Podcast: Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith
Season 3 Episode 1 Title: Going Beyond the Headlines with Broadcast Legend Larry Kane – Part 1

Episode Transcript:

00:06 Maxine Cuffe
You’re listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith, a podcast by the Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now, here’s your host, Hank Smith. 

00:27 Hank Smith  
Hello and welcome to the first episode of our third season of Speaking of Quality Wealth Management Insights, I’m your host Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at the Haverford Trust Company. On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology and more.

This episode is the first half of an exciting two-part conversation with broadcast television legend, Larry Kane, who is often referred to as the dean of Philadelphia television news anchors. 

In this episode, we talk with Larry about his career, his role in transforming the local ABC affiliate’s newscast, Action News, into the top-rated program we know today and his interviews with U.S. presidents and global figures. We also discuss his time travelling with musical legends, the Beatles. Larry, thanks for joining me today. It’s great to have a Philadelphia legend in the podcast booth. I’m sure you feel right at home on air. 

1:33 Larry Kane 
But you’re the legend too Hank. Great to be here. 

1:36 Hank Smith 
Let’s just start off at the beginning. You were born and raised in Brooklyn. How did you get to Philadelphia? 

1:44 Larry Kane 
Well, I’ll do it fast. My mom had MS, which in 1952 was not exactly preventable and they knew very little about it. They recommended we go to a warmer climate, so we went to LA for a year. While they were in LA, I moved to Brooklyn for a summer with my grandparents. They made the cross-country trip to Miami, which is a warmer climate than LA, which is not good for MS people, and I met them in Miami. There I was in Miami at the age 14 or 15. I volunteered to go into a radio station, looked at the place and said, “I want to be here”. I wedged my way in. I started in junior high school and high school editing the school paper, taking the bus to downtown Miami, working until one in the morning, and I did that throughout high school. Therefore, my career began in Miami. I went to St Louis for one year to get some experience in a big market, which was then the seventh market in the country. I came back to Miami, and there I was at WFUN “Fun in the Sun”, working for the Miami radio station as its news director at the age of 21. Then after the Beatle tours, I came to Philadelphia in 1966 and joined WFIO radio, and three years later, became the anchor of the television station channel six.  

Hank Smith 3:18
A fascinating story. Before we get into the beginning of your anchoring career, which started Action News, the ABC affiliate channel six in Philadelphia, you spent two years as a journalist following the Beatles at every one of their concerts in 1964 and 1965. How did that come about? And did you know at the time, the Beatles were on their way to becoming one of the most iconic, greatest bands of all time? 

3:53 Larry Kane 
Not at the beginning. I sent them a letter about 60 days after the assassination of President Kennedy. It was a very strange time in America. We didn’t have a vice president for a while. They changed the laws, everybody was scared. They thought it was a Russian plot. No one really had the answer then. In Miami, The Beatles arrived on February 9 or February 10. I met them at the little hotel, saw them in concert there, visited them very briefly, and I figured that was that. Then all of the sudden the explosion occurred. There were 1000s of letters coming into the station, and we decided we wanted to cover them in one town – Jacksonville, Florida. We would take a plane load of kids to visit them. At that point, I sent this letter with perfume, letters from all the kids, and these incredible notes where they would say things like, “Meet me at 10, o’clock at the Chicago Tower, and we’re going to have fulfill our destiny together”. I sent it to Brian Epstein, their manager, and sure enough, I got a telegram back, a real telegram inviting me to travel on tours as a correspondent for $3,000, 36 days, airplanes, limousines, cars, and I couldn’t believe it. Showed it to my bosses, and I said, “Why would I want to travel in a year when we have the Cuban exodus flowing into Miami, tremendous demographic changes. The war in Vietnam is escalating. The Ford Mustang is coming out.”  In February, I actually covered, believe it or not, because I was the local news director ringside is a guy named Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston and became Muhammad Ali. So, all these things happening at once. Why would I want to go with a band that will be here in September and gone in November? They eventually convinced me I had to go because they didn’t want the DJs to go. They wanted news every day, and there I was ready to go and travel in uncharted territory. 

6:06 Hank Smith 
Getting paid for something that you probably would offer to pay for yourself just to be following this iconic band at the beginning. You’ve written three books on The Beatles, but the first one was published nearly 40 years later in 2003. What took you so long to write your first followed by your second and third book? 

