Bill Bored | A History in Brief
The rise of MTV in 1982 set a lot of investors in search of the next music trend. A few tried creating UHF TV Channels in small markets. I was one of the first Video Jocks in Anchorage, Alaska. I had the 10PM-2AM shift live on the air. A tiny booth with a single light, a camera locked in talking head shot. A bank of 5 - 3/4" video tape players and with my right hand out of shot -- fade down video, fade up camera and your audio at the same time, perform the VJ Break live, intro upcoming bands, pull down audio, dissolve to commercial break, then jump up and manually switch out video tapes and cue up the next to play.
This opportunity lead to the developement of a couple of themed programs I was able to create, produce and air during my weekly shift. I hosted a live program "The No Wave Hour" (a way to play not in regular rotation, followed by a pre-edited 1-hour program called, "Bombshelter Videos." After a programming director and format change, the late night VJ's were let go and I needed a home for the series that had created and had a loyal following.
Lucky for me Cable TV had this thing called Community Access. With cable I had a bigger audience and viewers didn't need to dink around with those round UHF Antennas. Needless to say, I continued producing and airing Bombshelter Videos weekly 2x's week in prime time. Until I packed up and moved to Seattle in June of 1987.
By October of 1987 Bombshelter Videos was airing as a weekly half hour TV program on KSTW TV11 late night Thursdays at 1:00AM and being broadcast in Western and Eastern Washington and Vancouver BC. At one point, based on Nelson Ratings, Bombshelter Videos was generating more than 40,000 weekly viewers.
<<< Anch, AK 1985 | Seattle, WA 1991 >>>
The rise of MTV in 1982 set a lot of investors in search of the next music trend. A few tried creating UHF TV Channels in small markets. I was one of the first Video Jocks in Anchorage, Alaska. I had the 10AM-2AM shift live on the air. A tiny booth with a single light, a camera locked in talking head shot. A bank of 5 - 3/4" video tape players and with my right hand out of shot -- fade down video, fade up camera and your audio at the same time, perform the VJ Break live, intro upcoming bands, pull down audio, dissolve to commercial break, then jump up and manually switch out video tapes and cue up the next to play.
After arriving in Seattle 1987, Frank purchased an infomercial slot on Thursday nights at 1:AM on KSTW TV11 and began broadcasting his weekly TV Series, "Bombshelter Videos." 13 weeks on he was generating 40,000 weekly viewers in Seattle, Eastern WA and Vancouver BC. By 1989 Frank had changed channels offered a Fridays at midnight time slot on KTZZ TV22 where the program aired weekly until1993.
Bombshelter Videos currently resides in the archives at MoPop the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. As well as 39 episodes of NorthWest Rock, a series featuring NorthWest Artists and hosted by Mud Honey, Hammer Box, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Tad and several other popular bands of that era in Seattle.
From Television to the Web
After closing the door on TV Programming (1993), the only place to go where a creative producer can explore and test the waters of a career change was this thing called the internet.
As I began to figure out how to use the internet as a marketing tool (Circa 1994). Architectural structures of a website, creating content, meta tags and SEO. A lot of small business people thought getting online was expensive and no one really understood how it could serve their business. I was able to get friends and associates to give it a try. Websites at that time were basic HTML
Small Businesses (under 3M Annually) have a very confusing idea of what constitutes an on-going marketing campaign and waste a lot of time and energy getting "likes" and building a "following" on some form of social media.
Doing my own M & PR as a small business was always my motivation but by doing many of the same services as well as very detailed research for my past and present clients has inspired me and makes it very clear that not every digital resource or trending app is required for your business to be successful.
