay child support.
Neither tries to candycoat his past.
When he came to Henry County four years ago, Roark says, "I said, `I'm Charles Roark and my background's not too good, but here I am.'''
He started Cable 6 as a one-man operation and now has nine full-time employees housed in a small corner of a strip mall in Collinsville. He said plans are in the works to move to a bigger building.
Deborah Buchanan, an advertising representative at the station who also does a call-in show, said Cable 6 generated more ad revenue in the first half of 1994 than it did all of last year.
Like National Glass, other Cable 6 advertisers contacted for this story said they are ecstatic about the results they're seeing.
Robin Bryant of Bryant Radio Supply in Collinsville said Cable 6 has many pros and cons, but "that's why people watch."
"It's a small town, and you can find out just about anything about anyone" by watching Cable 6, she said.
Advertisers with Channel 57, however, say they prefer that station for its more professional approach.
The two stations are in fierce competition for advertisers.
Brent Lavinder of Owens Window and Siding Co. in Collinsville, which advertises on Channel 57, produced an anonymous letter he received. On a small piece of bond paper, someone scribbled in blue pen: "Please do not advertise on [Channel 57] or you lose a customer."
Other businesses that advertise with Channel 57 got similar letters.
One Channel 57 advertiser, who asked not to be identified, said: "Cable 6 plays on the ignorance of the people in Henry County. It make me sick."
Shown a copy of the letter sent to Channel 57 advertisers, Roark denied knowledge of it but said the tactic is nothing new. He pulled a slew of documents from a file cabinet - copies of newspaper stories about one of Roark's theft convictions that he says were sent to Cable 6 advertisers.
"Viewers really get into what we do," Roark says.
And just what is Roark's philosophy of what Cable 6 does?
"We're the station for the little guy," he says. "Eighty percent of our viewers are factory workers. The other 20 percent are the people we go after, who want to see what we're saying about them."
Roark said he considers himself one of those "little guys" and can identify with how Cable 6 viewers feel.
"[Viewers] feel suppressed," he said. "Five or six people run this county."
One of the public figures Cable 6 has continually shadowed is Henry County Sheriff Frank Cassell. The sheriff has fought off accusations from the station on everything from ineptness to corruption.
Cassell keeps a video collection of his Cable 6 favorites that he plans to use to his advantage if he ever needs to.
"They walk on the edge of a knife every day," Cassell says of Roark and Sharp. "Sooner or later, they're going to slip."
Roark said Cable 6 has never been sued, in part because the station is willing to broadcast apologies when a mistake is made.
"We admit when we do something wrong, and we don't have a problem with it," he said.
Cassell said his job - and the jobs of everyone at the sheriff's office - are made harder because of the time spent almost daily dealing with Cable 6.
"The No. 1 problem we have in Henry County is drugs, and No. 2 is Cable 6," Cassell says. "It's funny, but some of the things those people do are scary."
Cassell said he has always had positive working relationships with "legitimate" media, including Channel 57.
"I worked with Bill Wyatt when he was with WMVA Radio [in Martinsville], and he's always done a good job," Cassell said.
Cable 6, in the past few weeks, has aired reports accusing Cassell of publicly stating that he was going to put the station out of business.
"That's simply not true," Cassell said. "But if they do go out of business, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."
What's Channel 57's opinion of all of this?
Wyatt declined to be interviewed for this story, as did several members of the Southern Broadcasting Network's board of directors.
"We don't need any negative press," said Pat Painter, a network stockholder.
Bluhm, who also is president of the network, did discuss Channel 57's approach.
Bluhm has been with the radio station for 38 years and was a pioneer of the talk-radio concept in the Martinsville area. He said he hopes Channel 57 will be built on those same innovative principles.
The station is the first in the Martinsville area to have UHF broadcasting capabilities, and Bluhm said it was Wyatt's idea to seek a broadcasting license for the station. Wyatt was working for Bluhm at WMVA when the idea surfaced.
"We're trying to create a top-notch TV station the community can be proud of," Bluhm said. "I'm not going to comment on what [Cable 6] does."
But Roark did comment on Channel 57.
Asked if there's any way both stations can succeed in a small market, Roark said: "I can see a point in the future when we could merge," he said. "And I'm not saying that I couldn't work with Bill Wyatt."
by CNB