Q&A -- Peter Martin: WCAX-TV

Vermont Business Magazine, Feb 01, 1999

WCAX in South Burlington is not the only TV station in Vermont, but it is the one most people watch, especially news junkies. The station makes a serious effort to keep up with the news of the state, doing far more original reporting than the norm for television stations nowadays. Its signal coverage is statewide, except for Bennington and Windham Counties, where the station reaches Bennington and Brattleboro by feed to cable systems.

In addition to news, WCAX is known for keeping up with the latest technology, no mean feat for a station in a comparatively small market. Right now the station is in the process of converting its equipment from analog to digital television, which with enable an audio-visual connection to the Internet in whatever way hat eventually becomes commercially feasible. WCAX is one of a handful of independently owned network affiliates in the country.

Peter Martin, station manager and president of WCAX, is the son of Stuart "Red" Martin, who founded the station in the 1950s. Peter Main takes as much pride in the station's news and technological prowess as he does pleasure in sailing and hunting. Richard Andrews interviewed Martin at WCAX for Vermont Business Magazine in early January.

VBM: What path did you take into the TV business?

MARTIN: Well, this is the family business. After time away in school and college and the Army, I came back to the station in 1969. Then I worked a couple years in Montpelier for Governor Deane Davis. I came back here in charge of news in 1973.

VBM: What did you do or Governor Davis?

MARTIN: I was his press secretary and chief of staff.

VBM: That must have been interesting.

MARTIN: It was fascinating.

VBM: Were you in on the beginning of Act 250?

MARTIN: It had passed in the session just before my arrival on the scene, so we were involved in the implementation of Act 250, the reorganization of state government in the cabinet form. Vermont Yankee was a huge controversy at that time. The issue was whether to license it, to put it on line.

VBM: Did the state really have much to say about that?

MARTIN: Yes. The question was whether the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) would license it. The state and the Public Service Department and the Public Service Board were a party to the regulatory proceeding. It was a political issue of some delicacy and controversy.

I dealt with the media as well as the overall issue on behalf of the governor's office with the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) which it then was; it was in the process of becoming the NRC -- what to say to people in Washington, the utilities, and so on.

VBM: How long were you in the Army?

MARTIN: Five years on active duty.

VBM: So you weren't a draftee,

MARTIN: No, I was an ROTC graduate.

VBM: From what school?

MARTIN: The little liberal arts school upstream from MIT.

VBM: Harvard?

MARTIN: That's the one.

VBM: What duty did you have?

MARTIN: I did everything from field artillery forward observer to liaison officer, a civil affairs officer. I was an artillery adviser to the Vietnamese joint general staff, and I was a public affairs officer at Fort Sill, the Artillery Center in Oklahoma, in my last year in the Army.

VBM: Sounds like an interesting five years.

MARTIN: I was a reservist for 23 years after that, and I was called up for the Gulf War.

VBM: What kind of unit was that?

MARTIN: I was in a big headquarters in Georgia. Five months.

VBM: So WCAX had to do without you.

MARTIN: No. Nowadays when you go to war, you take a fax under one arm and a computer under the other. After work, wherever it was, you turn them all on and see what the problems were here.

VBM: That must have been a juggling at.

MARTIN: It wasn't bad.

VBM: Did you have any reservations about going into the family business?

MARTIN: One always has some reservations about it, but it worked out.

VBM: So you're glad you did it.

MARTIN: Oh, yeah.

VBM: What do you like about it?

MARTIN: A television station like ours occupies a pretty central role in the life of a community. It's always interesting to be in a central position. The news department plays a major role in the political and policy life of the state. And, as well, being a technology driven business, it changes with appalling speed. That means that every day when you come in, there's something new to think about.

VBM: What new thing are you thinking about right now?

MARTIN: Digital television.

VBM: Is that the same thing as HDTV?

MARTIN: HDTV is high-definition television. It's a subset of digital. Digital television can be high-definition or standard-definition, and you can also have data streams. Nobody knows how all that is going to work out.

VBM: What would be the advantage of digital TV in standard definition?

MARTIN: You can run as many as four program streams simultaneously in the same channel, at about the same level of definition that you get now with analog. Actually, you can run more separate programs, but picture quality declines.

VBM: What is the WCAX mission?

MARTIN: Our mission primarily revolves around news. It is the function of the news program and the News Department to chronicle the day's events as well as we can.