While 1967 was a terrible year for Detroit, 1968 was as bad for the nation. As Detroit struggled to regain its footing from the riots that had ripped at its very heart, the country was being pulled apart by the mounting body count in Vietnam. It became the first war to be fought daily in living rooms on the evening news. The power and impact of television was suddenly being understood in a whole new way.

By 1952 this new world of television was really taking shape. The Auntie Dee show, the first of our children’s shows, had moved to national distribution as had Fred Wolfe’s Motor City Wrestling. By the end of the year the top six shows on television were Howdy Doody, Kate Smith, Perry Como, Auntie Dee, Strike It Rich and the CBS News with Douglass Edwards, who had also started out in Detroit.

All ABC-owned stations, such as Detroit, began to see local news as the future in local programming. Consequently, they "beefed up" their news operations. It made sense economically, but also rang the death knell for any non-news local programming. Also, ABC began developing more of its own programming. And they started taking more risks.