Citizen Hughes - Michael Drosnin [71]
“Lets really try to get the best.
“Before we close the deal,” he added, in this as in all business affairs retaining final authority, “I want to know the price and the discount.”
As it turned out, the price was $3.65 million. And there was no discount. But Hughes had a new “no. 1 machine.”
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ‘Swinging Shift’—programming until dawn for your late, late entertainment!”
Howard Hughes settled back to watch the show. He should have been happy. He finally had what he wanted. An all-night program he himself had created, introduced with an announcement he himself had written, presenting movies he himself chose, on a television station he himself owned.
KLAS-TV (channel 8) was his new “no. 1 machine.” Hughes had been dickering to buy the local CBS affiliate almost from the moment he arrived in Las Vegas, and now it was his. No longer would the “Star-Spangled Banner” sign-off leave him alone with his dread at one A.M. No more would his Mormons have to beg for the westerns he wanted or the airplane pictures he loved. Never again would he have to face a blank screen.
Hughes was in control.
Not even Maheu would share that power. “This is one small corner of the kingdom that I expect to report directly to me,” he informed attorney Dick Gray, his chosen instrument of communication with the station. “I want Maheu to have nothing at all to do with this department.”
Still there were problems. Instead of a balky TV set, Hughes now found he had a balky TV station. Frantically, he tried to tune it in:
“Please contact the station manager of ch 8 and tell him the complaints of poor and unsatisfactory technical operation of the station have reached a point where they cannot be ignored any longer.
“1. Careless and unskilled operation of what would be equivalent to the projection machine in a movie theatre … almost as if the operator was momentarily engaged in some other duty or almost as if he were uncertain what film or tape was scheduled to be shown next, or as if he could not find the item next required.
“2. Consistent snapping in of the sound track of commercials at a sound level 10, 15, or even almost 20 db. above the sound level of the preceding film or tape. There must be twelve different commercials that blast in at a good 10 db above the normal entertainment level.…
“I am fully aware of the pressure from advertisers to keep the volume of their commercials up in order to blast through the many viewers who use their remote control to squelch the commercial. However, for every one viewer who squelches the volume at every commercial, there are ten or maybe fifty who do not carry the remoter around in their pocket and who are not so trigger-quick as to be able to squelch out a commercial like the Dunes that pops in with a blast that almost shatters your nerves.”
Not quite quick enough on the trigger, his nerves shattered, Hughes could not even control the brightness and contrast on his own “Swinging Shift” movies:
“3. For the last three days, approximately, the transmission has been technically deficient in a manner that has resulted in the screen being periodically darker than any normal value. So dark in fact, that, in the Bette Davis film ‘Stolen Life’ and in the RKO film ‘Half Breed’ the screen was almost black throughout its entire area for long periods of time.…
“Now, also through a large part of ‘Half Breed’, the sound was way sub-standard, both in volume and also in quality.
“The dark picture was still noticeable this AM.…”
What made it all the worse was the humiliation of having his machine malfunction in public:
“I suggest you tell the station manager that the ownership of the station is publicly known to rest with the Hughes Tool Company, and that the Hughes Tool Company is known to have available to it the assistance of the Hughes Aircraft Company, probably the foremost organization engaged in advanced electronics in the entire world.
“Under these circumstances, it is just unacceptable that the