Chapter 10
Jed Burner was the last person on earth anybody would have thought capable of transforming the face of television news.
"TV? Ah don't watch it," he had boasted upon assuming control of a tiny Atlanta UHF station his suddenly deceased father had built from the ground up. "TV's for setters. Ah'm ah doer. Ah've probably watched all of ah hundred hours of TV in mah entire life. Tops."
"So what do you want us to do, Mr. Burner?" asked his nervous station manager on the occasion of new owner Jed Burner first setting foot in the station he had inherited.
"How much this station gross in a yeah?" Burner had asked looking around the master control room and pressing buttons that interested him. Videotape squealed as it went into reverse and a thirty minute episode of Adventures in Paradise went onto the air backward. No one noticed.
"Currently we're losing a half million per quarter."
The sandy-haired man with the crinkling sea-blue eyes paused, took his Havana cigar out of his mouth and said, "Find me a sucka."
"Mr. Burner?"
"Ah'm unloadin' this sinkhole. Now get hoppin'."
The staff of WETT-13, "Your Window to the Sunny South," hopped out of the new president's office, their eyes dispirited. They hadn't expected any better. Jediah Burner was a playboy, a sailor of fast boats, a winner of gaudy brass trophy cups and a relentless pursuer of busty blondes. No one expected him to take the helm of anything as stationary as a troubled TV station.
A week and hundreds of cold calls later, they hopped back into his office.
"Who made the best offer?" Burner demanded.
"The ones who hung up laughing," said one.
"The others told us to shove it," added another.
Jed Burner eased his lanky frame into his seat, put his deck-shoe clad feet up on his desk, and tilted his yachting cap back with a cocked thumb. His eyes crinkled humorlessly.
"What we gotta do," he said slowly, "is turn this scow into a sloop. Make it shipshape. Give it some value."
The staff looked to one another. No one quite knew what that meant. Exactly.
The station manager took a helpful stab at it, though.
"We could put a sail on the roof, I suppose."
Jed Burner fixed him with a nautical eye. "Main or jib?"
"Reef?"
Burner's feet came off the desk and a tanned-brown fist slammed the green felt blotter. "Now yoah talkin'! We need us a new motto, if we're gonna catch us a friendly wind."
"The Flagship of the South?"
"Damn fine thinkin', theah. Get on it. Ah got me some practice runs to make. Anybody wants me, tough. Ah'm gonna be writin' mah name all over the Chesapeake. The Americas Cup ain't that far off."
And with that, Jed Burner left. The staff didn't lay eyes on him again for two months. But they heard about him. Twice he was reported missing. Once, his sloop had been boarded by the Cuban Coast Guard, but he had ended up having lunch with Fidel Castro. Each time, he turned up alive, smiling, and posing for the cameras with a vacuous blonde-sometimes two-rubbing herself against him.
Every time he resurfaced in the station, he had ditched the blonde, but never his smile or his cigar.
"We're still in the toilet," he grumbled on one of those rare occasions, looking at the most recent Arbitron book.
The station manager wore a glum face. "We tried everything, sir."
Burner scratched his beard. "Maybe we need a bigger sail . . . ."
"The one we got keeps getting blown off the roof. We've gone through seven already. It's been costing us dear."
"Dammit. Do Ah gotta do everythin' around heah? If a sail won't do it, fetch me up an anchor."
And with those fateful words, Jed Burner stalked from the building in search of a headwind and headnot necessarily in that order.
The staff looked to one another helplessly.
"Did he mean an anchor anchor or a news anchor?" asked the program director.
"It don't matter none," the station manager returned glumly. "We can't afford either."
"Let's price both and go with the cheaper option."
If the Savannah Nautical Supply House had been having their annual November sale a week later, WETT-13 might have gone the way of the Confederacy. They could have had a nice stainless steel twofluker for $367.99. A bargain. But they missed the sale by thirty-six hours and couldn't afford full price.
On the other hand, Floyd Cumpsty was willing to anchor the WETT-13 News for free.
"I'll even brown-bag my lunch so as not to put any strain on the station cafeteria," Floyd said with the youthful sincerity of a man who knew where he wanted to go in life.
"The station cafeteria," the personnel manager said, "is that broken down candy vending machine you passed in the hall. And why do you wanna go and work for nothing, boy?"
"I hear they make big money reading the news up North. I figure I can learn, get experienced, and seek my fortune up there."
"Sounds reasonable. Except for the living up north part. But first I gotta see if you have the qualifications."
"Yes?"
"Can you read, son?"
"Yes, sir. I'm a high school graduate."
"That hair sitting on your noggin, it the real McCoy?"
"Yes, sir."
The personnel manager stood up and offered a firm hand, "Then let me be the first to welcome you aboard the Flagship of the South. You're our first official anchor."
In those days, there was no news department. In fact, there were no scripts. The WETT anchor assembled his own scripts by cutting up newspaper headlines and changing enough words that no one sued. Then he read them into the camera, frequently mispronouncing words.
No one sued. But a lot of people watched. At first, with their jaws hanging slack in disbelief. Then, with their bellies shaking in laughter. WETT News became a favorite in dorm rooms and seedy bars. People caught on to the headline trick and big money was won and lost on which words the anchor would mangle.
Ratings rose. They did not soar. But a quarter point here and an eighth there meant that in six months they had crept up one whole point. Enough to become a blip on the local TV screen and lure in a few thrifty advertisers.
Eight months of steadily rising ratings later, Jed Burner called.
"Hey! How's the boy?"
"Fine, Mr. Burner. And my name is David. David Sinnott. "
"Now don't get all fussy with me, boy. Ah'm here off the coast, just cruisin' along, with Bubbles and Brenda. Ah heah we got us some upward movement in them poll things."
"They're called ratings. And we've jumped a point. It's not a lot, but-"
"It ain't beans and you know it. Don't you kid a kidder, heah? Now Ah got mah friends in town callin' me about this thing we got on the air."
"WETT News?"
"Yeah. That. Whose damnfool idea was that?"
David Sinnott winced. "It's bringing in some advertising now," he said hopefully. "Elmer's Linoleum Emporium, a couple independent filling stations, and we think the A r people are interested-"
"It bringin' in enough that Ah can sell this talky white elephant?"
"No, sir."
"My friends are also tellin' me they don't see hide nor hair of no anchor on mah roof."
"Oh," Dave Sinnott said, only then understanding that his boss had meant an anchor anchor. "Well, we priced anchors and they were a little out of our range."
"Listen to me, boy: You take that new advertisin' money and you sink some of it-Ah don't care how much-into a shiny new anchor so mah friends won't think Ah'm some kinda windy blowhard."
"Yes, sir."
"Only you don't put it on the roof. Since we got all these nice folks watchin' that fool news show, Ah want it up on the wall behind that idiot what's doin' the readin'."
"Yes, sir."