PCTV — Rolling Live and Local for 20 Years
Art: Don Weller
Since its humble beginnings in an 8’-by-8’ studio in the Marsac Building equipped with two cameras and a mostly volunteer staff — Park City Television has reflected the quirky, enthusiastic, yet always self-effacing and enduring spirit of its community. No gloss. No big network budget.
PCTV, for those without cable television or a tendency to flip through channels, offers action-packed, eclectic and unrehearsed programming. It emanates small-town charm with resort flair — which would explain why guests like “Lurpy,” a local rugby player and past on-air host, seem to gain as much affectionate attention as big name celebrities like Robert Redford.
According to those who have experienced PCTV from behind the scenes or in front of the camera over the past 20 years, this little mountain station has always been about fun, spontaneity and persistence. It began, as any good invention does, out of necessity.
“There was a real lack of conversation in the town and the community,” explains Bill Coleman, who founded PCTV with the help of KPCW’s Blair Feulner in 1987. “KPCW offered [that vehicle for conversation], but without the pictures.” Thanks to Feulner’s ability to track down the appropriate LPTV (low-power television) license and Coleman’s willingness to fork out approximately $20,000 for said license plus a little extra for two “used — well, almost thrown away — cameras” from KSL, the voices of KPCW became visual images, popping up in living rooms across town.
“The first faces of Park City Television were Blair [Feulner], Rick Brough, Nan Chalat and Dan Wilcox,” says Coleman. Radio and television worked in tandem for about a year and a half as news was simulcast over the two. Then, KPCW and PCTV parted ways, with Feulner focusing on radio, and television moving to Main Street.
After setting up shop in the southeast corner of the top floor of 614 Main Street — where they were still able to point in the direction of the 100-watt transmitter Coleman had installed at the top of Quarry Mountain — new talent took to the tube.
“We were Park City’s ‘Wayne’s World,’” he recalls. “PCTV had the same spontaneity and oddness to it because of the personalities — and it was live.” Yet, the station also served as a venue for U.S. Ski Team athletes to practice interview skills and for Bruce Babbitt (who was trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination in ’88) to practice his debate tactics, with Blair Feulner firing questions as Babbitt’s handlers coached him on the finer points of political response.
“There was no better interviewer in the world [than Blair Feulner] and I still think that,” says Coleman, who adds that without Feulner, PCTV never would have made it off the ground.
In the early days, local on-air characters ranged from realtor Eric Nelson and former NBA player “Sweet” Lou Hudson doing sports, to “Chicken” the weather girl. The on-air talent also featured now longtime locals such as the morning show’s Peg Bodell (an artist who subsequently served as city councilwoman) and Leslie Thatcher, a reporter who is now a KPCW staple.
Thatcher, who began as a volunteer and ended up as news director, found herself in front of the camera for the first time purely by accident. “One morning, 7 o’clock rolls around, and the talent didn’t show up,” says Thatcher. So the one-woman news department added ‘talent’ to her long list of titles. Aside from covering school board, planning commission and city council meetings, she recalls gathering news on everything from the new diaper service in town to the World Cup and even interviewing Bob Hope at a senior golf tournament.
“I do remember Peg was always unnaturally happy in the morning — Leslie was more my speed,” recalls Todd Gabler, who added fresh-out-of-college technical expertise to the team in the early ’90s. Gabler, who in later years chained himself to a backhoe to protest the building of Kmart, finds the PCTV personalities, rather than moments, to be most memorable, including the station’s founder. “Bill’s an indefatigable person,” says Gabler. “He’d taken a gamble on this place and really had a lot of energy and enthusiasm for it.”
Although Coleman added a real estate element to the programming — which he describes as justification for pouring money into PCTV since he was simultaneously running a real estate business — the gamble never paid off financially. “We were way ahead of our time,” he says. “I lost my shirt on the whole thing, but we were kind of determined to make it happen.”
When Jordan Clements made an offer on behalf of venture capitalist firm Peterson Partners in 1996, Coleman agreed to sell the station. At that point, a few additional personalities entered the picture, including Rick Shapiro, who with Steve Marriott, partnered with the venture capitalists. They rolled PCTV into Park City Media Group along with two print publications, This Week in Park City and The Kimball Junction Journal.
