Television Sports Anchor
But Gillis became best known as a television sports anchor. He began his sports report on October 1, 1962 (the same night Johnny Carson debuted as host of The Tonight Show). WHDH-TV expanded its late news from 15 minutes to a full half-hour to accommodate extended weather and sports segments. During the period when WHDH-TV held the license to Boston's Channel 5, the station was the flagship of the Red Sox TV network. After the team's improbable 1967 American League pennant, its TV ratings soared and Gillis was able to use film highlights of the team's games during his sportscasts. However, relatively few of the games were telecast compared to today's diet of 162 regular season broadcasts, and Ch. 5 would send a cameraman to the games that were not telecast live. This often meant that the 11 p.m. newscast featured only highlights from the early through middle innings, since the film had to be rushed from Fenway Park to the station's studios in Dorchester to be developed, edited and finally aired. Gillis would use the filmed highlights to set the stage for "telling" the audience about the late, and often decisive, action.
In March 1972, however, Herald-Traveler Corp. lost its battle for a permanent license for the television property. Gillis, along with much of the on-air staff, were hired by the new licensee, Boston Broadcasters Inc., to establish an on-air presence at the new WCVB-TV, and Gillis carried on as sports director. Even though the Red Sox did not follow, ratings for the station's newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m. remained high. When WCVB-TV was acquired by Metromedia in 1982 for the highest price then ever paid for a local television station, Gillis was one of many stockholders who profited handsomely from the transaction.
Read more about this topic: Don Gillis (sportscaster)
Famous quotes containing the words television, sports and/or anchor:
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward,”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)