6:39 Larry Kane 
Very simple, I had news to cover. I was very involved in covering news – Philadelphia news, national news, international news overseas, the Middle East. Basically, my career in Philadelphia took me from a radio guy to a television reporter within one year. Channel six, a station that was really underfed and not appreciated because they never competed. All of a sudden, they gave me this temporary job as the anchorman in 1969 and they took the ratings there every other month. You get them in a little magazine. I didn’t know anything about what was going on. I felt that things were going well. In February 1970 on Valentine’s Day, they invited me to the General Wayne Inn, a restaurant on the Main Line and offered me the job. I’ll tell you exactly what the offer was. The offer was $32,000 the first year, $34,000 for the second as the six and 11 anchor at Channel Six. I already been anchoring for five months. What they didn’t tell me was that the ratings were going higher and higher even before the Action News format began. So there I was. Had this job. I was going up against two giants in broadcasting, John Facenda, who was as big as they get, and Vince Leonard. Facenda took me out to dinner one day in January of that year, and asked me if I wanted to go to any of the CBS stations in Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. I didn’t realize at the time, because I was so naive that he wanted to get me out of town, and he eventually left his position a year and a half later. I felt very badly about that, but that’s what happened. The whole market was reshuffled, and we became number one in one year at the station, which was remarkable. All of a sudden, I became a “celebrity.” 

8:44 Hank Smith 
You were credited with starting the phrase, “and now for the top story”, which is still the lead for Action News to this day. 

8:55 Larry Kane 
Oh yeah. It started the first night. I had two headlines – “murder under investigation” and “City Hall erupts with a brand-new piece of legislation on taxation.” Then I would change cameras. I had what they called chroma key behind me, where they’d be video moving mine and I would say “but the big story tonight on action news” and they haven’t changed it since. Those are the words I wrote, and that’s exactly the way it happened. It was kind of interesting that the only thing that has changed over the years, of course, are the tremendous technical changes and HDTV and everything else. The point is that it was a great start, a great win, and then I made a big mistake. I went to New York. When you disappoint Philadelphia viewers, they never forget. There are still people years and years later who asked me, why did you go to New York?  I didn’t like it there. I was there for a year and a half. We were number one at the flagship station, WABC TV, and decided to come back, which was a very controversial decision, went back to channel 10 for 15 years, and then went back to change to channel three, so that by the time I was over my anchor career, I had been in the inside of three stations, the three major stations at the time, because we have channel 29 now. I had really great career. We never quite became number one, but we challenged them in the 1980s and early 90s, and then I ended my television career in 2003. 

10:42 Hank Smith
What caused you after a year and a half in New York to come back to Philadelphia despite having an incredible role there? 

11:21 Larry Kane 
Very simple. I didn’t want my children to grow up in New York. This was controversial thing to do. People thought I was crazy, and that if I had stayed – everything in life is “if”. If I had stayed, I would have been the national anchor. I don’t believe that necessarily. I felt it was a quality-of-life decision, but it was harder, it was harder to compete against my own success. Jim Gardner did a great job. He was out there for 45 years. It was sort of an uphill battle. Through that time, I did some great journalism. Enjoyed being a part of the Philadelphia scene in terms of nonprofits and part of the community. I had a great career, and I have no regrets whatsoever. 

12:07 Hank Smith 
You’re considered the dean of Philadelphia news anchors, and yet your career is so much more. You’ve covered so many famous world events. You’ve interviewed just about every US president since the 1960s, worldwide figures, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Lech Walensa. Tell us about your most memorable interviews.  

