Ancil Payne, former head of King Broadcasting, dies at 83

By Seattle Times staff

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The cause of his death was unknown, but in recent years he had battled cancer, said B.J. Paine, a longtime colleague at KING-TV.

Mr. Payne spent more than 30 years in broadcasting, most of it directing KING-TV from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, when the station was nationally recognized for its bold, professional approach to television journalism.

"Ancil yearned to take television to a higher level, rather than to the lowest common denominator, which is what the consultants want you to do," said longtime Seattle journalist John A. Wilson.

"He set high expectations and provided the tools needed to meet them."

During his tenure at KING, Mr. Payne also served as a mentor and counselor to a generation of journalists who became local leaders, including former Mayor Charles Royer, City Councilman Jim Compton, Wilson, civic activist Emory Bundy and City Light spokesman Bob Royer.

"Ancil could walk into the room and literally change your life," Bob Royer recalled. "He gave me an opportunity to do interesting TV journalism that nobody else was doing at the time."

Mr. Payne grew up on the shores of the Columbia River, in The Dalles, Ore., where his father was a house painter, his mother a teacher. He was student body president of his high school, and served in the Navy before earning his degree from the University of Washington.

As an active member of Young Democrats, he met Stimson Bullitt, heir to the Stimson-Bullitt fortune and a fellow liberal crusader. Later, Mr. Payne worked on the congressional staff of U.S. Rep. Hugh B. Mitchell and, in the early 1950s, managed an Alaska trucking company while crusading for Alaska statehood.

In 1959, Bullitt introduced Mr. Payne to his mother, Dorothy Bullitt, who had bought a small radio and TV station in Seattle in the late 1940s. That acquisition was to become one of the nation's great regional media empires.

Mr. Payne took a job at King Broadcasting and, in 1965, became vice president and general manager of KGW, King's Portland affiliate.
 
In Portland, Payne directed the fledgling station toward an aggressive style of journalism, campaigning for causes such as employment of blacks and preservation of public beaches, according to O. Casey Corr, author of a recent book on the Bullitts and King Broadcasting and communications director for Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. KGW's editorial commentator, Tom McCall, would eventually be elected Oregon's governor.

In 1970, Stimson Bullitt brought Mr. Payne back to Seattle, where he became chief operating officer.

Like Seattle itself, the company was struggling, Corr said.

"There had been a downturn in advertising. Television had not been as productive, and the family was nervous." Mr. Payne "saved the company" by finding a balance of good journalism and good business, Corr said.

"KING remained an active, progressive force, but he trimmed the sails on Stim Bullitt's idealism."

The station continued its aggressive journalism, editorializing against the Vietnam War and in favor of liberal causes ranging from tax reform to environmental reforms. The station played an important role in uncovering the police pay-offs in the early 1970s and a variety of political scandals.

Along the way, the station won dozens of national awards, including Columbia Dupont Awards - the TV equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.

"The great idealism came from Stim Bullitt," Corr said. "But Ancil found ways to keep some of that alive while also making money."

Eventually, Stimson Bullitt left the station, leaving the management to Mr. Payne, who reported to Bullitt's mother.

At KING, Mr. Payne was frequently referred to as "the senator," a reference to his tenure on Capitol Hill and his links to the late Sen. Warren Magnuson.

But Mr. Payne called himself "the foreman at the ranch." The "foreman" would hold court each morning in the station coffee shop, gently prodding or counseling reporters as they came and went.

"He'd make some comment, and you'd sit down and chat," Wilson recalled. "What are you working on? Well, they tried that back in '52, or in '72, and there's a lesson to be learned."

Longtime Seattle journalist David Brewster traces Mr. Payne's roots to the progressive politics of Warren Magnuson and Tom McCall - politics as "fun" but also "attached to the public good."

Yet he also insisted on that good journalism was local.

While Seattle's KING-TV crusaded for gun control, the company's Boise station ran ads for gun shops and defended the rights of gun-owners.

"Ancil set the standards," Wilson recalls, "but each station was expected to meet those standards consistent with its own local community."