ABBIE MILLER
Editor-in-Chief
Photo via buffalonews.com.
While he spent a lot of his career behind the silver screen, there is nothing two-dimensional about Phil Arno.
This is exactly the thought process that led Communications Professor Mike Igoe to choose the WBBZ TV Owner as a guest speaker for his journalism class.
Arno described how, as a young post-graduate, his dream was to be involved in the news media industry. And he was willing to do anything to be a part of it.
According to Arno, in order to be hired within television broadcasting, you first have to be hired by a radio corporation. For him, that foot-in-the-door was WKBW Radio.
The approach that ended up scoring Arno his first position in radio may be considered somewhat nontraditional, but was effective all the same.
An eager teenager, Arno called the biggest radio station on the East Coast at the time, WKBW Radio, and asked to speak with its program director.
Disclosing that the encounter would be in regards to an assignment he was working on, Arno was able to score an interview with one of the most successful men in the business, Jeff Kaye.
Just before the meeting was over, Arno asked Kaye for a job.
To Arno’s surprise, he got one.
Arno began to be assigned random tasks based on what his coworkers were unable or unwilling to do — directing traffic during a wintertime event, writing copy for radio hosts and filming footage for a broadcast.
Eventually, he was recommended for and hired by a television station, Channel 4. Here is where he would continue to further prove himself to the broadcasters around him.
Years later, Arno would move across the country in search of the revolutionary and expansive L.A. market.
Little did he know, this change in scenery would provide its own set of challenges.
As Arno’s flight touched down in L.A., it appeared he was right back where he started: jobless but determined.
He wrote to each news director in the area, introducing himself with a letter of recommendation and a resume. It would be four months before Arno finally received a response.
The wait paid off. Arno spent the next 20 years behind the camera lens, as well as in and out of helicopters.
He looks back on this era of his career fondly, stating, “To me, it was the greatest job in the world.”
What intrigued him the most was the impact that the media could have. In his view, a news reporter is “basically a window for the world to see what’s going on.”
After two decades of success reporting with Channel 9 in L.A., it took something drastic for Arno to return to the New York newsgathering scene, according to WBBZ TV.
This drastic event took the form of a helicopter crash.
Sustaining life-threatening injuries and unaware if he’d ever be able to see his wife and newborn sons again, Arno was forced to make a choice: continue what he believed was the height of his career in Calif., or return to the place that raised him.
Taking into account the dangerousness of his current job at the time, he ended up choosing the latter.
However, upon returning to Buffalo, it slowly became clear that Arno’s career was far from over. Rather, it had just begun.
Arno’s news reporter experience in L.A., combined with a history of odd jobs in Buffalo, gave him the skills he needed to work his way back to the top and surpass his previous goals.
This time, he wasn’t just looking to make a name for himself, he was looking to lead.
And lead he did. Slowly but surely, Arno became the face of WBBZ TV station as its owner.
Now, Arno instructs upcoming journalists to achieve their goals through hard work and dedication.
Arno urges aspiring reporters to “look for the job you want,” dream big and use your determination to make a future for yourself.
He credits his position as owner of WBBZ TV to the fact that he forged opportunities for himself and actively worked to expand his skillset with every task he was given. Taking every duty seriously is what Arno says increased his value for prospective employers and ultimately allowed him to reach where he is now, at the height of his career.
Come rain or shine, LA or Buffalo, TV or radio, Arno plans on continuing to forge his legacy in the media industry.
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