Interview Date: February 18, 2026
Interviewer: Stewart Schley
Abstract
Rick Sillman’s oral history traces his unlikely emergence as a teenage pioneer of local origination programming in early-1980s cable television. At just 15 or 16, Sillman began volunteering at All- American Cablevision, a division of Time, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, after being captivated by the energy and complexity of a live local cable studio. Under the mentorship of the studio manager, he learned every aspect of production—from holding camera cables and operating Ikegami cameras to lighting, videotape, and switching—before eventually directing live community talk shows such as *Community Expressions*. As perhaps the youngest Cable TV director for local origination in the industry’s history, Sillman’s early achievements have been recognized in various places and gained significant academic recognition. A distinguished, nationally award-winning professor of journalism featured his work in a prominent textbook—used in universities both nationally and abroad—citing Sillman’s contributions and work alongside of Cable TV as one of the “Technological Milestones” of this century. His account illustrates how local origination differed from public access: it was professionally produced, cable-system controlled, and aimed at serving subscribers with hyperlocal programming.
Beyond documenting an overlooked chapter in cable history, Rick Sillman’s interview is also about trust, mentorship, and personal formation. Sillman describes how the responsibility of directing older adults in a live environment gave him focus, confidence, and a sense of purpose during adolescence, calling the experience both entering “the zone” and developing a “technical soul.” He reflects on local origination as a public-benefit form of media that brought community voices into viewers’ homes before the internet made such access commonplace. At the same time, he situates the work within the broader evolution of cable, noting how labor-intensive and experimental these early productions were, and how their spirit survives today in democratized video culture. The abstract legacy of his experience is twofold: it demonstrates cable’s role in fostering local media innovation, and it shows how giving young people real responsibility can shape both careers and character.
Interview Transcript
STEWART SCHLEY: Greetings. One of the unheralded, or perhaps little-heralded, aspects of cable television, starting in around the 1980s, was a concept called “local origination programming.” Today, welcome to this iteration of the Cable Center’s Hauser Oral History Series, presented by Syndeo Institute. Today we’re with a pioneer of that very category. Get to talk a little bit — perhaps a lot bit in detail — about what that was all about, how it worked. And we are so delighted, Rick Sillman, to have you with us today.
RICK SILLMAN: Well, thank you very much. It’s a pleasure being here and being in the company of those who founded cable. They clearly were pioneers as well. But as aptly noted, I guess I may be a small pioneer. But I’m a little —
SCHLEY: Listen, we’ve done a lot of these. And we’ve talked about national network programming and international programming and different means of distribution. We haven’t talked a lot about local programming.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: What is it? What are we talking about?
SILLMAN: Well, I think what occurred back then — this was in the early ’80s, in 1980, 1981 — there was some kind of legislation. I don’t recall what it exactly was. But they had something about having live origination programming. And there were only a handful of stations around the country that I knew that started that.
SCHLEY: One of them happened to be in Columbus, Ohio, where you grew up, in the early ’80s — I think around ’81. When most 16-year-olds were listening to REO Speedwagon records and chasing various pursuits, you began a really interesting gig with the local cable company. Just set that up for us.
SILLMAN: Well, I was definitely not a normal 16-year-old anyway, (laughter) so it wouldn’t have mattered. I do listen to some of that kind of music. A neighbor of mine who had a stepson who I was friendly with, and grew up with pretty much part of my life, had an opportunity. He was part of what was called the German Village Association, which is a small area in the Columbus area that’s a historic area. And he was an architect. And he had an opportunity to go on one of these programs, a live origination program. And he thought I might be interested in watching that at 15 or 16. It was just like, “Come along. Watch me. I’m going to be on this show,” probably for his own ego, maybe. (laughter)
SCHLEY: Sure, right? Why not?
SILLMAN: But in the sense that he thought it would be interesting to me. So when I got there for the first show — the first time even seeing any of what this was like — it was kind of larger than life to me. And it was astonishing to see the lights and all the equipment. And I always loved buttons for things. And I was like, “This is really mesmerizing.” And something kind of came over me, like, “I would love to be able to do something with this.” It was very exciting to me.
SCHLEY: The first impression was profound.
SILLMAN: Yes, very much. I hadn’t seen anything like it. I knew it was live broadcasting. That scared the heck out of me, that these things are live. And the studio director allowed me to stand in the studio when this was going on — which was amazing, now that I look back at that — saying, “This is a young kid. He could act up or something.” And these were live shows. And I didn’t have any problem with that, but that allowed me to really see as it was going on.
SCHLEY: Your point is well taken. These were not modest investments. This was pretty serious production. Describe the studio, if you will.
SILLMAN: It was pretty much a little bit bigger than your studio here. And they had a rack up above where the lighting was. And you had to adjust the lights. And we’ll go into that, me learning those things. And then there were three cameras, and they had a camera operator for each camera. And the show that I did was more of a talk-show format. And the studio had drapes and curtains to close off different areas for different shows. They’d have some music shows that they had at times. That was pretty much the studio, with the window looking out over the —
SCHLEY: Are we in a basement, or is it —
SILLMAN: No. It was in a side building to the rest of the cable station. So, yeah, they built a special wing for that.
