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Happy Retirement Mark Koehn! · Ask The Experts

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  Eight, six thirteen ten Wiba Madison in the morning and joining us this morning.
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  Em mezin Legend. Mister Mark King WISCTV three. Mark, Good morning,
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  big announcement I know you made at the start of the new year.
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  You're retiring. Tomorrow will be your last day on Channel three. First off,
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  how you doing? Second off, what's the story? It's a long
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  story, not a long story, but anyway, good morning, thanks for
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  having me on Sean. My contract ended last May and we were in talks
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  about you know, I told him I think I'm good for another year,
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  and they said, well, we think we're going to go in a different
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  direction, but we want you to stay till the end of the year.
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  Okay, So we agreed on that, and then in the meantime we hired
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  a new news director and he said, well, we can't say goodbye to
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  you during like Christmas in New Year's because nobody would be watching, So can
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  you just stay on for a couple extra weeks? And a couple extra weeks
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  ends tomorrow. So it's interesting about that, is what fort We're talking forty
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  six years, which I don't know if you've aged market. You and I
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  have to talk off the air sometime about healthy living. But literally forty six
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  years you've been on the airwaves at Channel three. I actually started in Green
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  Bay when I was in high school. I was working weekends and summers.
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  I was seventeen years old and I was the only person in this newsroom until
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  like one o'clock in the afternoon on the weekend. So it was I don't
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  know what they were thinking, but it was a great experience. So it's
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  about fifty years. I came to UW Madison in nineteen seventy four, graduated
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  and work part time at Channel three during the couple of those years. Graduated
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  in seventy eight, and at the time university is offering twenty five dollars lifelong
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  pass to the Memorial Union. I said, well, I'm not going to
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  buy that. I'm not going to be around here that long. By here
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  we are, did you? Did you end up buying it? Though,
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  no, I didn't know. I I've fallen now for two hundred dollars.
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  Oh, that is funny. As we talk about about kind of the media
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  is always evolving. You know, I've been doing this this radio thing for
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  a couple of years, and it's interesting just to see how much things have
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  changed, and uh, television, I think, just as an outsider looking
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  at television, to me, the biggest change I've noticed it was the conversion
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  from standard to HD. What about for you, I mean when it comes
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  to some of that behind the scenes stuffs as a news as a news person
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  that's been welcomed into people's homes for for for five decades, I mean,
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  what have you seen? What you has been like? This is absolutely amazing
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  or this is just groundbreaking or just a seismic shift in the industry. Well,
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  you know I started, we were shooting film. I was processing film
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  and huge studio cameras. There are no teleprompters when we first when I first
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  started out, and eventually, you know, you got teleprompters, smaller cameras,
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  computerized newsroom. We use typewriters until nineteen eighty six, I think,
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  and teletype machines. And I think what changed a lot is cable television and
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  the Internet. That was a ground shaking both ground shaking events. I mean,
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  back in the day, if you wanted to know something, you call
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  it the library and ask for a question. Now you just google it and
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  we all do it. And when I first started doing live at four or
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  Live at five. In nineteen eighty four, there were just three four stations
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  with public television. There was no cable, so we had sixteen writings thirty
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  six I mean thirty percent of the audience in southern Wisconsin was watching Channel three
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  at the time. And that was a license to print money and we spent
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  it. Yeah, we traveled all over the planet, so we hardered planes
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  to go to Macana Island to do our show on location, and Branson,
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  Missouri and super Bowls and satellite trucks and Rose Bowls. It was a different
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  time and we don't do that anymore generally. I mean, we'll we'll go
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  to a super Bowl or Rose Bowl, but we'll send two people. I
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  think in nineteen and ninety seven San Diego, we sent seventeen people to that
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  Super Bowl game. With that and Marcus as we look at just kind of
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  how the you know, how the landscape has changed, and obviously the different
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  venues for news now and you know, whether it's the sub channels, the
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  cable channels, obviously the Internet and Twitter and all of this stuff has changed
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  things. And there's obviously the economics of it. Have you seen it?
