LOOKING BACK

Busy looking back through various records and papers - mostly in-house newsletters and my own collection of stuff - to update and add more facts and events that happened during the history of CFPL-TV.  After reading the first half I had written back in November, I just wasn't happy with it, so I dug out all of the old stuff I have on record to add more to a new series of TV history.

I'm not quite done, but have run across some interesting things you might like to remember from back in the early 1950's.

Here's a reprint from the December 1956 of The Fourth Estate, (a monthly Free Press staff publication), by Mike Woodward who had interviewed Bob Reinhart, Station Manager.

"CFPL-TV quietly celebrated her third birthday on November 28. The party wasn't a formal affair - only friends and close relatives attended.

Not much by some standards, but in the Canadian telecasting field, that makes us veterans. The important thing is that the 85 staff members of the station represent three years of experience, not one year of experience learned three times.

We asked Bob Reinhart, the station manager to look back at our progress, and sum it up. It can't be expressed more simply than the way Bob put it: 

"We've learned that before saying "no" to anything new, to analyze it, and think the matter over. Almost anything that is worthwhile is a lot of trouble.

"Three years of experience have taught us not to be narrow minded about the future. Our path has so far been full of sudden changes. And most important of all, the public is interested in what we do. The good things and the mistakes. 

"Through the switchboard and the mailbox, the public of Western Ontario has proved that it has a right to help us make decisions. We are, above all, here to serve them."

WHERE DO WE STAND TODAY?

"We're still learning. So is the whole television profession. We're learning but the nucleus of keen men and women who form the backbone of the station are part of the business. They know what they're doing, and in that atmosphere, newcomers to the staff catch on quickly, and become part of the team. There's a realization that every part of the station and every member of the staff is important to the whole, and a realization that the station is  more than electronics and a pile of bricks....it is people.

"The emergency is now the daily crisis. We've had many emergencies, but today most of them are merely problems. That's a sure sign of growing up."

HOW ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Television, up until now, has been a lusty, energetic youngster. And like a child, it has grown rapidly, physically. Now we stand on the threshold of a new period of growth in which we will mature. It's some thing like the transition between a boy and a man. For want of a better word, it will be a period of consolidation ... weeding out the weak points in our operation, and strengthening the good ones. The good ones are the building blocks of the future."

Ignoring the insistent telephone calls and the stacks of problems on his desk, Bob put across the big point:

"Television will be a big success if we remember our obligations to the public. The biggest block to success could be a lack of human resources. If we have the men and women with the sincerity and the ability to face problems head-on that the future will surely demand, then television will be one of the biggest successes in history.

" Even now it is too big for any one person or only one station to be selfish. Think what it will be like in the years ahead."