Jerry Bryant Speaks About The History and Future of JBTV

Chicago Legend, Jerry Bryant started JBTV 38 years ago and hasn’t slowed down. Jerry stops by the Mason Paine Show to speak about what made him start JBTV and what he envisions the future for the show.

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Interview Transcription

Mason Paine: JBTV's Jerry Bryant is here to speak about the history of JBTV and what plans he has for the future for his show. Thanks for joining me, Jerry.

Mason Paine: I just have a couple of questions for you. What did you do before you started JBTV?

Jerry Bryant: Oh, wow. You know, I'm an old man now. So, I started out in 1968 with a company called studio 68 that was involved with helping teenagers get into radio.

Jerry Bryant: And that was in Milwaukee at, W O K Y and at WISN. And, I did workshops with a high school. 'cause, you know, I was a high school kid graduating . Wasn't with new, with junior achievement. So I got involved with that end WTMJ, TV. We did a TV show and I fell in love with TV. As soon as I got into the STV studio, I just loved television since I was a kid.

Mason Paine: Why didn't you go into a traditional TV, actually joined a TV station. I mean, you just made your own.

Jerry Bryant: Well TV, even back then, there was only three channels, you know, in Milwaukee and even here in Chicago, you know, then four or five, if you can, you know, put the educational stations in there, WTTW.

Jerry Bryant: Everything was very corporate, very big. But I started wanting to do my own thing. I loved music. And I did commercials for many years for like 300 radio stations, with a company called super spots. We did imaging. I worked with Joe Kelly, who is a famous voiceover guy and I was the production guy.

Jerry Bryant: We did all like ELO pink, Floyd, all those, you know, REO, Speedwagon, all those big concerts back in the day. Pink Floyd was the big one we did in the Milwaukee, one of the first open air concert. And, then I moved to Chicago like in 1979.

Mason Paine: Wow. So you were doing a lot of the background work. When did you decide to just start your own station JBTV?

Jerry Bryant: JBTV, came out of, literally it was a hobby cause we would do these radio stations spots, and they would have like Madonna and I'd have a one inch video tape. And on that video tape would be like Peter Murphy and a lot of these other bands. And I go. There's no. Cause you know, Jane Byrne was the you know, was our mayor at the time we didn't have cable in Chicago.

Jerry Bryant: So I got involved with doing production for, W G V O channel 66 back when it was a real, ethnic Gar Spanish TV station. And, they had like guns smokes. So I did the promos and in exchange. For the production like Gunsmoke tonight at nine, you know, that kind of stuff. I would do. I want to do JBTV, don't pay me.

Jerry Bryant: I just played music videos, and that's how I got started. Along with, I was also, I first started actually in 1984 with a, CAN TV 19, which is the public access channel, which a lot of Chicago famous people were on there. You know, they got their first start there because, there wasn't the same kind of, you know, anybody can get on public access TV, which is so cool that we have that in Chicago and it's still exists. Right now.

Mason Paine: Wow. I didn't know. It still existed. I remember watching it when some guy wanted to help you with your math homework and I would call up and be like, could you help me with my math homework? That was like, besides JBTV. That was the only other one I knew about. But when it comes to the concept of the show, you said you wanted to do music in general. I mean, what, what drove you to that? You could have done anything.