After Johnny Robertson: What happens to WGSR now?

Maybe I'm about to say too much, with this post.  But a few of you have asked me about recent events and my take on them.  And this does pertain to some people who I had blogged about much (though it's been awhile, like fifteen years or so).

I feel obligated, for sake of completion, to weigh in on the matter.  So here it goes...

As reported a few days ago, Johnny Robertson of the Martinsville Church of Christ died a week ago.  The funeral service was held this past weekend.  Robertson was cremated, which may or may not be germane to the conversation.

The manner of Robertson's death has become a topic of considerable discussion in the Martinsville, Virginia and Reidsville, North Carolina area.  I am aware of what the medical examination determined.  By now many people have correctly surmised how Johnny Robertson came to pass away.  Regardless of the history that existed between Robertson and myself, I am greatly troubled and even grieved that his end came in such a way.  "There but for the grace of God..."

Although I no longer live in that vicinity, I do maintain interest in what transpires around my old stompin' grounds.  And so it is that from where I see things, Johnny Robertson's death may have significant ramifications to that region. Especially in regard to WGSR, the television station from which Robertson's "Church of Christ" had three solid hours of broadcasting each week.

Here's what it comes down to: WGSR, the Star News station, is now on the brink of destruction.  It is far removed from the fairly vibrant television station that I first went to work at in 2006.  The WGSR of that time had a lot of variety of programming.  But that's dwindled away, from what I've heard.

For all of this time though, there has been one consistent constant: that the "Church of Christ" (which is nothing at all like the mainstream Church of Christ denomination) was WGSR's biggest-paying client.  Johnny Robertson kept the money coming into the station.  So long as Robertson kept stoking the flames of controversy, the "rich Texans" out west would send money for the broadcasts.  And stoking controversy has always been something right up WGSR general manager Charles Roark's alley.  The man trades and deals in strife.  Johnny Robertson and his confederates of the "Church of Christ" came loaded with footage  of their trespasses against decent Christians with seemingly each new hour of broadcast, and Roark was ever eager to put it on the air.  It was a vicious cycle that kept Robertson and his cronies doing their "work" and consequently kept WGSR in business.

But now, Johnny Robertson is gone.  And with him goes much if not most of the funding that WGSR has relied on for the past twenty years.  There will be no more shows from the Martinsville Church of Christ.  The "Church of Christ" as has been known in that area, represented by the Robertson family, is done with.  It's over.  It took awhile but they are finally extinguished.

Sources in the Martinsville/Reidsville area have told me that WGSR's management has been thrown into chaos.  Roark bet the farm on the Robertson gang, and he has now lost bigly.  But it was only a matter of time before this happened.  And now Roark is facing the very severe consequences of having hitched the WGSR wagon to Johnny Robertson's star to begin with.

I suppose if nothing else, I'm writing this post out of an obligation to chronicle something that doesn't happen very often: the death of a television station.  Because that is what it seems is now happening to WGSR.  Reidsville has had a TV station for forty years, and suddenly it is facing the possibility that there will be no local television broadcasting anymore.  How it came to this point, is something well worth analyzing and discussing.  Because what may be about to happen, is something that could have been avoided had smarter and more mature management been in charge.  WGSR is about to become an object lesson in running a media outlet into the ground.

Maybe others will watch what happens with the station, and take from it a measure of wisdom.  The well of controversy has dried up at WGSR.  And that's what it had put its stock in.

It wouldn't surprise me if the station was defunct by the end of the year.  Barring significant reform, its days are certainly numbered.

Categories: charles roark, church of christ, johnny robertson, martinsville, north carolina, reidsville, television, virginia, wgsr, what the hell were they thinking