News 13's Danny Treanor is saying goodbye to TV news after 35 years in Central Florida. In that time, he's become part of our family and yours.
In an interview with his longtime colleague, Marla Weech, she asked Danny how he got started in weather. Here's his answer.
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That's really interesting. Years ago, in the beginning of television, what we did was everybody came from radio, and we had a system that was set up. Everybody did six-day work weeks, because that's what we had always done in radio.
"You work six days. I'll work five plus an extra day, so that you can have that day off, and then you work for the next day, and I'll have that day off," and that's how we worked the schedule.
We had what were called booth announcers. These were the guys that told you what your TV station was that you were watching, and they did commercials live on the microphone.
We had a group of staff announcers. Staff announcers were also utility men, because they would come up through radio and they could have five or six different types of jobs. They could be the sports guy, they could read the news, they could do the weather, they could do whatever -- "Dialing for Dollars," anything that the company needed. "We need a host for this show. We're going to do an instant show. We need a host. You're going to be doing it."
And that's what we did. Great training, you learned to do everything. We learned how to direct, we learned how to run a camera, we learned how to be just whatever the company needed, because we didn't have a big staff.
So, the guy that was doing the weather, a friend of mine who's still one of my best friends in all of the world, was Wayne Perkey, who became a legend up in Louisville, Kentucky. He loved radio, and he tried to get into TV, and he did, and he didn't like it that much. So, after about two or three years, he said, "I've had enough. I'm leaving."
So, he left, and at the time, I was doing "Dialing for Dollars." I was calling people on the phone and going, "Hey hey hey, tell me the count and the amount and I'll give you some money!"
He left, and I went to the boss and said, "Can I do his job?"
He goes, "Can you?"
And that was it. For the next eight years, I did the weather at that station. At that station, we did very well in the ratings, and a guy that eventually came to Orlando was working opposite us, and he said, "Come to Orlando. I want you to do this thing for us here in Orlando."
That was 35 years ago. So, that was how I accidentally backed into it. I wasn't planning on doing it. I just wanted to be on TV.