![]() And live will cause you to have some focus. You don't have the butterflies in your stomach. You know it, if you pre-tape something as if it is live, you make mistakes. And the surprises in live or sometimes good and sometimes not good. If you're doing a traditional newscast, you know what it's going to be like. Can you explain to folks, Brandon, the magic of live TV? Either you really love it or you loathe it.īRANDON HENEHAN: Live is just magical. And I think, the polarized world we're in, that's tougher to do all the time.ĬATHY WURZER: So we so you've created this smorgasbord, this eclectic show, that has lasted for almost 40 years. We have to present opinions and draw things out. ![]() And, of course, we can't do that in public broadcasting, radio or TV. And even viewers and listeners say that they want to hear the news from their perspective. That's just me, though.īRANDON HENEHAN: I think, in many ways, they're increasingly hard to do because the world is so hyperpartisan and people are locked down in positions. What's your philosophy on that?ĬATHY WURZER: To do. Personally, as one of your hosts, I find the political debates the hardest, though. And we wanted it to be obligatory, but not boring.īRANDON HENEHAN: So we worked on that boring part, at least.ĬATHY WURZER: Well, you really have, because you can careen from having legislative leaders on at the top of the show to a live dairy cow in studio to a political panel on one show. And there was a sense that Friday night on public broadcasting was kind of boring and obligatory. ![]() My boss, Bill Hanley, the cocreator with me of Almanac, pushed really hard. How much pushback did you get?īRANDON HENEHAN: A fair amount. So it was kind of a tough sell, as you can imagine.ĬATHY WURZER: I could only imagine it was a tough sell. And we knew we needed to do that in an hour and not a half hour. We wanted to have some fun along the way. Journalists would sit around a table.īRANDON HENEHAN: It was all serious, important stuff, and we wanted to do something different. It was a lot like many PBS stations at the time, a Washington Week in Review kind of a format. Now the show that used to hold down Friday nights on Twin Cities PBS was like classic public television- our serious conversation about Minnesota politics, hosted by a buttoned-up guy in a suit.īRANDON HENEHAN: It was a half-hour program. I have no right to have had the career I've had.ĬATHY WURZER: I know. And I had the great fortune of working next to someone who didn't really want to do much of their job, and so I started doing it, and you know, right place at the right time. And instead I ended up working for Twin Cities Public Television, then known as Channel 2. And they were confused what to do with me. I'd moved here during recession from Michigan. The McKnight Foundation had a program for people who were chronically unemployed, and I qualified. So what the heck happened? Look at you.īRANDON HENEHAN: Yeah, I totally stumbled into this business. And being a television producer was not on your bucket list when you got here to the Twin Cities decades ago. I usually see you in a very well-lit studio, so it's a little different here.ĬATHY WURZER: You, my friend, are a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Welcome to my little dark studio here.īRANDON HENEHAN: It was kind of fun to see you in this space. Now before the show fades to black tomorrow night, I thought it would be nice to get Brendan into my radio studio for an exit interview. ![]() Governor Wallace has declared that tomorrow is Brandon Henehan day in the state of Minnesota because tomorrow night, after about 1,700 shows, Brandon, TPT's managing director of public affairs and Almanac's executive producer, is retiring. Brendan Henehan is the brains behind one of the longest running public affairs shows in the country. Today, you're going to meet a guy who has produced a live television program every week for 40 years. The people who do the work, the producers, are folks never hear or see. CATHY WURZER: Very few people understand the immense amount of work it takes to put a live broadcast on the air- radio or TV.
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