A four-time Emmy award winning director teaches at Long Beach City College in the radio television department. We spoke with Professor Robert Hersh who was in the television industry from the early 1970s until he transitioned into teaching in 2002 as a full-time professor at LBCC. 

The first Emmy award was from his work as an associate director in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. The second Emmy was won as an associate director for ABC’s Wide World of Sports. His third Emmy was for the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA. The fourth Emmy was for directing Nick News W/5, a kids news show hosted by Linda Ellerbee. 

Other well-known or high rated shows Hersh directed were Battle of the Network Stars hosted by Howard Cosell, the pre show before the Oscars also known as the Oscars red carpet and The Geraldo Rivera Show. 

In regard to his work on the Oscars red carpet he said, “It was almost like doing a live sports telecast. That’s basically how I grew up as a director in the ABC live sports. Learning that early on – directing live television which is non-scripted where you are on the edge of your seat and ready to go.”

Hersh’s favorite genre was directing live talk shows because the topics were cutting edge. “For example we did a talk show on-location with Geraldo at a nudist colony. Figuring out how to do that without filming people’s private parts was on the creative side,” said Hersh.

“Sometimes I had no idea what he was going to do but because of my live television background and experience it was a lot of fun to do.”

Hersh attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and was a music major with a concentration in composition and electronic music. “I thought at the time I wanted to be a famous rock and roll star and that didn’t really work out,” said Hersh. 

While in college he was in a band called Big Crotch and the Armpits. The music genre the band played was similar to the genres played by Frank Zappa. He was the music director of the band and made videos for the band. He found it interesting and that’s how he started to follow a career in the film and entertainment industry. 

One of his first jobs was working on a scanimate computer. It was an analog computer animation system that was used from the 1960s to the 1980s. It was commonly used to make animation for television. He first used a scanimate computer in college and that experience helped him land that first job that required the scanimate computer. 

He directed a commercial for Pepto Bismol in the mid 1970s and used a scanimate computer to add visual effects. This was in the early days of computer animation. 

The most challenging part of his career was his transition from associate director in ABC News and ABC Sports to directing a talk show. “It was kind of overwhelming at the time because I had never directed a talk show before. I had to reinvent the wheel in terms of my knowledge and my expertise to direct this brand new talk show,” said Hersh. 

 As an associate director he worked with a team and his transition as a director gave him a leading role where he had more creative control. 

The most exciting part of his career was working with Rivera on the Geraldo Rivera Talk Show. Hersh said, “I got to do a bunch of different types of segments for Rivera. For example the nudist colony segment there weren’t any other nudist colony shows for me to look at for reference in terms of figuring out how to direct it. I was the first person to have done stuff like that and I had to be creative and make sure that my decisions were the right decisions.”

John Doss, a video control operator at Fox Sports, worked with Hersh both in the television industry and at LBCC. They first met at LBCC when Doss was hired as chief engineer for the radio and television department. 

They worked together on Sports Geniuses and The Best Damn Sports Show Period which were both aired on Fox Sports. Hersh was the director of both shows and Doss played a role as a camera operator and an engineer. 

Doss said, “The thing I was always impressed about Bob was when he lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. He was kind of an East Coast, West Coast director, and he’d always (I heard) told people on the West Coast, ‘You know if you need me tomorrow, I’ll be there.’ He’d jump on the plane in a heartbeat.”

“Once Bob came over to the West Coast I think he kind of helped New York integrate to the West Coast in the special events division for ABC sports, possibly early 2000’s. Things have changed since then, I don’t know if ABC still has that division,” said Doss. 

Hersh decided to transition from the entertainment industry to education because he was always in the mindset of trying something new. In addition to his segway into education he said, “As you get older you don’t necessarily want to communicate back-and-forth on the 405 freeway, sometimes it’s as simple as that. It seemed to be a natural transition like many of the other transitions I made in the entertainment industry.” 

This semester Hersh is teaching RTV1 Introduction to Broadcasting, RTV13 Television Production, and RTV36 Broadcast News Production. 

Amid the pandemic he has had to adjust his style of teaching. Hersh said, “I’ve decided to make it more textbook oriented which is opposite of what I do for in-person classes.”

Professor Ray Burton, now retired, was the one who hired Hersh in 1999 as an adjunct professor and then full-time in 2002. Burton managed the broadcast and multimedia program at LBCC for over 30 years.