HI , KIDS!!!!! HI , MILT!!!!!
Opening of WTTG-TV's THE MILT GRANT SHOW
In the 1950's, Milt Grant was a rock and roll rebel and a radio renegade, becoming a top rated, Washington DC, disc jockey, early in his career. As host,creator and producer of The Milt Grant Show, a teenage dance party which aired seven days a week on Washington DC's WTTG-TV ( today's FOX 5 )from 1957 to 1961, he was the pied piper of the Pepsi generation.
Yet, to look or listen to Washington's top rock jock of the Eisenhower Era, you'd think he was a high school principal, an urbane banker or a 1950's sitcom father.Reserved, courtly, meticulously tailored, and sonorous, Grant wasn't trying to portray himself as one of the kids. He was a clear authority figure for teens in the Raleigh Hotel Ballroom, where Channel 5 produced the LIVE show, every day, and a proficient pitchman for their pals and their parents watching at home.
At one point in the late 1950's Grant's dance party was aired against the last part of ABC-TV's American Bandstand, hosted by video legend Dick Clark, and won in the local ratings. It had become the most watched, locally produced television show in the nation's capital.
As Grant's adolescent audience moved on to college, his show was abruptly cancelled in 1961. But it was a new beginning for Grant who went on to create a syndicated radio series in 1964. Grant soon moved into television station ownership, when he launched independent, UHF station WWDC-TV in 1966.Grant later founded a television station group in major markets like Philadelphia and Miami, that earned him millions as an owner.
When he passed away, after a hard fought battle with cancer in 2007, he reportedly owned eight television stations, most affiliated with the FOX network.
Here's a link you can copy and paste in your browser to see video that clearly demonstrates Milt Grant's power of persuasion as a salesman in this kinescoped pitch to potential sponsors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJLTQ-3Mgik
The post below is a clip that shows the manifold fruits of that sales pitch, a collection of commercials from THE MILT GRANT SHOW. Enjoy !!!!!
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