Last day for Martins owning WCAX-TV

The Martins and the golden age of TV news in Vermont

by Chris Graff

Vermont owes the Martin family an immense debt of gratitude. CP Hasbrook and his stepson, Stuart “Red” Martin, were true pioneers who brought television to Vermont in the 1950s. They did so against all odds. The origin story is pretty remarkable: They conquered the top of Mount Mansfield, built a rough road to the pinnacle, constructed a building there and planted a huge antenna in a wild environment where the winds gust at hurricane force and snow can drift 30-feet high.

On September 7, 1954, WCAX-TV, not yet on the air, broadcast only a test pattern but it generated so much excitement in the state that 200 Vermonters wrote the station about it.

"Before television came to Vermont, the lifestyle was very different,” says Peter Martin, “Red’s” son. “People depended on social clubs to get their news and it was unreliable. Ultimately television became the medium in which the state began to talk to itself, so that people in Burlington knew what was going on in Saint Albans."

Television in general and WCAX in particular changed Vermont. Many books have chronicled television’s impact on American society, but in Vermont the story is really the story of WCAX – Channel 3 – and the Martin family.

Hasbrook came to the state in 1938 and bought a small radio station with the call letters, WCAX. He later won the state’s first television license and somehow managed to get WCAX-TV on the air in 1954.

WCAX has always had an old-fashioned idea of the role of television news – and has stuck with it through the decades.

In 1968 the station expanded to a one-hour evening news, a revolutionary idea at the time. What made it truly unique was how that hour was divided: Roughly 10 minutes of weather and 20 minutes of sports, with the emphasis on high school and college sports. Not many stations in the nation would spend 10 minutes on weather and 20 minutes on local sports, but by golly that’s what Vermonters wanted and that’s what WCAX served up.

And the station never lost its commitment to covering state government.

Throughout the years the national model of local television changed dramatically. Most stations abandoned “boring” coverage of state government and focused on crime and the sensational.

Not Channel 3.

The Martin family has always understood that Vermonters are uniquely interested in their state government and that truly all Vermont news is local. Viewers in St Albans are interested in news from Bennington as well.

Peter Martin came to the station in 1969 after serving in Vietnam, but left almost immediately to serve as press secretary to Governor Deane C Davis. He came back to the station in 1973 and has been there ever since.

As I write this column the station is changing ownership. The Martins are selling to an Atlanta-based company.

I have been watching WCAX since the 1960s. The 6:00 news anchored by Richard “Mickey” Gallagher, with Tony Adams on sports and Stuart Hall with the weather was must-watch television for my parents.

A WCAX program called “You Can Quote Me” was hosted by Charles Lewis. In the 1970s and early 1980s newspapers used to assign reporters to watch the Sunday broadcast of that show and the comments by its guests often led Monday’s Rutland Herald. One reporter a week would join Lewis and Gallagher in the questioning – and it was a huge deal for me when I made my first appearance in 1975.

WCAX was a rock of stability under the Martin family. If a story required three or six minutes to tell on air, they devoted the time to it even as other stations around the nation moved to shorter and shorter snippets of news.

In cities across America you could find blow-dried blowhards anchoring the local news. Not here.

When Mickey Gallagher died in 1984 the station turned to Marselis Parsons to step in. Parsons was far from the stereotype of the blowhard local news anchor: He was straight-forward and considered it an honor to be the invited guest in people’s homes for 25 years. Like Mickey, Parsons’ delivery was homespun.

The faces have changed through the years but the commitment to local news never faltered – and was a bedrock of the Martin family ownership.

“Red” Martin was an engineer and the station always had leading edge technology and broadcast equipment, often light years ahead of what stations in other markets had.

Live on-the-scene broadcasts are normal today. Everyone with an iPhone can be a broadcaster. But the Martins invested heavily in microwave relay systems decades ago so the station could broadcast live from the State House or from Rutland. They had a remote broadcast truck long before anyone else.

We have been very fortunate in Vermont to have families who deeply cared about our state. The Mitchell family – with its long ownership of the Rutland Herald and later Times Argus – is one such family.

The Martin family is on that very short list.

Thank you Martins past and present for your commitment to Vermont and to Vermont news.

Chris Graff, a former Vermont bureau chief of The Associated Press and host of VPT's Vermont This Week, is now vice president for communications at National Life Group. He is author of, Dateline Vermont: Covering and uncovering the newsworthy stories that shaped a state - and influenced a nation.