SCHLEY: I should ask, what was the cable company at this time?
SILLMAN: It was called All-American Cablevision, and I believe they were a division of Time Inc. or Time Warner.
SCHLEY: It’s interesting, Rick, because Columbus sort of occupies a special place in cable industry history.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: Because prior to you beginning this odyssey, a very inventive attack construct called Qube was in that market. So you were sort of at the epicenter, I think, of some new and different stuff going on in cable.
SILLMAN: Well, at 15, I didn’t realize that.
SCHLEY: No, of course. Right.
SILLMAN: But yet, I knew about that later on. And in fact, my father, who had nothing to do with the beginnings of cable or anything like that, I think he was just a salesperson at another place in Columbus that had something called Telecinema — which may have been pre-dating Qube — where you could choose what movie you wanted. And it interactively could do that.
SCHLEY: It’s like early pay-per-view, almost.
SILLMAN: Right.
SCHLEY: And the point being, there were, as you articulated, only a handful of locations I think in the entire country where people were doing serious local origination programming. And let’s interject, Rick, this is different from Wayne’s World. This was not public access television.
SILLMAN: No, not at all.
SCHLEY: What was the difference?
SILLMAN: Well, the difference is, it was very professional, as you said. They really weren’t dealing with the general public. This was an amazing opportunity that I got as a young person. And I’m so glad that I got that. And I never told anybody in high school I was doing this.
SCHLEY: Really?
SILLMAN: Nobody. I made it completely — I didn’t want anyone to interfere with anything I was doing. So, just my family knew and one close friend. So they had no idea that they could come and sabotage me or do anything. Because high school wasn’t my greatest time, I must say.
SCHLEY: It happens. Right.
SILLMAN: But it was something that was very different than public access. Because it wasn’t public, except for the fact that the show, the origination of the show, was for the local market. And it was just for the subscribers of the cable system.
SCHLEY: And it had its own dedicated channel, though, correct?
SILLMAN: Yes, you had a channel that had all the local shows that they had on. You could kind of liken it maybe to — I don’t know if I’m giving this analogy in the best way — but when television first started, back when they first had the cameras on, and people had radios in their home all the time, and they would sit for two or three hours and listen to the radio, when they first had a tube in front of them, they didn’t have massive programming. They just had a few things here and there that showed up that they watched every once in a while. And in New York, they had the antennas very close wherever they did the first broadcasts for those things. And it wasn’t a regular thing in your life. It was just something you’d tune into. And I think maybe these local originations were a little bit like that. It didn’t have a big audience.
SCHLEY: Right. And the origins were humble. There’s a story of cable lore where one of the cable systems put a camera on a fish tank and just continued to loop that as a way to do what would be an early iteration of local O. You’re a 16-year-old kid. What about you enlisted the trust in the people who were running the show?
SILLMAN: Well, I really hit it off with the studio manager. We really had a great connection. And, I don’t know. He was just that kind of person that was very understanding and knew just how to control me, I guess you could say, in a way. Because I was a pretty hyperactive kid. And I had some interests. But I wasn’t the typical kid that would go out and party with friends and things like that. We were really more studying. And my sisters were a great influence on me in college and the things in the future. So it was more of, my mom always pushed education for us. So I wasn’t out doing any of those other kinds of things, as a lot of kids would do at 16 years old. So this became a very interesting thing for me to gravitate towards. And because the studio manager and I really gelled together, he was the one person I knew I had to listen to if I wanted to do any of this stuff.
SCHLEY: Yes.
SILLMAN: And I was on my best behavior for everything. And just any little thing he let me do when I came in the second time — actually, I asked him at the end of that show, the first show that I saw — I said, “Could I come back and do something here, and volunteering, and work like that?” He said, “Well, I’ll have to check with the general manager.”
SCHLEY: Okay, of the cable company, of the cable system?
SILLMAN: Of the station, the local station. Not of the whole company, just of that station. He said, “I won’t promise you anything. But let me check with him and see if we can have someone come in and do that.” And he maybe got back to me a couple weeks in.
SCHLEY: He said, “Come on in.”
SILLMAN: And he said, “You can come in.” And that was the “yes” that was like, “Wow.” I told my mom. And my mother was the kind of person that she’d let you really explore and do whatever you wanted to do. She didn’t have a path set for you. She didn’t think you should do this or that. As long as it was safe and you were in a good place, it was safe. She didn’t understand any of the TV kind of stuff or anything like that. But she came to meet the person who I was going to be working with, which was the studio manager. And she thought he was a very nice guy.
SCHLEY: He checked out.
SILLMAN: He checked out, yes. He got the check mark from my mom.
SCHLEY: (laughs)
SILLMAN: So I was able to come there. And the first time — I don’t remember exactly the first time — but it still was very mesmerizing. There were many other people doing jobs, the camerapeople and the switcher and control and Chyron and all of that. And he put me in holding a camera cable. So he said, “I’m going to have you do something. And I want you to just stand there and hold this cable.” And I said, “Okay.” And I’m just watching the show and holding the cable. And I’m all excited: “I’m actually here doing this. This is amazing that I’m able to do this.” And then he had me come back other times. He said, “I want you to come back in a week” — because they did the show every week — “I want you to come back next week, and we’ll see if there’s other things you can do.”