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  And I know that that you know, people work hard, and people in
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  media, I think a lot of times are very much underappreciated that the type
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  of work it is, it can be. It could obviously very rewarding,
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  but it can be very grueling, very demanding. And one of the things
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  that that I think sometimes people may miss is that that some of that that
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  stuff and where I want to get into some of the institutional knowledge that that
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  you have is it seems like a lot of that stuff gets lost as we
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  as we look at the faces and the experience of people that are greeting us
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  on news or in other places. It's it's a younger and younger thing.
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  And I sometimes worry is is we can learn a lot from books, We
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  can learn a lot from from that, but at the end of the day,
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  one you get what you pay for, and two that institutional knowledge is
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  so insanely valuable. Yeah, I agree. People used to I mean,
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  I've gone through so many different reporters and producers and news directors, and people
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  used to back in the day, they'd stay for five, six, seven,
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  eight years, and now it's two years, a two year contract and
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  they're gone. And you know, this used to be like a secondary job
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  market. You'd start maybe in Wassaw or Ryan Lander, and then you work
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  here way to Madison, and then you go to Milwaukee or whatever. Now
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  I was starting to a friend that works at NBC. They're hiring people right
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  out of school for network jobs. And you don't have that experience, you
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  don't have an institutional knowledge, as you talk about, and that's something you
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  can't really put a price on. Talking this morning with Mark Cain, tomorrow
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  will be his retirement from WISC TV three. Just an amazing career, obviously,
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  a face, a voice that most of us about everybody in Madison cherish
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  and actually love seeing each and every day. And let's talk about your experience
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  and what goes on everyday. Obviously, as Susan Simon, just another amazing
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  talent. You guys have been working together recently. And you mentioned you've had
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  had a number of of on air partners and a number of on air teams.
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  What's that? What is that? Some of that? And Charlotte and
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  others. I don't want to I don't want a short short change anybody.
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  There's so many great talent I'll never I'll never hear the end of it.
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  Yes, and of course Eric as well, let's talk about that relationship and
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  and it's it's genuine. I think sometimes people people wonder about that is you
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  know, you guys are in our homes every every day, and there's there's
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  a great camaraderie, and people say, is that genuine? And you know,
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  again, I'll go back to Susan because quite possibly one of the one
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  of the kindest, smartest people you'll ever meet. Oh. Absolutely, it's
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  it's such a it's such a real thing with you guys, isn't it.
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  We are friends. I mean we're friends at work and we're friends off screen
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  as well. I mean we hang out together a lot of a lot of
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  people do. When you're younger, you tend to hang out a lot more.
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  But now, you know, as you get older, your families and
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  commitments and you make efforts to get together. But we can read each other's
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  thoughts. I mean, she is, as you say, as a delightful
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  person. Beth Zurbak and I worked with for years. She is going to
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  be on the show today Live. We're going to reminisce and show some old
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  clips with her because I worked with her from nineteen eighty six to nineteen eighty
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  nine. Wow, that was a long run. That was a long run
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  with Bath and she's still in town. You know, you talk about the
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  institution. Louge Gary Canalti is retiring next week and he's retiring. He's not
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  being four star or anything. People are going what's going on at Channel three.
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  It's just the ebb and flow of this business, and unfortunately it is
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  as you say, it can be quite grueling, especially for weather people and
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  news people. You know, it's my last day tomorrow. We're going to
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  get what ten inches of snow? I'd rather stay home. I was watching
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  yesterday afternoon. I had come back and I think you had made made a
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  comment to that effect that I thought, why not stay home? Aren't just
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  zoom in right just from the couch? I can zoom in on that.
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  Yeah, let's talk about that in some of the technologies. Well, has
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  social media really helped? Obviously, Madison, we're a big small town.
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  We're a nice, you know, very tight knit community and we run into
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  each other grocery shopping or you know, at the I think everybody at the
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  farmer's market run. But has social media kind of helped as well, kind
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  of bridge some of that gap? Is there such that the very intimate relationship,
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  and for so long it was I would say one sided, but it
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  was hard to kind of kind of get that going flowing both ways. Has
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  social media and other things made it easier to really really connect with people?
