Philip Beuth

“This did not deter Frank Smith, who now had his curiosity trained like a mongoose on this quest. He visited Washington and learned from some crafty engineer friends there might be a “Hail Mary” long shot possibility for a VHF “drop in” to the Tri-City market. Their initial review of separation and coverage restrictions for the Albany region had revealed VHF signal coverage for cities like Rochester to the west, and Providence to the east. Those pre-existing saturations seemed to preclude additional VHF drop-ins. However, the engineering beagles also spotted a small region near Great Sacandaga Lake, called Vail Mills, where a drop-in might be possible because it fell between the prior contiguous coverage areas. That’s all he needed to hear, and so began Frank Smith’s Quixotic “crapshoot”—the purchase of WROW-TV along with its sister station, WROW-AM, both of which were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. One of Smith’s very first decisions was only surprising to those unfamiliar with his panache and style.”
― Philip Beuth, Limping on Water: My 40-year adventure with one of America's outstanding communications companies.