SCHLEY: Right.
SILLMAN: And it began up the process of me starting to do this.
SCHLEY: Were you a gadget-head? Were you a technical guy?
SILLMAN: A little bit, I’d say. I used to take things apart, yeah. I mean, I had this motorized car, I think when I was, oh, eight or nine years old. And my sister can attest to this too, that I rigged it so that it would drive by itself. And my mom got very upset that I was driving through the living room with this car like that.
SCHLEY: Uh-huh, that counts as a gadget. (laughs)
SILLMAN: Yes. So I did have some inclination there, yes.
SCHLEY: But you’ve used the word “mesmerizing.” What were some of the technical — what did you learn? What kind of equipment were you using, and what was being used to create this live television show?
SILLMAN: Yeah. Well, it was the traditional kind of equipment that they had, the Ikegami cameras, and the Sony U-Matic’s, and the switcher; we of course, had the Laird Character Generator. And so, when I started coming on a regular basis — which, incidentally, I had to ride my bike because I didn’t have my license. So I drove about four or five miles.
SCHLEY: That’s impressive.
SILLMAN: The host picked me up in her car sometimes, which was very nice of her. But the equipment was all the traditional kind of equipment. And I learned just one at a time all the different things: from holding a camera cable, to operating a camera, to what the switcher was. And it just was a progressive process over months and months.
SCHLEY: But it’s a lot.
SILLMAN: Oh, it was a lot. I guess I didn’t even realize that it was difficult to learn because it was so exciting.
SCHLEY: Right.
SILLMAN: You know, the exciting part overtook that this was a lot to know.
SCHLEY: Talk about the actual show you first worked on. What was the intention of the show, and what was the physical setup of the program?
SILLMAN: Well, it was called Community Expressions. And I guess the theme of the show, and what the purpose was: to explore different events and things in the Columbus area with key things that happened with different people. And so at the show, they had a loveseat and then a seat for the host. And it was kind of like a diagonal setup like that.
SCHLEY: Okay. How many cameras?
SILLMAN: Three. We didn’t always have a cameraperson, because most of the people were volunteer. But usually there were three camerapeople.
SCHLEY: But it was live, right?
SILLMAN: Yes. It was live. And when we went live, we knew we were going live. That was something I got used to. It was very hard at the beginning — before I started doing directing — but just to get used to that. But since I saw it over and over each week when I went, it’s like, “Okay, we’re ready to go live. And we’re on.” And I got used to that.
SCHLEY: And your host was good, I presume.
SILLMAN: Yes, she was very good, a very pretty woman. And she was very good with talking with people and asking questions and things like that.
SCHLEY: They weren’t just political figures, city council representatives —
SILLMAN: No, they were —
SCHLEY: — a broader spectrum of the community?
SILLMAN: — different people. The one picture which I do have, which you may or may not include here, is from the March of Dimes. So that was the local chapter of the March of Dimes. And they were on talking about what was going on in their organization locally.
SCHLEY: The reason I’m peppering you with these questions — and I think it’s interesting — is, what you were doing was really emblematic of the early era of local origination. Because Columbus had how many over-the-air TV stations, a handful?
SILLMAN: Just the traditional three: NBC, ABC, CBS — and then four, PBS. And I think that was basically about it.
SCHLEY: But they have sophisticated news-gathering operations, I presume, and 5:00 p.m. news shows or whatever.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: What you were doing — and I think this speaks to the broader category of cable local O — was a little bit under that radar, right, in terms of content, would you say?
SILLMAN: Yeah, it would be. It would be. It was brand new. No one was doing this at any of the broadcast stations.
SCHLEY: Right.
SILLMAN: So yes, that’s a good way to describe it. It was kind of like under the radar, yes.
SCHLEY: Was there any way to discern who was watching the program or how many people were? Like, what was your sense of audience?
SILLMAN: Well, when I was 15 or 16, I developed amazing focus to do these jobs and then to eventually become the director of the show. So I wasn’t really focused on the subscriber base. But from what I remember them talking about, it was perhaps — with a city of maybe seven hundred or eight hundred thousand, maybe about twelve or fifteen thousand people they thought watched this. I don’t know what gathering equipment they had.
SCHLEY: It’s not like we had Nielsen meters counting the number of views or whatever. But your role steadily progressed.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: Take us through a little bit of that trajectory.
SILLMAN: Well, after I learned each equipment piece and the VTR machines, I had to learn the lighting, the three-point lighting. So after I learned all of those things over several, several months, I was starting to — wanting to — get to the director’s chair. That just seemed like the ultimate exciting thing to do, to be sitting there, telling everybody else —
SCHLEY: Is there literally a chair that says “Director,” just like in the movies?
SILLMAN: Well, in this case there wasn’t. It was probably a chair bought at a local store.
SCHLEY: Sure. (laughs)
SILLMAN: But we knew that was the director’s chair. And then you had the headset on. The director’s the only one that had the headset. And the other people just listened that were in the control room and then the people on the camera. So, as I started learning these things, and the studio manager saw that — that I picked it up well, and I listened, and I do very well with it — he then gave me some other tasks and more and more. And eventually, I don’t really even remember when my first directing gig was.
