Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 11:58 a.m.
THE GOOD NEWS has come full circle.
It was 1950, a time when Las Vegas was still in its infancy and those few thousand people who called this valley home needed a second newspaper, a voice of reason and of progress. That's when the Las Vegas SUN was born. It was the only newspaper at that time which cared about the way we grew as a city and it remains the only local newspaper concerned about the kind and quality of life that is available to those who call Las Vegas home.
It was just a couple of years later when the owners of the other newspaper announced that the time for television in Las Vegas had come and they were the people who would make that happen. Given the competitiveness between the two newspapers and my father's belief that the out-of-town owners were not bringing anything to Las Vegas but, rather, looking for a way to take more out of it, the idea struck my parents that if television was, indeed, coming to town it would be the SUN family that would make that happen.
It wasn't long afterward that the television license for KLAS-TV Channel 8 was awarded to a group of Las Vegans which included the SUN's owners, much to the dismay of the other newspaper. And for 45 years, Channel 8 has been the source of television news that Las Vegans have come to rely upon and trust.
In the late 1960s, the other newspaper's owners announced again that they were going to bring some new-fangled technology to town called cable television. Again, convinced that the out-of-towners only took from and never gave to Las Vegas, Hank Greenspun filed for the right to be Clark County's first cable television franchise holder. It took a few years but my family was finally awarded the right and given the obligation of providing cable television to what had become one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country.
Over the years, Prime Cable has taken on a few partners and KLAS-TV has joined the Landmark Communications family of media properties. The SUN, of course, remains the pride of the Greenspun family. That's the history.
Today, the Las Vegas SUN, together with KLAS-TV and Prime Cable, have announced a most exciting and challenging new venture that will combine the talent, resources and spirit of the three companies that Hank Greenspun built. Early next year, Prime Cable subscribers will be the exclusive viewers of Las Vegas' only 24-hour news and information channel.
Bringing the benefits of a local news television channel to Las Vegas has been a goal of my family ever since my parents sold KLAS-TV to Howard Hughes in 1969. But, it wasn't until we built the cable company into one of the 10 largest in the nation that we acquired the ability to make this all happen. Actually, the we in this equation is more about our partners at Prime Cable and our new partners at Landmark Communications.
As we approach the 21st century, it has become abundantly clear that the really beneficial undertakings in society are rarely accomplished by only one company because many pieces are required to compete and succeed. For a 24-hour cable channel to succeed we needed -- a cable company! Prime Cable made sense because it understood that providing the kind of diversity of programming that a local news channel would afford to its viewers was the right decision.
But, we also needed the talent and commitment of a serious and recognizable television news team to make this new channel work. The history and nostalgia was nice but it took the vision and determination of Channel 8's president, Dick Fraim, and his colleagues at Landmark to conclude that joining Prime Cable and the Las Vegas SUN was the best way to make a 24-hour news channel the kind of reality that viewers all over the valley would appreciate.
Of course, the success or failure of such an undertaking will depend upon the measure of the people who will develop and run the enterprise. In that regard, the return to Las Vegas of former Channel 8 news director, Bob Stoldal, is a major step toward making the April 1 debut a smashing success. When you couple his ability with the talent of the Eyewitness News Team and the reporters and editors of the Las Vegas SUN, it is no stretch of the imagination to predict that in a short period of time this new channel will be the best and preferred source of news and information in the valley.
You can probably tell from the way this is written that I am excited about the prospect of this new 24-hour news channel. Clearly, I am.
And while I know it will help fill a significant void in Clark County for the kind of news that makes a difference to the people who live here, I am not unmindful of what else this announcement really means.
So many people who call Las Vegas home have moved here only in the last 10 years. It is not fair or expected that they would understand what this coming together of these three entities means to my family and the people who work for the fine companies which have joined together this day. But, for those who have lived in this city through the newspaper and television wars, through the test of wills over which way this town could and should grow, and through the times when it looked like the difference between success and failure was nonexistent -- for those people this new venture signals a sort of coming home.
Like most things that happen in Las Vegas, this day is just the beginning of a bright and new future. It is also the beginning of a news-filled future that will help all Las Vegans make of their city the best it can be.
The good news is that we have come full circle. The great news is coming to town next April.
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