LATER I HAD a final meeting with John Kluge. I knew that he did not want me to leave Metromedia. We sat down in his office, and he was very encouraging about my job offer.
“If they get that station in Boston, and they do all of the things they say they’re going to do, that station will be worth a lot of money. I think you’re the right guy for the job, Bob. They couldn’t have picked anyone better.”
He then wanted to know what Krivin had given me as severance pay for my nineteen and half years at Metromedia.
“John, all Al gave me was my accrued vacation pay. That’s it. That’s all he gave me.”
John frowned.
“Bob, I’m going to give you a whole year’s salary, and I wish you the best of luck. But I want you to remember something: if that station ever comes up for sale; you let me know because I want to be the first one standing in line to buy it.” Later on, those very words were to come back to me. John gave me my one-year’s salary, which came in handy since I had to come up with money to protect my stock position in BBI.
I later learned that Al was telling people how stupid I was to leave New York and Metromedia and to go to work for a group that didn’t even have a license to run a television station. Al worked until he was 90 years old for Merv Griffin as a consultant. I never saw him again.
As I look back now at WNEW-TV, I realize that it was the most competitive job I had ever had. All of those stations in the New York market were tough competitors, and everything they did made my team have to fight harder. New York was not Washington. In some ways I liked Washington better because it was a smaller market, and I had the chance to really experiment with local programming. WNEW had been embedded for years in their certain way of doing things, and change did not come easy. Plus, New Yorkers have always believed that they are the best at whatever it is they do, and that New York is the best place in the world to live. I am not going to argue with them.
It was time now for me to leave New York. I packed my bags and as usual, went on ahead without the family.
“Here we go again,” Marjie said to me, “Only this time, Bob, you’re going to go to work for a television station that does not even exist yet. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
I kept nodding my head saying yes, but I really had no idea how bad and how shaky the situation was up there. What exactly I was walking into I really didn’t know. Up until then, this case had been the longest running regulatory case in U.S. history and it had been a complex series of court decisions, challenges, appeals, and behind-the-scene dealings.
When I agreed to take the job, WHDH-TV’s permit renewal was not extended, and was now in the hands of BBI, so there was some comfort in that; however the final outcome of the case was uncertain since it was still under Judicial Review. WHDH, the denied renewal applicant, still had the right to run the station, and they filed a petition to the FCC for reconsideration of their decision. The fireworks were still going on louder than ever, and there I was now sitting in Boston.
WHDH-TV was coming up with whatever they could to discredit BBI, and apparently they had been doing a very good job at it. Even though I had committed myself to the job, and felt good about my decision, there were still so many things that everyone was unsure about. I remember my own thoughts were very muddled. I knew I had a job to do so I stayed focused, but I was very aware that I was betting my bank account on my homerun.
I knew that Boston was in my future—yet one thing was for sure, and it was not a very comforting thought—BBI did not have clear access to that channel—not yet anyway. The Herald Traveler Corporation was still running WHDH-TV.