SCHLEY: Gig moment happened.
SILLMAN: Yeah. It was just kind of: they just sort of said, “Rick, you’re going to direct today.” I’m like, “Oh.”
SCHLEY: “Okay…”
SILLMAN: I got a little nervous butterflies, probably. And I’m like, “Okay, I know this is live. But I know how to do this. I know what all this other equipment is. I’ve learned all of this. I know what to tell the camerapeople. I know when we do the switching.” And even before I started directing, I was developing a very keen sense of people talking.
SCHLEY: Yeah.
SILLMAN: When they ended their conversation; their body movements; everything about their face. And that was a very unique skill, I think, that I ended up developing.
SCHLEY: Tell us. Because you want to always have some fluidity in the cameras switching, you’re talking about?
SILLMAN: Yeah, in the switching, when someone’s talking, a guest is saying, “Well, our local chapter started on this date.” And then the host would say, “Well, were you involved in that?” And how you’d switch between the cameras.
SCHLEY: But you’ve got to do it live. You’ve got to do it —
SILLMAN: Yeah, well, that was the switcher’s job.
SCHLEY: — on the spot. Okay.
SILLMAN: Yeah, the switcher’s job was to do that. Basically, some of the language I learned was like, we had preview and program monitors. So we’d always know the camera that was ready to be taken. Before directing, I was seeing all of this when someone else was directing. But they would say, “Ready on camera two,” tilt up, zoom in slightly. “Okay, camera two ready. Take camera two.” And you had to do that simultaneously as you were listening to what they were talking about. Which I pretty much never knew what they were talking about.
SCHLEY: Right. (laughs)
SILLMAN: I just knew how to do the —
SCHLEY: The subject varies each time, anyway.
SILLMAN: Yes, it’s always different. And I never really remembered any show that we really did, because I was so focused on them talking and speaking and when to tell someone to switch to the next camera and zoom in and all that stuff.
SCHLEY: Was Expressions an hour-long show?
SILLMAN: I think it was, yes. I was thinking, just before coming to this historical interview, et cetera, that I believe it was an hour show. It wasn’t a half-hour. So it had to be an hour.
SCHLEY: Sigh of relief after it ended?
SILLMAN: Oh, always. I mean, right when she was saying, “And thank you very much for joining us,” and then the credits start rolling, I’m like, “Oh, what a relief.” And then someone else in the area switched off from live back to something else.
SCHLEY: And then, if I’m watching at home in Columbus, if I’m one of those ten or twelve thousand people, the show ends. Then what happens to that channel?
SILLMAN: I think they put some kind of looping pictures of the station and the city and things like that.
SCHLEY: My point being, to program a channel — whether it’s an hour a week or 24 hours a day — it’s work. It’s a lot.
SILLMAN: I’m sure. Yes.
SCHLEY: And I think that is what’s kind of interesting about this story, is again, the investment and the temerity of the cable company. There may have been regulatory impositions to have to do this. I think that’s what you were alluding to —
SILLMAN: I think so, yes.
SCHLEY: — at the local level or even at the national level. But it was a lot of work. And it created a category I think I would call “community television” that lives on today, just in different guises. You know?
SILLMAN: Yes. We don’t see a lot of that with the broadcast stations. Except, of course, the news is live many times.
SCHLEY: No, it’s more of an online channel. Just an interjection: Did doing this work change the way you watch live television?
SILLMAN: Did it change the way I watch live?
SCHLEY: A football game, for instance.
SILLMAN: In some ways, because I knew what was going on behind the scenes. It was kind of like a subconscious thing, that I knew, “Oh, that camera should be over there.” Or, “Oh, they’re taking this long shot from there.” So yeah, in a way, it affected some of my watching football games or things like that, yes.
SCHLEY: Okay. You appreciate the work behind the scene a little bit.
SILLMAN: It definitely molded me as a person, which I think was something I desperately needed as a teenager: to know where I was going to go and what I was going to do. And it just seemed to be the perfect setting. The studio manager was the perfect person for me. I was the perfect person for him. The general manager said yes. So it kind of all went together.
SCHLEY: I guess that’s what I wanted to talk about. Because for these interviews, we have a wide audience. But some people are young people who are beginning their careers and trying to figure out where they’re going to fit. What did you take away in terms of professional development and tricks of the trade, if you will? How did you manage to grow as a young person?
SILLMAN: Well, yeah, as a person, I think because they trusted me, which is an amazing thing. That really would probably be the pivotal point of any young person, being allowed an opportunity. And in the future, a hundred years from now, what will that be? Well, hopefully they’ll still let young people do that. But I learned directing people that were significantly older than me in a firm but unthreatening way in how to direct them. And that, I think, I would take away as a great skill to learn as a young person: that no matter what age you were, I could still say, “I know how this should be done, and this is how you need to do this.” And in a very nice but firm way, “When you’re on the camera, make sure you always tilt up on this area because that person’s dress is this level,” whatever.
SCHLEY: But you weren’t a yeller or a screamer.
