NBC chimes (Jan 1955-Oct 1956)

Chicago Announcer Finds New Approach To TV, in Venezuela By Howard Coleman NBC Chicago sportscaster Norm Barry, on vacation from his WMAQWNBQ news, sports and commercial assignments for the first time in three years, toured the islands of the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America with his wife, Marj, during the early part of this year. And, as is the way with vacationing announcers, Norm "just naturally" drifted into a TV station in the course of his tour. II A tough Trinidad bobby hauls a fractious juvenile delinquent into court! But it's all in fun for Norm and Marj, rigged for a shipboard party. "We found the TV station by accident," says Barry, "while driving in the hills above Caracas, Venezuela. Caracas is the wonder city of South America — over a million population, hundreds of brand new buildings — and seven TV stations! "Five of the stations are government operated, and two are commercial. We found one of the commercial outlets with its studios built on the side of a hill, right next to the transmitter and overlooking the city from a beautiful location. "There are many similarities, and some important differences, between our methods of TV broadcasting and theirs," Norm states. "The prop department looked like a carbon copy of WNBQ's second floor shop, and the sets for the news and sports shows seemed very similar. Same old world globe, and the map is the same, only it's South America instead of North. "The TV sets are mounted on risers, however, making them about two feet higher than what we consider normal. This way, the cameras shoot up, making the actors seem taller or, as they explain it, 'in normal perspective'. "Also, having the sets up in the air leaves room for the prompter to crawl around on the floor! They don't use idiot cards for cues, or a tele-prompter, but instead have a stage manager who crawls around, mouthing words and whispering from various points under the set or behind furniture. "You should have seen Marj and myself, not daring to use the Spanish word for idiot to explain what we meant, trying to demonstrate an idiot card charade-style! Either they finally understood, or were very polite about it, but we seemed to get the point over at last. The only guy offended was the stage manager, who didn't like the idea at all! "There are no cuts in time on commercials," says Norm. "This should make any salesman happy, but would give a program manager the screaming meamies in no time. They just let the commercials run over, and then bill the sponsor for the extra time at the end of the month. The station may be a half-hour behind its schedule by the end of the day, but nobody seems to care!" Norm, who is a versatile sportscaster himself, was amazed by the variety of athletic events covered by one Caracas announcer, who listed football, baseball, soccer, horse races, bull fights and cock fights among his specialties — besides studio sports interview shows and news programs. "And the same guy plays Long John Silver in 'Treasure Island', which is a popular daytime serial in Caracas!" Youngest announcer in Windy City radio when he joined WMAQ in 1934. Norm Barry has been a fixture ever since. One Barry pet peeve: "Don't call me veteran! Just because I've been around here longer than most anvone else, you don't have to make me sound like an octogenarian!" 16 NBC Chimes