Paul ‘Matt’ Dillon

Retired from WLVI and soon leaving our Local as Treasurer.

Q. So tell us about your career and when it began?

A. I started on November 14, 1966. The very first employee of WKBG-TV. At the time they opened it was a joint venture between Kaiser Broadcasting and the Boston Globe. Each had a 50% share. They got the CP (construction permit) back in september of 1966, and I was the first person they hired. The offices were at 3 School street – downtown, just above the Globe. I was actually interviewed first at their Philadelphia station, and they called me back for a second interview here in Boston. My first assignment was to go to Logan Airport and pick up three new Kaiser jeeps and ship them out to their transmitter site on Mt. Zion in Woburn. WXHR-FM was the big classical station in Boston that operated where the transmitter was being built. I was out there for a while putting the transmitter on the air – RCA-TK55 out there, and then about 3 weeks later we started building the studios which were located at 1050 Commonwealth Avenue, on the corner across from Ellis the Rim Man. We built the studio and offices on the second floor. The first floor was the Cummings Dress company, the 3^rd floor was empty.

I had just come out of school – RCA in New York. I was there for two and a half years. They were looking for somebody they could plug right in, and cheap. I was getting $110 a week. The minute we got on the air, Eddie Collins, the president of the union and McCurdy the Business Manager came over and talked to us. We met at the hotel on Brookline Avenue, and about 20 of us voted to join the union.

The station went on the air – December 21, 1966. We were running all independent programming – movies, kid shows. They really wanted to get into the market big time, with kid shows.

We also were into the Celtics and the Bruins. When they walked in, they almost immediately captured that contract. The company sent us a beautiful new truck from RCA in Camden, New Jersey. We were doing the games – we started in 1967, from the Garden. We did that for about 5 or 6 years.

Q. What was your job?

A. I was working in Master Control, but I did everything – tape, audio, studio camera. And when it came time to do the games, I was in the truck – video, switching, audio. I did a lot of slo-mo. We had the old TK-42s. God damn things were over 400 pounds. Running those suckers into the garden, up into the rafters, hoisting them up onto the 2^nd balcony. Then we also did a lot of Boston College stuff, some B.U. stuff. Bowling. It was nice truck. I used to drive it all over the place. I used to drive it down to Philadelphia. We also had the contract with the Flyers. I would drive it and set it up, but couldn’t do anything else – it was a different union down there.

We also put WCAS on the air. 740 AM. Right down at Fresh Pond Circle. The tower is still there. And then in 1968, they took the construction permit off WXHR – 96.9, a classic station and we put WJIB on the air, down at Commercial Wharf. They owned that for a good 15 years and then sold it to G.E.

But half way through, about 10 or 15 years in, The Boston Globe got out of the business and Kaiser went to full ownership. Then they in turn sold it sometime in the mid 70s to the Field Brothers. Marshall Fields of Chicago. They owned it till 1983 and then Gannett bought it, and then they sold it in 1994. Kaiser/Globe – Kaiser – Field Enterprises-Gannett – and now Tribune. I think that Fields was the best employer. Gannett was very good to us, people wise and benefit wise except that they didn’t know what they were doing. They were originally going to buy channel 5. They put in a bid of 400 million dollars, when BBI was selling ch. 5, but Hearst-Argyle came up with 416 million. Gannett still wanted a presence in the Boston market, so they bought LVI in June, but the license was held up for a couple of months because Gannett had put in a bid for the Patriot Ledger. So they had to back out of that deal in order to buy us.

They bought the station for $47 million from Field, and then sold it to Tribune for $20 million. A fire sale. But they also had to pick up the $20 million in programming debt, which Tribune did, so it was almost a wash. As for who the best operator is, well these people are (Tribune). They stuffed a lot of money into it, and made it one of the best stations in town.

Q. What are some of your more memorable moments?

A. Back in those days, there was no cable, and we were often clobbering the other stations. We were running shows like Laverne & Shirley, Three’s Company – all that crap, and the station was doing very well. In those days, from 5 in the afternoon till 8 pm, the dominant stations were not 4,5, and 7, but 56 and 38. This was the late 70s and the early 80’. Phenomenal numbers. Then we got involved with this operation – Prime Time, which was a group out of California. We ran these 3 hour prime-time movies – beating the networks. At that time 38 had the Bruins and they were pulling in phenomenal numbers with the Bruins. We had a guy named – Steve Bell, he recently passed away. This guy was a genius. He would sit down and figure it all out.

"We’ll beat 38 at this hour, and we’ll do this and that." You couldn’t shovel the money into the door fast enough. And we were doing well against 4,5,and 7.

As for memories. I’ve met several presidents. Some of the big people from Hollywood. One guy that did impress me was Peter Falk. I did a whole bunch of stuff with him. I met Bette Davis. I met Ford, Reagan, Carter, a lot of Senators.

One morning I walked into a bowling alley in Brighton and found 4 dead people. Sammy White’s Bowladrome. We were setting up for a remote that day. We came in a 6:30 that morning, pulling cables and power and stuff and tripped over some dead guys that had been killed overnight. That stays in your mind.