SILLMAN: Oh, never! No. Never did any of those things. If something didn’t work right, usually the studio manager would know right away anyway. But because they were live shows, we had no choice. And it wasn’t that difficult, because it was just a talk show. So there wasn’t any physical action.
SCHLEY: But did you occasionally go out into the field to capture a video?
SILLMAN: Yes, we did. They had a remote truck — which, that was a very exciting time, to go out in the field and do other shows that were not Community Expressions. It was mostly music shows that were done.
SCHLEY: Like a live performance?
SILLMAN: Yeah, live performances. And they did do some, was it live broadcasting? No, I think it was only on tape. I don’t think they had the ability to broadcast live from the truck.
SCHLEY: Okay.
SILLMAN: But they were usually music events or something. In Columbus, that was a very popular event called “Music in the Air,” and they had that in the summertime. So those were fun times to go in the remote truck.
SCHLEY: Again, probably content that doesn’t get put on somebody’s television screen unless a local cable company is behind the camera there.
SILLMAN: Right. I think even today that would be true.
SCHLEY: The hostess who moderated the signature show that you worked on, is that fair to say that Expressions was the mainstay?
SILLMAN: Well, that and there was —
SCHLEY: Community Expressions?
SILLMAN: Well, Community Expressions was one of the major shows. The other major show was Music in the Air. So there were two major shows, yes.
SCHLEY: Your tenure there, how long did it last?
SILLMAN: About a year and a half to two years, almost two years.
SCHLEY: But you take that 18 months away from your young life, you’re a very different person.
SILLMAN: And it’s amazing in an incredibly short amount of time what got accomplished, yes.
SCHLEY: It’s concentrated, as a lot of things tend to be when we’re —
SILLMAN: And it was kind of like a laboratory setting, the way I like to think of it. Because nobody interfered with anything, and it went very smoothly most of the time.
SCHLEY: So you were bitten by the TV bug, it sounds like. I mean, you loved this.
SILLMAN: Yeah. Oh, very exciting, just to be doing something that I enjoyed and got along so well with the studio manager, yes.
SCHLEY: Was that your original intention, to continue along that progression professionally?
SILLMAN: Well, it sort of was but wasn’t. We had a tradition in some ways, and we really didn’t have a lot of money for colleges in other states. But certainly I was exploring places like USC, which was great.
SCHLEY: Great cinema and television.
SILLMAN: And thinking, “Could I go there?” And my mom would say, “You can’t go there. We don’t have the money for that,” and so on and so forth. So all of us ended up going to Ohio State. And I had a very close friend of mine who was sort of like a surrogate brother in many ways, very wise and really helped me in many, many ways. And he was following on the path of law. And in fact, he went into something different after that. But that kind of directed me, too, that I should get my college degree and get my four-year degree and continue. So I kind of pivoted away from television, saying that, “Okay, this is all done now. We did this.” Although I was an intern at the local NBC station in college when I did that.
SCHLEY: Because you sort of had the makings of a résumé by now, a little bit.
SILLMAN: A little bit. It was like I was sort of still in it a little bit. So I was a newsroom intern. But it wasn’t my main goal. My main goal was the business side of things.
SCHLEY: Okay. And then you went to The Ohio State University. It’s gotta have the “The” in there.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: And then later earned a law degree.
SILLMAN: I didn’t actually finish the law degree. I studied, I had a car accident, and so didn’t continue.
SCHLEY: Rick, this is an interesting question: Do you consider yourself, though, still, many years later, a cable guy? Like, is it in your heartbeat?
SILLMAN: I think because — like you said — it was very concentrated during that two-year period, it was like going to boot camp. You know, when you say to someone, “When you went to the Army, what do you remember?” All of them say, “Oh, I always remember boot camp.” So it was like a very concentrated time period. Yes, I would say I still am very interested.
SCHLEY: Well, I know you have kept in touch with this series and the stuff that Syndeo Institute does with the interviews. And I always felt that cable had a sort of bloodline or an affinity, you know. And people felt a connection at some point to this industry.
SILLMAN: I would say that because the ability to project something to someone at home — just television in general, but cable being specific — to be able to do that to somebody, or have that ability, to have available, which was never available for hundreds of years —
SCHLEY: Absolutely.
SILLMAN: — to present something to someone.
SCHLEY: And I’m curious about your thoughts now. The democratization of video production has been astounding.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: And I don’t want to be glib about this, but anybody with an iPhone now can kind of try to do the stuff you guys used to do with a very expensive studio.
SILLMAN: I was thinking of that. With YouTube and all of that, I’m like, “Well, I did a lot of this stuff professionally like this.” And now any kid, any adult, anyone can go do a 30-second video and have it posted. And what does that do to society now that we have all that available in such a plentiful way? How does that affect what it means?
SCHLEY: The contrast is so stark, though. Because I guess the good news is, yes, anybody can produce quality television or video. The problem is, everybody can produce quality television or video.
SILLMAN: Well, that’s the whole thing. Right.
SCHLEY: Do you remember the channel you were on, by curiosity?
SILLMAN: I don’t remember the actual number of the channel.
SCHLEY: Yeah. But this was probably in the early ’80s, a 35-channel, 50-channel cable system.
SILLMAN: Yeah, that’s approximately right.