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  Oh absolutely. I put my retirement announcement on Facebook on New Year's Day and
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  there's thousands of responses of people, you know, congratulations, and you wouldn't
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  get that back and forth. And I'm going to try and answer some of
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  them when I retire. But it's just amazing. The outpoint and our website
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  Channel three thousand dot com is a huge vehicle for communicating with people back and
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  forth. And we have this screen out that the newsmen. It shows the
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  engagement of what stories are affecting people, and it's fascinated to watch during the
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  day what people are actually interested in. And I think social media has a
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  big part of that. Even emails. People emailing all the time and you
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  could email them back as opposed to sending a letter to the station. I'm
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  getting letters too from folks, But I think social media has had a great
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  effect and I think probably for you guys as well, and it has and
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  letters, handwritten letters are always very sweet and very much appreciated that the expediency
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  though of the email or the Facebook message or other for it. It's been
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  amazing. I've got to ask you about some highlights to mark for you.
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  I know you've had a chance to interview some of the biggest names in the
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  world, in some cases out of this world. Let's talk about somebody for
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  you personally. When you're kind of reflecting on your career, are those points
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  that kind of stand out those people that you met then that maybe you didn't
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  have, you know that you think of, like let's say you're talking to
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  Paul McCarty, Obviously you're gonna be like, this is this is huge.
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  I have great expectations people that have like those people that kind of stand out
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  to you, that say, you know what, those people were a pretty
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  amazing conversation. A lot of them were just everyday people were with my traveler
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  story and they made such an impact. A lot of times night we've been
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  playing old stories for the past year and it's like, oh, yeah,
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  I remember that person. I remember this person, and just the they're so
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  humble, they have nothing that they just are telling the story. My news
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  director asked, what's what is the biggest event that you've done. And I
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  had to say this super Bowl down in New Orleans in nineteen ninety six,
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  that was the first time we really went all out. We had the satellite
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  truck, we had cell phones for the first time, and we had fifteen
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  twenty people down there and it was just an amazing experience. I mean,
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  Packers hadn't been to the Super Bowl and how many years prior to that,
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  So it's you know, it was, it was, It was amazing and
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  New Orleans. How can you not have to Yes, Yes, The first
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  first took back to the Rose Bowl in ninety four also stood out because we
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  we went all out on that. Again, we just we just got in
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  the satellite truck at that point and our chief engineer had a ride in the
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  truck as they drove it to California to continue wiring it. It wasn't wired
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  it yet. They're building this truck and that was the first time we use
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  it. And it's like, okay, here we go. It's a very
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  nice you know, a lot a lot of it's the ordinary people that I
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  met and I talked to presidents and that's nerve wracking for one thing, but
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  it's it was sort of a you know, a small town guy from little
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  shit Wisconsin. And that's that's my roots showing. I think, and Mark,
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  before we wrap up this morning, what what's next? Obvious I mentioned
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  you are, you are a obviously clearly take very good care of yourself.
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  You're youthful, You've got You've got a lot to a lot of head of
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  you. What's what's kind of the plan? What do you do next?
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  Right now? I'm just gonna see what happens, what comes my way.
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  Doctor's orbit pastors on you. He said, you know you're a young sixty
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  eight. Yes, So I think I'm going to exercise more. I got
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  to put that on the back burner a little bit, walk the dogs more.
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  Something's gonna come along. There's a couple of irons in the fire.
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  And I don't think you'll be hearing or seeing the last of me. I
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  hope not, but it's going to be in a different venue. I'm not
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  trying to tease here, I just I don't. I don't know right now.
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  Well, well, well we'll keep it go. Sorry about that?
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  Was that, Mark? I can't I'm pretty good at what I do and
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  I don't think I should waste that not doing it. So I'll find some
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  outlets. Well, we'll look forward to seeing what's next and keep us posted.
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  As always, it's been an honor talking with you. Madison is better
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  for your for your time here, and again, as you mentioned, you're
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  not going to be a stranger and I hope to catch you very very soon.
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  Mark, Mark kain Wi c TV three, Congratulations on an amazing run,
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  and thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you,
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  Sean. I appreciate the kind words. Thank you. Here's to what's next
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  for Mark and an amazing talent here in Madison. We'll get an update on
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  news next thirteen ten WIBA News Times, nine o'clock