Operation Prime Time - History

History

Al Masini, who represented 18 stations for advertising sales through his company TeleRep, discussed the independent stations problem with other independent stations after a broadcast media meeting in February 1976. Determine to offer an alternative, Masini rounded up a steering committee to form the new venture. Initial members of the committee included Shelly Cooper, General Manager of WGN-TV Chicago, Rich Frank of KCOP-TV Los Angeles and representatives of KTVU, WPIX and KSTW. At the next broadcaster convention, the committee met to develop the details. The OPT committee then contacted Frank Price of Universal Television for the first program. Price offered Taylor Caldwell's novel, Testimony of Two Men, as a miniseries with Universal taking on a fifth of the production cost. The committee was initial able to get 22 independent and 53 network affiliated stations to sign on to OPT. Advertisers like General Foods and Bristol-Myers abandoned the rival potential fourth network, Metromedia's MetroNet, for OPT based on Metromedia's near Big 3 network cost per thousand viewers ad cost and OPT reaching 80% of the country. Masini line up 93 stations, 73 of which where affiliates of ABC, NBC or CBS. These big three affiliates had to set aside their regular network prime time commitments for OPT. KCOP's broadcast of Testimony of Two Men first installment got a 16 rating and the second installment got a 18 well over their standard 4 rating, but in May, a traditional rerun period for the networks.