SCHLEY: So the real estate you possessed was pretty valuable. You’re alongside CNN or MTV or whatever.
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: You would be —
SILLMAN: I guess if you think of the person flipping the channel, like, “Gee, what am I going to watch now?” Yeah, it was just simultaneous between, “Oh, here’s a local show,” and then CNN and A&E or whatever. So it was mixed in there, yes.
SCHLEY: Was your host recognized around town, would you say?
SILLMAN: Somewhat, but she wasn’t a celebrity per se.
SCHLEY: She wasn’t a celebrity.
SILLMAN: No, because it probably wasn’t a lot of people that watched that. But no, yeah, I don’t think she was that recognized, no. A very nice person, very friendly and knew a lot of people. But recognized in a personality sense? No.
SCHLEY: What do you think that program did: the fact that you’re putting in a lot of effort and investment and time into doing a very professional talk show, if you will? Do you think that had any effect on the perception of the cable company itself? Did you ever think along those lines?
SILLMAN: Yes. I think those shows maybe would let a consumer know that — they didn’t know about the regulations or having these things — but it certainly informed them in a way that they couldn’t get somewhere else. At least, our show was that way. So they would get pieces, or the March of Dimes, or some other organization for weight loss, or whatever. They would get things that you easily could get today on the internet. But they would get it live at their home, yes.
SCHLEY: But the theme of localism was so paramount to the cable industry’s growth in the ’80s and beyond. And the fact that you could do this hyper-targeted kind of television, if that’s an appropriate way to describe it, put cable companies on the map I think in a different way, maybe.
SILLMAN: Yeah, I think that that, at least, was something that had not been done before, and put them on the map to provide local origination, like you said, of things that are going on in your community.
SCHLEY: Yeah. You had such an interesting way of depicting one of the themes of this work you did. Well, you had two that really captivated me. One was called — you just labeled it “entering the zone.”
SILLMAN: Yes.
SCHLEY: What is that?
SILLMAN: Well, that was the focus. Everything was completely tuned out. You could have a fire going on; I wouldn’t even know what was happening.
SCHLEY: (laughs)
SILLMAN: I was so hyper-focused on the speaking and ending a sentence, starting another sentence, of the personalities on each program.
SCHLEY: You’re locked in.
SILLMAN: I was locked into that. That was my hyper-focus. And really in my whole life, even since then, that was probably the most concentrated version of that that I’ve ever done. And yet I was 15, doing that.
SCHLEY: I was interested, because athletes talk about that: “I can’t miss. I can’t miss from the three-point line,” or whatever.
SILLMAN: Yeah. Your adrenaline gets going, and yeah.
SCHLEY: It doesn’t last forever.
SILLMAN: Right.
SCHLEY: But it was a burst. Then I love this expression, “Technical soul.” Sounds like a Billy Preston album. (laughs) But what are you referring to, there?
SILLMAN: Well, that was kind of just a word that I couldn’t find the right word for.
SCHLEY: That’s a good word.
SILLMAN: But it gave me a feeling of empowerment, of being able to do — when I was doing the directing and telling other people — it was the first time I really accomplished something as a young person, in learning all the basics you have to learn. You don’t hurry up and go right to the director’s chair. You’ve got to learn all the other things. And then I was able to implement all of that at the time of doing the directing. So it gave me a sense of maybe a soul molding me.
SCHLEY: Yeah.
SILLMAN: You know, your brain really isn’t fully developed till you’re 25.
SCHLEY: Partly. (laughs)
SILLMAN: And here I was 15. So this was like a boost to get me in the right direction. Although I was never in the wrong direction; I just was in no direction.
SCHLEY: Right.
SILLMAN: And it focused me in a way that gave me that soul.
SCHLEY: I think what’s unusual about this story is the willingness of a person who has a real job and is responsible for putting a pretty good program on the air — or through the cable — to trust a 16-year-old.
SILLMAN: Well, as I said, that probably is the pivotal point of all of it. Because I got along so well with the studio manager, and he was in charge of anything with the studio, and he checked it out with the general manager that it was fine for me to be there: it was like a genesis of something that was just happening. And the trust was an automatic thing. Because it wasn’t even something — if I look back now, I didn’t think, “Oh, I’m being so trusted with this.”
SCHLEY: No. You don’t perceive it at the time.
SILLMAN: No, it was just an automatic thing, yes. And that’s amazing that they did that. When you look at anything like that with a young person, to have that amount of trust: it’s like, “This kid knows what he’s doing.”
SCHLEY: I’m not sure I would hand that over to a 16-year-old. I’m just saying!
SILLMAN: Well, I think he sort of had the philosophy, maybe, “This kid really knows what he’s doing.” So, yeah.
SCHLEY: Well, the earnestness with which you rode a bike to and fro is a telling sign, for one thing. Did the same studio that you guys used to do professional production — were those resources available to public access people?
SILLMAN: No. No, they were just whatever the station decided they were going to produce.
SCHLEY: And how did you decide?
SILLMAN: Well, I didn’t decide.
SCHLEY: Well, your group? Your team?