12:44 Larry Kane 
I interviewed a lot of people over a period of years, and when you work for a long time, you generally do more work than most people. I’m not giving myself credit, but I did have a remarkable Zelig type of quality. Zelig was a character who marched into the scene of major stories in the 1930s, 1940s and all of a sudden he was everywhere. I just had some good luck. June 4, 1968 – I went to England to visit the Beatles. They invited me over. I had done an interview with them in New York. I arrived at the same hour that Robert Kennedy was shot and went out to cover the story. I basically wound up being in Europe for 35 days. The news director kept me busy. I was in the airport when the person – I forget his fake name – who became James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King was arrested in front of my eyes on the way to Paris. I covered the Paris riots, which were just so brutal, something so unusual, came back for his arraignment and sat behind him on Bow Street court. There’s a very famous arraignment center in London. I could breathe on his back. I was that close to him. He was shackled and everything. That trip itself put me on the map in Philadelphia, in terms of my international experience. This was 1968. By the fall of 1969 at the age of 26 almost 27, I became the part-time interim anchor of the TV station and by February of the next year, I became the full-time anchor. It was a whirlwind. And who would ever expect it. When I came to Philadelphia, I learned something. When they love you, they love you. If they don’t love you, forget about it. You’re dead on arrival. It’s like baseball, football, everything else. And it worked, and it worked very well. I should have stayed here and never left but on the other hand, you can’t look back. It’s done. I had a wonderful career, wonderful people, and I covered great stories. Who is my favorite interview? I would say my favorite interview of all time was Lech Walensa. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but it was a good interview and very historic. I’ve had interviews with the Prime Minister Netanyahu, several other prime ministers. I flew on a plane for the defense minister Yitzhak Rabin during a thing called Israel 1000 – a trip by the Jewish Federation to check out Israel in the late 1970s and early 80s. I was traveling in Rabin’s helicopter because he didn’t want me to worry about driving back to Tel Aviv. I got a tremendously physical scene to the entire country and the security. It was kind of an amazing thing. I’ve also been to Europe and all over the place. The real heart of my career was Philadelphia, and the heart was covering the city, the mayors, the controversies, the crazy things that happened over the years, the good things that happened, the bad news. And of course, the population here, which is now up to 5.7 over 6 million people. It became one of the most powerful television markets in the country. I was very fortunate.  

16:41 Hank Smith 
You mentioned you’ve had a lot of luck. How lucky was it that a sitting president of the United States walked into your studio unannounced and uninvited for a live sit-down interview? Can you tell us that story? 

17:01 Larry Kane 
Gerald Ford was an accidental president. I met him at the bicentennial in 1976 when I sat next to him. On the other side was Mayor Rizzo and Charlton Heston. It was pretty interesting to meet him. He must have had a good impression. By the way, the same day, my wife and I drove over to the reception with Charlton Heston. We had Moses for lunch and the president for the cocktail party, and Legionnaires disease developing underneath our eyes and not even knowing it. We went through this entire situation, and it was two months later, at the Republican Convention, he remembered my name. A lot of fun was made of Gerald Ford, but he had great memory. The third time he was in Philadelphia five days before the election in 1976 when he lost to Jimmy Carter. I’d heard he was in town. I called his press guy, and I said, can he come over the station for an interview? I thought he was going to come over at 6:30 and we’d do an interview, or I would meet him somewhere else. He walked into the studio with the Secret Service at 6:20, sat with me on the set. I was so in such a whirl in my brain that I had a brain freeze. And I said, “What do I ask him?” There were a lot of questions to ask, but I asked him about the coming referendum on the casinos in Atlantic City, and I said, “What do you think of casinos?” And it was really kind of a wild question to ask the president of United States. He said, “I think it’s a good idea.” I said, “Are you endorsing it?” He said, “So I don’t know much about it.” And of course, it passed by a gigantic referendum, a large margin. There began the casino industry in Atlantic City, and it was just fantastic that I was able to have him on the set with the weatherman, Jim O’Brien, very popular and sports guy, Joe Pellegrino. It was just remarkable that the President was there on the set, first time ever with the local newscast. 

19:22 Hank Smith 
Fascinating stroke of luck. You’ve interviewed so many historic figures that get interviewed over their career hundreds, if not thousands of times. How do you prepare for an interview and make it unique?  