Catering to visitors, Shapiro and Marriott expanded the morning program and developed a dining guide while Jillene Cahill, Ken Chambers and Randy Barton provided on-air entertainment. Though the station remained small-town, Park City continued to attract an unusual mix of people, many of whom made it into the PCTV spotlight.
“During Sundance, people would be lined up out the door waiting to do interviews,” recalls Shapiro. Often the on-air team would be so overwhelmed by stars that they didn’t even know who they were interviewing. “I remember Kenny [Chambers] interviewing Tia Carrera and other than knowing she was a good-looking actress, he had no idea who she was,” says Shapiro with a chuckle.
Capturing advertisers in a town of fewer than 8,000 residents at the time was tricky. “We’d hit the bars after work, and that’s how we did our marketing,” says Shapiro.
Peterson Partners (now known as Peterson Ventures) brought Stanton Jones on board as a consultant in 1998. By 1999, he became a minority partner in Park City Media Group and the CEO of PCTV.
“The venture capitalists said, well, we want to pump it and dump it, and I said, I want to grow it and build it,” recalls Jones, who made a seven-figure purchase to buy out his partners, becoming sole PCTV owner in January of 2000.
Since then, the station has grown from Coleman’s original handful of employees and volunteers with three cameras at their disposal to 12 full-time staff members and 13 cameras. It’s changed homes twice, now filling a large studio and office space in Holiday Village on Park Avenue. PCTV joined the big networks in covering the Olympics “around the events” and became an official provider for coverage of the Sundance Film Festival, creating the show “In the Can” among a plethora of other festival-related products. Jones reports that for three years, PCTV has also served as the official station of the United States Ski and Snowboard Association.
“To Stanton’s credit, he really elevated the station’s technical capabilities,” says Randy Barton, whose local-centered show, “Park City Faces” (later, “Mountain Views”) ran from 1998 to 2005. In the future, Jones hopes to take that technological potential even further, by shooting in high definition and creating content which appeals to and is made accessible to a broader audience.
“We’re not a station that covers hard news. We’re not chasing the ambulances down the canyon. Our interest is more in outdoor lifestyles,” explains Jones.
The tagline “High Altitude Entertainment” doesn’t just mean ski movies — though PCTV has always partnered with on-snow film purveyors (including Resort Sports Network). According to current news director Ori Hoffer, today’s programming continues to be diverse. On any given day, Hoffer might incorporate into the show anything from a new rock band to an expert on herbs to a foie gras debate between animal rights activists and a local chef.
“Guests are all over the board,” he says. Oscar winners, Grammy-decorated musicians, astronauts and gold medalists (some of whom were PCTV subjects long before they were Olympians) have all graced the PCTV spotlight.
For Barton, the local guest was king. During the Olympics (when PCTV was responsible for 83 live hours of broadcast), Barton busied himself with the man (or Clydesdale, in the case of the Budweiser horses) on the street.
“I really enjoyed live, unrehearsed, unfiltered television. I think it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had,” he says of his time with PCTV.
Staying true to fresh television is important to Jones, who credits his mostly youthful, creative and energetic staff with making quality content for visitors and locals. He points to Sean Smith’s “X-Zone” (winner of Utah Broadcasters Association “Best Sports Program”) and regional Emmy-winning pieces on The Endurance 100 and Blessed Union of Souls (the band) as proof that PCTV programming is top-notch. Though he hopes to expand that type of action-sports and feature-length coverage, he says he’s also dedicated to promoting charities, events and the local feats of musicians and athletes — including the tradition, begun by Bill Coleman, of covering high school football games.
While there are a few more celebrity photos gracing the walls of the studio (Glen Plake, the Jamaican Bobsled Team, singer Shelby Lynne just a few among a sea of famous and familiar mugs), some fancier equipment and lighting, and a production space that’s been deemed worthy enough for CNN to borrow it for a network feed, PCTV still retains its down-to-earth, high-energy character. Employees still don multiple hats. There are still no teleprompters and there is still a sense that anyone — from “Larry the Legend” to Tommy Moe — could walk in the door at any moment.
As Jones says, “At the end of the day, it’s all about fun.”
Freelance writer Jane Gendron had the honor of appearing as a guest on PCTV during her Park City Performing Arts Foundation PR days (when the real stars couldn’t make it). Shockingly, she did not find her photo hanging among the famously athletic or artistic on the station’s wall of fame.
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