SILLMAN: The upper management, the people that were doing that: I don’t really know. I think it wasn’t busy all the time. There wasn’t back-to-back shows in the studios. They sort of picked what they thought would work. I think they had an enormous freedom for that. I don’t know. I’d have to check with the management there. But they gave them freedom to kind of develop whatever they thought they should.
SCHLEY: It was a wellspring of newfound creativity in television, to be honest with you, I think. I mean, it’s interesting. Some of the shows that started out with humble origins, such as you guys were initially doing, did blossom into — there are still regional news channels that are cable originals on the East Coast and elsewhere. So this category didn’t go away, I guess is what I’m trying to say. But did they stop doing local origination programming in Columbus?
SILLMAN: Well, I had left to go to college.
SCHLEY: Oh, of course.
SILLMAN: Although it was in the same city. And I was not doing any directing anymore or doing any of the program anymore. I think the show continued for a while after that, and some of the other programs, maybe about three or four years. And then it sort of became out of fashion, I guess. And they didn’t do a lot of it. They did do some. But that was very little in years later.
SCHLEY: I think, Rick, to your original point, it was sort of an ambitious social-engineering policy to really require — I think at a local franchise level — cable companies to do this. And then I think that mandate dissipated over the years.
SILLMAN: That could be.
SCHLEY: So you could still do it if you wanted to. But it was hard. It would have been hard to make this a business, right?
SILLMAN: Well, unless you could sell advertising on it, probably. And I don’t think the advertising was directly related to that. So it was more of an opening of the cable. And cable just started branching out, as you know, in the ’80s.
SCHLEY: For sure.
SILLMAN: And so, it was more of the beginning of that — as you said, still continues in a different form today, a little bit like it did. But it would never be a niche market. Well, I should say, it would be a niche market. It would never be a broad thing that would be available all the time. At least, I didn’t perceive it as growing into some huge organization of local things.
SCHLEY: I think it’s tough, because you’re competing for advertising dollars with well-established local media: newspapers, TV stations, radio stations.
SILLMAN: Right.
SCHLEY: So it really was more of a public-benefit kind of philosophy.
SILLMAN: Yeah, I’d say it was. It really was a public benefit. Where else could you get to listen to the director of March of Dimes telling you about all what they’re doing, unless you went into their office and talked to them?
SCHLEY: You mentioned one of your guests was Ray Miller, who would later become a congressman representing the state of Ohio. Did you have other guests that are notable or that you recall?
SILLMAN: I don’t remember that there were. He wasn’t actually a guest. He had his own program he did.
SCHLEY: Oh!
SILLMAN: And I’m not sure how I alluded to that, but —
SCHLEY: That’s right.
SILLMAN: — in any direct way. I directed his show a few times. And he wasn’t a congressman at the time, but he was on his road to that. He was a very fine person and very well educated and saw the need for communicating with the public, which I’m sure helped him in his voter ranks too of people voting for him. But yeah, he went on to become a very distinguished congressperson for many years from Ohio. And other guests I don’t remember that I had on the show — there were some stars that came to town sometimes, from time to time. I’m thinking, I don’t remember if — Paul Allen, I don’t know if that sounds familiar. But there were a couple stars that came in. And they did occasionally do —
SCHLEY: You probably had somebody doing the job of a booking agent at some level to get people on.
SILLMAN: Well, sometimes. But that would be more up to the broadcast stations. Because ours was more community things that were focused on Columbus. So these people would be from all over the place.
SCHLEY: Rick, did you keep in touch with your mentor, if you will?
SILLMAN: In a sense, yes. Not too long ago — probably about three years ago, two years ago — I mentioned to him that a professor [Dennis Herrick] had decided to include me in one of his books that he wrote, Media Management in the Age of Giants [University of New Mexico Press, 2nd ed., 2012]. And he maybe embellished it a little bit, saying that I was the youngest director. But I would say —
SCHLEY: Who else? (laughs) Who else was?
SILLMAN: — “one of the youngest.”
SCHLEY: Right. Oh, I think you can take that mantle!
SILLMAN: Well, hopefully. There are those who want to be in Guinness’s World Records Book and et cetera. But the real story and the real issue is, they didn’t keep track of these things in the time that I did that. But, yes, I have stayed in touch with him. And I wanted to show him the book reference. And I always thanked him. I mean, he’s the one who really molded me in doing that. And he was delighted to have lunch with me. And he moved on to other things also, after the cable system.
SCHLEY: What aspects of being a boss did you inherit from this individual that you later would apply in your life?
SILLMAN: I think just having the knowledge of what you’re doing. There are so many bosses. And some of them are effective. And they really don’t know how it all works. I learned how it worked right, a big-picture element of each of these things, and then being able to very comfortably tell someone who didn’t know these things yet, “Here’s how you do this.” So it was like a teacher.
SCHLEY: Teach.
SILLMAN: It’s like a teacher. Yes.
SCHLEY: But the mastery of the actual physical demands or process demands of the job is essential. That’s one building block. And like you said before, you didn’t yell and scream. (laughs) That’s important as part of your —
SILLMAN: When things went wrong — I mean, it couldn’t go wrong when it was live. We just had to wing things.
SCHLEY: No, it could go wrong!
SILLMAN: Well, if a light went out or something, we couldn’t do anything. We just had to wait, you know.
