Q: You’ve been an author, photographer, producer, director and manager. How do all those jobs relate to one another?
A: In my world, I get an idea and go do it. Sometimes I do it on my own; sometimes I get someone to go do it with me. I was a still photographer in high school and college. I became fascinated with a particular type of Buddhism. I got on a plane to Thailand, found a translator and started photographing monasteries.
Someone said I should look at spirituality in the United States, so I bought a van, put a bed in it and spent a year driving around the country photographing spirituality in the United States. The book “Religious America” came out in 1973, and that became a PBS series.
In 1983, I became managing producer of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and moved to Denver to start its western production center.
Q: How did you and Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, come together to start a high-definition television network in 2001 when HDTVs cost more than $2,000?
A: I’ve been running Colorado Studios since 1978 and the Mobile Group since 1994. The Mobile Group handles the Dallas Mavericks games. I was providing the mobile production trailers for Dallas Mavericks games. Mark loved high-def, and I loved high-def, so when he wanted to do high-def, I was introduced to him.
We started by doing some Mavericks games and some other things. Then we said, “Why mess around? Let’s launch the first all high-definition network in the world.” HDNet was conceived in July of 2000 and launched on Sept. 5, 2001.
Nine-11 happened just six days after we launched. It had the dampening effect that was felt by almost every activity and business in America. But it also caused us to add news coverage to our network.
We covered 9/11 in a minor way, but when the Afghanistan war started (the U.S. response to 9/11), Mark Cuban made a substantial commitment to cover it in high-def. We went on from there to cover Iraq and then launched two weekly “HDNet World Reports” programs about crises all over the world.
Q: You said high-definition capabilities have been available (in some primitive form) since the 1980s. Why haven’t we seen faster penetration into homes and on networks?
A: Until about a year ago, the TVs were too expensive and there wasn’t a lot of programming. Are you going to plunk down $5,000 to $10,000 for a high-def set when there’s only HDNet and HBO HD?
But will you plunk down $1,500 or as low as $600 (for a 30-inch TV) for seven or eight high-def channels? Now it starts becoming worthwhile. But that’s only happened in the last six months to a year.
Q: Where do you expect HDNet to be in the next three to five years?
A: Our first goal is to be in every high-def home, and we’re getting close to that. Our next goal is to be in every home, for high-def to grow and for us to grow with it.
Let’s say you’re a music company that came into being when there was a transition from records to CDs, and you’ve said that you’re only going to make CDs. If you bet right, you become associated with CD. We’re associated with high-def.
Q: How is recording footage in HD different from standard definition?
A: HD involves equipment of far greater resolution than standard def. It’s 1,080 lines of resolution versus 480. In pixel count, it’s even a greater difference. High-def is almost like being there. It’s a better experience. There’s almost no equipment that works in standard def that is of any use in a high-def operation. Cameras, editing machines, even the lighting has to be different.
Q: You say your hobby is ranching. How does a kid from New York City fall in love with ranching?
A: When I was growing up, I saw a lot of Western movies and thought it was cool – the cowboy and cattle part, not the shooting. I started volunteering on ranches and then got an actual job working on a cattle ranch, then bought part of it. That’s why I came to Colorado.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson.