WCAX among great Vermont businesses

by Anson Tebbetts

Ben and Jerry’s. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. IBM: quintessential companies that have contributed so much to our state’s identity. Their successes drew attention from far and wide; eventually they were sold to bigger companies and change occurred. Vermont can add WCAX-TV to that list.

Since 1954, our region has invited WCAX-TV into their homes morning, day and night. The news, weather and sports reporting will continue in 2017 but there will be one big change. No longer will WCAX be owned by the Martin Family. After 63 years, Vermont’s pioneer TV station will join the stable of stations owned by Gray Television based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

We should not underestimate this transaction. WCAX will change. In the meantime, it’s time to celebrate more than six decades of ownership by the Martin Family.

As we enter this new era of media Vermonters owe a debt of gratitude to the Martins, as we all connect to Vermont’s vanishing style of homegrown news in so many different ways through the decades. I am honored to have worked for all three generations of the Martin family, as a journalist for 14 years and as the station’s News Director for seven years.

No day was the same; one day hip-deep in public policy at the State House, the next, chasing Hermit Thrushes in Hartland or bears in Benson. But there was thing that never changed: The Martin’s staunchly stood behind me and my fellow journalists as we told the stories that needed to be told.

There were the big stories where life turns on a dime. Lives destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene. Violence that ripped families apart. Funerals of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Two presidential campaigns, where WCAX crews followed Governor Howard Dean and Senator Bernie Sanders around the nation. And as our country saw massive deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, WCAX reporters traveled to the war zones to tell the stories of our National Guard - many TV stations would have balked at the cost and danger but the Martins wanted to show Vermonters how our neighbors are trying to rebuild the world.

WCAX is recognized nationally as a leader in news. The station was won numerous prestigious awards; a Peabody for health care reporting, a Dupont for telling the stories of migrant workers on dairy farms, a New England Emmy for coverage in Afghanistan. Countless awards for poignant and hard-hitting photographic images.

The Martin’s invested in photographers, editors, producers, reporters and anchors. Quality was important. Many got their first job in Vermont and they moved onto bigger reporting cities. From Boston to Oklahoma City to Milwaukee to Kansas City to Denver to Los Angeles WCAX alumni are on the screen, carrying with them the WCAX values of fairness, honesty and hard work to a faster-moving and most likely more gritty part of the United States.

We also can celebrate what happened behind the broadcasts. This company that employed more than 100 people at any given time welcomed spirited debates about stories and content. There was conflict and drama. Good days and bad days and days that grew long into the night. Long, but rewarding, hours.

The Martin’s loved families - babies and toddlers crawled on carpets while moms and dads reported the news during live broadcasts. The Martin’s provided child care subsidies long before it became the norm. There were also difficult days for families. It was also a place of comfort during a loss of a friend or family member. There were many.

It was a workplace that celebrated birthdays and milestones. The sheet cake was a staple. Parents appeared with their kids on cooking shows during the holidays. It was a competitive workplace even in the kitchen; every spring bakers squared off on “Pie Day” hoping they could win the coveted rolling pin and appear on “Across the Fence.” At Christmas, employees got into character with the reading of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Tradition was important.

WCAX celebrated marriages with your choice of a washer, dryer or stove as you entered into a new partnership. There are countless appliances in the homes of WCAX workers thanks to the Martins. The birth of a child was a big deal. Announcements of the arrival of hundreds of babies capped off broadcasts; many now are in their 50’s or 60’s and have become faithful WCAX viewers and readers.

WCAX did change with the times. The digital age created WCAX.COM and a host of social media channels. No matter the platform the standards were still the same: accuracy and fairness. It’s fair to say that the foundational elements of Vermont were first displayed and debated over the airways. Those discussions then made their debut in living rooms, at dinner tables, bars, on the internet - and yup, into the State House. TV can be a powerful force.

There is sadness around this sale to an out-of-state company. That’s okay. But let’s celebrate what we have had for 63 years and counting. WCAX in many ways was your neighbor. You could hate it one night. But the next day you loved Channel 3 because it was always there for you. When you see that WCAX turquoise “branded” van headed your way on the highway, why not take a moment to reflect upon all the WCAX crews past and present who made our little corner of the world a better place to live, work and raise a family. Let us show gratitude, with hope that the new era ushers in the type of change that continues to value Vermont and Vermonters with Martin-family standards. #TheMartins #jobwelldone

Anson Tebbetts is the Vermont Secretary of Agriculture and the former News Director at WCAX-TV.