19:54 Larry Kane 
Back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, we didn’t have the social media that we have today. We didn’t have the 24-hour news cycle. We had maybe three to four stations doing news. Philadelphia, three. It became four when channel 29 began doing news. It was a much different media environment. As a local broadcaster, you have to find out what to do for the interview. Should it be about your community and how national stories impact local people? You try to pick out the way that national stories impact the local community. For example, we interviewed Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980 live. During those interviews, I asked future President Reagan to give me an outline of the economic picture, and his point was, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. They didn’t work out so well at the beginning, but they eventually worked out. Jimmy Carter talked about the prisoners, the hostages still in custody, and both of those stories impacted from an emotional standpoint on people from the Philadelphia area, people who are being held captive, people who are paying their taxes. Ronald Reagan’s dramatic come from behind victory. He was behind by 12 points in the final two weeks of that election. There’s a lot of national but there’s a lot of local. We talked about crime in Philadelphia, we talked about the impacts of crime, racial polarization and division, which remained in this town for a very long time, sadly. We basically covered all the bases. The most important part was getting to know them close up and interviewing both of them. It was very fascinating. Carter was very, very talkative. Reagan was more nuanced, and he was very, very sharp in his answers. The thing I remember the most was how they dressed. Reagan was an immaculate dresser, and he had this wonderful Windsor knot in this tie, and always looking perfect. Jimmy Carter, not so much, but both of them, different people. As you look back at these figures, and you look back at all the presidents you’ve interviewed, you try to say, who’s the best president you’ve ever covered, and the answer is, none. I think that Obama offered hope. I think Donald Trump had a very volatile four years. Joe Biden tried to get things back on target. And you look at Ronald Reagan, there was no question that he was having memory problems early on, six months after he was shot. I was at the White House with him and couldn’t recognize some of the people who served him in Sacramento, but he was fabulous. The guy was so nuanced and so sharp. I sat at his table because a friend of mine named Herb Barness is very powerful. He got me to sit next to the President. I was at the table, and I asked him about sending missiles to Jordanians. He said, “Larry, try this white wine. Nancy picked it.” Another person asked a question, but he eventually answered the questions. Very, very astute, very, very sharp, very charismatic, and who knows what went on behind the scenes. This was only six months after he was shot. And after he was shot, everything changed in his mind, in his body. If you wanted to talk about impact, he probably had more impact than all the presidents I covered when I was around, but so did Barack Obama changing the style of America.  

24:10 Hank Smith 
The 24-hour news cycle in social media. Is local broadcasting, even national broadcasting still as relevant today as when you started your career on the in the early 70s as an anchor? 

24:38 Larry Kane 
In the late 60s, the technicians would come up to me and say, “You’re doing really well, but local news on television is going to hell in a breadbasket”. They didn’t say it exactly that way, but they said the future of local news is dead. Local news began to dominate American life in the late 60s and early 70s. Tremendous competition. Finally breaking the barriers of color, and as Martin Luther King said, “Judge a person not by the color of their skin, but the character of their psyche.” It was very fascinating to me that local news became so hot. Now, in recent days, in recent years, there’s been a trend away from crime. Sadly, crime was the food for the weekend news because there were only two camera crews on the street. You cover what I call cheap crime. No crime is cheap, but people would be covering the shootings with no big results, robberies, things like that. Many stations became crime blotters, and some of them still are today. And the fact is, there’s a lot more happening than just crime itself. Although Philadelphia has had a crime crisis the last couple of years, that seems to be abating, but still is there every day. I think one of the difficulties is that crime reporting is liked by a lot of people, and I don’t get that. I still don’t get that. I’d rather see a story on channel 10 and 6, 3, 29 and PHL-17, doing more stories all the time about the roots of crime, about the seeds that are planted for crime. This is what we should have been doing in the beginning, but we didn’t. It was easy to cover and we covered, and sadly, it wasn’t really what we should have covered. We should have been more than just Action News, a lot of video being everywhere, and Channel 10 News, we needed to get into the gist and the soul of the city. Today, they’re finally doing that, and that’s important. National organizations own all the stations. For example, ABC is owned. Channel 6 is owned by ABC. Channel 29 is owned by Fox. The network and local stations are quite different than their cover. Channel 10 is owned by NBC, and Channel 3 is now owned by a new company that came in to buy Paramount. There are a lot of changes going on. I foresee a day when the national organizations start really whittling down the stations. I don’t want them to lose their impact because we already have a newspaper in trouble here. We have lost the basic essence of a newspaper, but there’s people reading it, most people seeing everything online these days, and what happens if we lose the papers and we lose local stations? Where are you going to get your news from? From people who are lying, from people who are distorting it. Believe me, I’m telling you this right away. If you want to have peace over the next couple of months, don’t go on social media. Just forget about it. Stay away from it. It’s enough to make you crazy. What I’m saying is, this is not real news.

28:18 Hank Smith
Larry, thank you so much for joining us on Speaking of Quality and for giving us a glimpse into your profession and the role of the news.  

To our listeners, tune into part two of this conversation with Larry Kane as we explore Larry’s philanthropy efforts. With the election right around the corner, I also get Larry’s thoughts on the impact of local elections. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. Please send suggestions or questions to marketing@haverfordquality.com and don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share this podcast.  

Until next time, I’m Hank Smith. Stay bullish. 

29:00 Maxine Cuffe
Thanks for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality, Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of speaking of quality, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about the Haverford Trust Company, please visit www.haverfordquality.com. This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview and should not be relied upon as research a forecast or investment advice and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time, and are the opinions of that commentator, not Haverford’s. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast recording, but are not necessarily all inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.