Another thing I remember vividly only hapenned 6 or 7 years ago – when the crane fell on the building. That was brutal, it was tough. I was working receive and the tape room. Dick Anderson, who just retired, was working in Master Control. They were just finishing up building the new part of technical operations. The tower was built for Greater Media next door. They built it on the ground, and then the Crane company came in. The tower was about 75 -80 feet. He got it up and then something let go on the crane and he lost control of it. It came right down through the Accounting department. Thank God nobody got killed. I was in the tape room. I watched as the walls, they were all shaking. I looked out the door into the hallway and there’s a tower in the middle of the building. The biggest problem was the water. Flowing in everywhere, because the AC and water lines were all on the roof. Water and the smell of gas. I was one of the last 3 to leave the building. We got out and then shut off the power and now there’s just black on the air.

We got everybody out and did a head count. We didn’t know if anyone was still stuck in the old studio. We called over to Channel 7, they had their helicopter in the air, buzzing the building. We got in touch with the photographer in the chopper to ask him if he saw any holes in the roof of the studio. The fire department couldn’t get their ladders into that space. The only holes were in the front of the building and not over the studio.

We discovered that there were two people missing. Luckily it turned out they were having breakfast over at the Globe. Franco (LaPietra, director of engineering and operations) said to me – you and Max Kirkland get over to Channel 5 right away. We jumped into my car – came out to WCVB, it was around 1 pm. Soon we were back on the air with a feed from WPIX (New York), going through New England Cable News. We were taking PIX off the air – they’re also a Tribune station. I drove back to the building on Morrissey Boulevard, and the fire department let me go back in and I pulled out a whole bunch of shows and ads that had been pre-recorded. I brought them back to CVB, and we’d take the local breaks from PIX. That was a very interesting time. We were out at CVB for 2 or 3 weeks. The folks at CVB thought it was great. They kept coming around and watching us work. After we returned to our stations we had to work out of trailers for a long time.

Another highlight of my career was that I did the remote feeds from Martha’s Vineyard after Ted Kennedy had the Chappaquiddick incident. Channel 5 was shooting the pool video, but we were the mobile feed station.

I was the Shop Steward at WLVI for 35 years. I’ve also been the Treasurer for the past 12 years. I"ve had a wonderful life in broadcasting. I’ve had some health issues, and if I didn’t have these bum knees, I would have stayed out on the streets, or even have gone on to work at the Networks. But WLVI was a good station to work for, like a family. Not a big-big operation. Everybody was always proud of the product they put out.

The most fascinating part of this business – from 1966 until I retired last June is to see just how much the industry has changed. We started off with 16 mm. film- then 2inch mono tape, then low-band tape, high band tape – one inch tape, u-matic – Sony SP and now it’s all profile servers. That whole station is operating almost completely without tape. The only thing on air that’s tape is paid programming – 3 hours in the morning and a few hours overnight. 90% of that station is on servers. A lot of these young people coming in to the business today, have no idea, how difficult it was back then. Hoping that the film wouldn’t burn up on the air, or the cues were right. But I’ve loved it. I enjoyed working out in the field with the remote trucks, and I enjoyed working receive. I have pulled in feeds from all over the world. Uplinked a lot of stuff. I even enjoyed working Master Control.

Q. What are your plans now that you’re retired?

A. We’re heading down on the 29^th of December to South Carolina. We bought a house in Myrtle Beach. I’m just going to take it easy. I have to take care of my knees – to keep these legs going. And now it’s time to enjoy life. I have 3 kids who’ve done very well. On the 19^th I will also retire from a 21 year political career. I’ve been on the Planning Board for the town of Weymouth, 15 years as chairman. That was sort of my hobby – the development of a town. Subdivisions, a lot of capital budget layouts, Master plans for the town. I can’t tell you how many fire engines, or how many cop cars I’ve bought over the years. Budgets for the School Department. It was a lot of fun. I always knew what was going on around the area.

That was a great part of my life, as was broadcasting. When I started work in 1966, I was excited about going into the industry. The day that I retired – June 17^th 2005, I was still excited about getting up in the morning and going to work. It was a good ride.

I was told to move into a warmer climate, we didn’t want to lose the 4 seasons of the year. We don’t really care for winter. It’s very short in South Carolina, just about a month long. So we’ll get a long summer, long spring and long fall – basically 3 seasons. Plus I have a younger daughter who works as a teacher in Charleston, only about 2 hours away from us. She went to Northeastern, and has been teaching down there for two years, and loves it. We didn’t want to go to Floriday – too old. We didn’t want a condo, so we’re having a home built. The funny part is that we’ll have 2 neighbors from Hingham, two from Weymouth and 3 neighbors from Braintree.

If I had my health, I might have stayed on the job for another 2 or 3 years. But I’m very excited about starting our life all over again. I hope to get a dish receiver and try to watch some local Boston news down there. No matter where you go, Boston does the news better than any other city. Quality news.

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