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Rusty Durante is a soft spoken man who would rather be playing golf than discussing the television station he's worked for in some capacity for more than 28 years KVVU TV-5.
Eight large screen televisions line almost half of his office, each tuned to a local station and arranged in order from channels 3 through 33. The two Spanish stations are currently black, but he keeps abreast of their goings on.
At home he has six tape machines whirring through the day and night to study the competition's programming strategies.
He is the general manager of one of the top Fox affiliates in the country and he also does his own programming for the station. It's a task he continues to do because he loves it, not because he has to. Most general managers would hire a program director.
Durante came to Las Vegas with his parents in 1960, was drafted in 1964 and came back to Las Vegas in 1966 to attend Southern Nevada University, now UNLV.
He started at KVVU as a part-time errand runner while majoring in art.
The turnover was high at the small independent broadcasting station and soon Durante was promoted.
Within two years he left his art major behind for a career in television.
It paid off.
He met his wife, Jeanie, a weather girl for the station's news program. They married in 1968 and have a daughter, Natalie, 22.
Since them, he's risen through the ranks and has come to run the station.
In 1975 he became general manager and has made the local Fox affiliate number one in the nation among independent stations.
Last week he sat down with Business Press writer Kimberley McGee in a wide-ranging interview.
Originally you attended Southern Nevada University as an art major in 1966. How did you come to choose television as your lifelong career?
As time went on I got more and more interested in television and less in being a starving artist. Television is interesting. It's constantly changing.
How does it change?
It's a relatively young industry and now, with all the new technology and new competition, it is a lot more challenging today and will be over the next 15 to 20 years. Mainly because of technology....