SCHLEY: This is a great lesson, I think. Winging it.
SILLMAN: But we had to — if the light went out and the spotlight wasn’t on the guest, we’re like, “Can we get another one on? Is one nearby? Can we put that on right away?” I mean, it’s live. So you can or can’t do that. But after the show was over, we didn’t have what they have like in the traditional newsrooms. They always do an after-show discussion of what they did. So we had maybe minimal discussion, like, “That was a good show.” And, “Maybe we should have done this a little better.” But, similar.
SCHLEY: Did they repeat the show on a nonlinear basis on that channel, do you think?
SILLMAN: They did play it several times at other time periods, yes. I think they did have some of that. I didn’t watch too many of the shows myself. I didn’t actually have cable at the time I was doing this. We didn’t have cable.
SCHLEY: Irony alert.
SILLMAN: Yes. But I’d watch the shows afterwards, yes.
SCHLEY: We always ask the question, and it’s totally open-ended. But is there an imprint or a legacy — without being too self-boastful or whatever — but what do you think you contributed, not just to that show, but to the category?
SILLMAN: To the category, I think, number one: something that hadn’t been done before that you’re having new people do, and trust a young person to let the senior management and chairman of Time, whoever, know — I don’t know if he knew about what I was doing or not — but, “Hey, this can be done.” So that’s number one: the legacy that we did something, and we proved it. We didn’t just talk about it. We proved that we could do the live shows. And also that young people would get the opportunity to do that. I don’t know what the future holds in a hundred years. But will young people be allowed to try things? And there wouldn’t be many. I got a great opportunity. But I would say not many.
SCHLEY: Rick, I have to tell you, I find this analogy irresistible: that you’re a young man starting something new. The cable industry was really youthful at that time. We went from, as you know, retransmitting over-the-air TV signals to trying stuff out, you know. Who knew? There was no road map for what y’all were doing.
SILLMAN: Right. Give a young person a chance to try something out.
SCHLEY: Yeah. And I think those opportunities have shifted form, factor. A hundred years, who knows? But they’re still out there. Any sort of parting words of advice for folks who might want to undertake some role in media, in video, in television?
SILLMAN: Well, I’ll mention to you the professor. I contacted him after he included me in his book. He was at the University of New Mexico. He was the chairman of the Department of Journalism, and then formerly he was with Iowa State University. But he said that students would come up to him after class and ask him specifically about that milestone entry. He had a list of milestones that he felt were the milestones of the century. And they’d always ask him about me: “How do I get to do that? How can I do those things?” So I told him, I said, “Really the advice would be that if you see an opportunity for something, and you happen to just be there — it’s just happenstance; you can’t make these things happen — take it. And listen. And follow what you need to follow.” And someone who inspired me, even though I didn’t stay in the cable business my entire career in any stretch of the imagination, someone who I really admired soon after doing this and thought was just astounding — and I don’t know a lot about his background — was Brandon Tartikoff.
SCHLEY: Oh my gosh. NBC, right?
SILLMAN: NBC, yes. And he, of course, passed away at a very early age. But if I were going to stay in this field, he’s someone I would want to emulate and be like.
SCHLEY: What about him?
SILLMAN: Just his demeanor, his brilliance in seeing things. He was so calm about how he described things and how he could direct things and do what he did. His presence was just very powerful.
SCHLEY: I think there are some people who can kind of transcend the everyday hubbub of being in business and be able to articulate a vision that —
SILLMAN: And reduce it down to everyday activity.
SCHLEY: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Rick, let’s talk about this, because you mentioned it to me off camera. Overcoming adversity is part of any job. You told an interesting story that had to do with a headset. What was going on, and what does that say about how you were trying to accomplish what you accomplished?
SILLMAN: Well, I think my focus was so strong that I didn’t worry about it. It was like, “I have a job to do here. If my headset’s getting hot and sweaty, who cares? I’ve got to get this done.”
SCHLEY: But it is getting hot and sweaty.
SILLMAN: Yes. (laughs) Yes.
SCHLEY: You had the lights going on. You’re in the moment.
SILLMAN: Yes. There was always that moment right before we went live. And it was always butterflies. But it went away as soon as we went live. And then I just dove right into the directing. It’s like, “We’re live in five, four, three, two. Cue the host.” And then, that’s it.
SCHLEY: You’re in. You’re in your zone, I guess it is. There really is such a comparison to sports, where a batter gets the butterflies. But then you’re in the box. And you’re in the box.
SILLMAN: Yeah, today would be — the analogy of 2026 would be live sporting events. That you have to be on, or that’s it. You’ve got to be ready.
SCHLEY: Yeah. So, it’s been a fascinating conversation with one of the pioneers — I think we really can say the youngest-ever protégé and then director — of local origination in the cable industry. And so to hear it from, if you will, the mouth of the man that was there has been fascinating and entertaining. Thank you.
SILLMAN: And you’re a terrific interviewer, I must say.
SCHLEY: I really am, and I’m glad you pointed that out!
SILLMAN: (laughs)
SCHLEY: Listen, thank you for tuning in to this iteration of the Oral History Series, presented by Syndeo Institute at the Cable Center. We’ll see you again soon.
