In a short time, I will be working in the oldest TV station in the state of Connecticut. Actually, I already work for the oldest, as WTNH (then called WNHC-TV) was the first licensed station here in 1948. What I should say is that I will shortly be working in the oldest TV station building in the state.
And I was actually here when it opened. Well, I was in the state when it opened (working at another station in the state, derisively making fun of the big hoopla broadcast at the ribbon cutting ceremony).
WTNH moved into a state-of-the-art building at the corner of Elm and State streets in downtown New Haven, in 1983. Now some two and a half decades-plus later, our building is about to become the oldest building dedicated to television broadcasting in the state.
That’s because our colleagues at the other stations are in, are just about to be in, or will shortly be moving to–brand spanking new facilities.
The trend started with WFSB, the CBS affiliate, which moved out of downtown Hartford last year into a new gleaming steel and glass building in the ‘burbs of Rocky Hill. A grand building so spacious, they didn’t even finish out all of the space in the two story structure. They even brought a piece of the old space built for the TV station in the 1950’s–a sign that forever dubbed the corner of Hartford’s Constitution Plaza as “Broadcast House”.
That nouveau Broadcast House is about to be joined by another glass and steel edifice dedicated to the broadcast arts to be known modestly as the “NBC Digital Media Center”. It will be the new home for WVIT, the market’s NBC owned station, and the move will be a little shorter than WFSB’s flight to the suburbs, as WVIT was already in suburban West Hartford. NBC Connecticut will only move a matter of a few dozen feet from the current low slung brick building that has served the station since the 50’s to their beautiful new digs, which have risen right behind the old school/prison-architecture styled building.
This new home for WVIT will also be the market’s first local TV facility to broadcast local news in High Definition. Which has led to some interesting concerns for the folks who appear on the air there. Anchor Gerry Brooks, never one to miss a chance to make fun of himself, is chronicling the move and his accompanying fears of being seen in HD, over on his own blog.
Still to come (as we love to say in TV) is a new home for the Fox and CW stations for Connecticut. The two co-owned stations, Tribune’s WTIC and WTXX, are soon to be headed from their current home in a downtown Hartford high rise office building, to new space inside the building of their co-owned newspaper, The Hartford Courant.
After that move, all of the stations in the Hartford-New Haven market (even the HQ of the state’s PBS stations, Connecticut Public Broadcasting) will be in brand new (or still relatively new) facilities.
Well, all except for us down in New Haven.
Lest you think otherwise, I’m not jealous of these developments. (Well, maybe I’m a little jealous because I work in an office that has no windows to the outside world.) I wish my friends and colleagues the best in their new digs.
Enjoy that new station smell, kids.
And revel in the fact that you are probably some of the last people in this business who will to get to do so.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but the simple fact is that like everything else in the world, all of the technology to run a television station is shrinking at a remarkable rate. It’s simple really. You probably know how much less space a flat screen TV set takes up in your home, versus an old style “tube” set. Now imagine every bit of the technology that we use to make the programs you watch on that set, shrinking by a similar amount.
OK, you probably get the picture. (Sorry for the cliche.)
Plus, the economics of running a television station aren’t what they used to be. Building big, honking new station complexes is probably headed to the same place in broadcasting history as vacuum tubes, film chains and chain-smoking in the newsroom.
How do I know this? Because one station group that has built a few new television station facilities in the past few years is now trying to lease out parts of those new buildings to other companies. Why? Because they don’t need all of the new space they built in buildings opened over the past few years.
Sadly enough, that is because every television station is working these days with less. Less people, less advertisers, less space. Less of pretty much everything, including less money.
Some of the floor space is going towards other parts of the business, like station’s websites, mobile services, and whatever else we can think of to grow and expand our 60-year old business into–to assure its’ survival.
But we likely won’t be building any big new “Broadcast Houses” in our future. And no matter how hard I try, I just can’t imagine that the new “NewMediaplusTVplexes” to come, will ever be quite the same.
C’est la vie.
Well written, as usual. New buildings are nice, but content is king.
It’s almost as hard to believe WTNH’s building is already 26 years old as it is to believe that WVIT is actually getting out of that little brick shoebox. We slid in under the tag of the recession. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a freakin’ television station.
Kirk, I’m sure you remember that even at Broadcast House, WFSB leased space to architects on the newsroom (3rd) floor, and the 4th floor was leased to someone else (lawyers?).
And Steven, content is king. But free parking rules.
Gerry your memory is better than mine, but you’re right–Broadcast House was subdivided when I got there in ’83, but I guess I remembered it from later on when Bill Ryan moved the PNS corp offices to the 4th floor.
Enjoy the new digs, and the free parking!
Gerry per usual the real story can always be found in the Brook’s file. Ah to see you dancing with our dear Lady Joan…Yes man the smell of the New Digs..more importantly the fond, warm memories of the fantastic people over the years. Love to you all. PS dont forget that some of us were lucky enough to hold court for more than an hour with Uncle Walter in Edgartown some twenty years ago. Good Luck to all of you ..”KICK BUTT”