Even his detractors call him a visionary. He prefers to think of himself as an architect.
McCarter says he came into the decision-making process late, after the sale of Chicago, and only at the board’s express request. He made some bad hires in the station manager’s office, and they made some poor choices. However, most of the blame seems to belong to the board–more specifically, to the radio committee and its chairman, Dan Levin–yet McCarter took the heat. How much of that he actually deserves is a murky question–and most of the people who could answer it are either gagged by the court settlement of the Friends’ suit or forbidden to talk by the terms of their severance packages.
Neither list, however, offers much in the way of controversy. WTTW certainly airs its share of polemical and mildly risque material, but virtually all of it is produced elsewhere. Most made-in-Chicago offerings lean toward the comfortable slightly-left-of-center political stance that both the news media and the lakefront elite accept as the norm; a special on Gus Hall is as unlikely as a sympathetic treatment of professional antiabortionist “Bullhorn Joe” Scheidler. We got Bleacher Bums, but not Warp.
“Bill has a great sense of community service,” Minow continues. “He knows what the community needs, what the community will respond to. And he’s a real professional. I was chairman of the WTTW board when he came here, and some people said, ‘But he’s not an academic–we need an academic.’ I told them, ‘No, we need a television person.’ And I was right.”
Harris calls McCarter generous, imaginative, and “a bridge builder to the community” and notes that the two of them “share a passionate love of Ernie Kovacs and Mel Brooks.” As for the current situation at WFMT, which has been running in the black, but barely, she says, “He understands exactly what the problems are. We’re not home yet, and I’m the first one to say so–but things are much better.”
Petkus, a member of the board’s nominating committee, notes that invitations to join it are seldom declined. “The people on this board don’t need extra activities–but they recognize the station as one of the jewels of Chicago. Bill is very, very effective–he can pick the phone up and get [important] people in Chicago. That’s a sign of the high esteem he’s held in.”
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His critics say McCarter’s far more interested in the mechanics of broadcasting than in what actually goes out over the air. They call him risk-averse. And they say that the bottom line is his top priority.
