"From the Ground Up" - The Radio Pilot

Tony Seton is an instrument-rated private pilot. He got his start at the age of 19, on April Fool's Day 1970, working as a $73-a-week copy-boy on the overnight assignment desk at ABC Network Television News in New York. During the Seventies, he rose through the ranks to become a senior producer at ABC, covering five space shots, six elections, Watergate; and producing Barbara Walters' news interviews and a decade of breaking news stories across North America and Europe. He wrote, produced, directed, and reported in live and tape broadcasts for radio and television, both commercial and public, network and local, winning a number of national awards.

In 1980, Tony moved to the "Left Coast" where he began a second career as a consultant on marketing, advertising, public relations and corporate communications ventures that ranged from long distance telephone service to riverboat gambling, medical equipment leasing to taquerias, matchmaking to computers. He also kept his hand in broadcasting; as Director of Marketing and Research for a Monterey lite rock radio station, he doubled revenues, produced a series of highly-praised environmental minutes and taped interviews with local movers and shakers.

In 1992, during a three-year exile in the Chicago area, he directed the Barry Watkins for Congress campaign against Henry Hyde, winning 80% more votes than any previous Democratic candidate in the history of the district (III-6th), but still losing two to one.

He returned to the Bay Area and partnered with his long-time friend, progressive radio talk show host, Peter B. Collins, to form Wins of Change, a political consulting firm specializing in media and message. In 1996, their first year, Wins of Change produced the television messages for a number of federal, state and local campaigns. They also produced radio spots for three US Senate and Two House races. Wins of Change's radio spots for the March 1998 special Democratic Lois Capps in a traditionally Republican district. In 2000, Wins of Change was contracted to manage the media buying for Tom Campbell's statewide campaign in California for the U.S. Senate. We also participated in a judicial race in Santa Clara County, and advised on a ballot measure in Lassen County.

Offered the opportunity to get back to broadcasting, Tony debuted a new radio program, Tony Seton's INFORMATION, on KBPA (San Francisco) in January 1998. Though on the air only briefly -- because he got married and moved out of town -- Tony's show reached tens of thousands of upscale Bay Area listeners who were bored with NPR and instead turned in to his program for scintillating conversation relevant topics, "news2use", and PG-humor.

A prolific writer, Tony has published two books: Right Car, Right Price and The Under $800 Computer Buyer's Guide, a passel of poems, a volume of book reviews and a sheaf of essays. His letters appeared frequently in the San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

In addition, Tony taught Documentary Film Writing at Monterey Peninsula College and occasionally lectured on the importance of improving the quality of television news. He also instructed in Creative Writing at the women's federal correctional institution in Dublin (CA)

In late January 1997, a friend gave Tony an e-mail addresses of an acquaintance. He wrote, she wrote, he phoned, he drove to the wilds of Northern California (Redding) to meet her. Two days later they were engaged. Eight weeks later, they married and Tony moved from the Bay Area to the land of scorpions, rattlesnakes and rednecks.

Tony spent nine months on KQMS, a newstalk radio station in Redding (CA) where his SetonnoteS commentary and Newsmaker interviews won the time slots by more than 50% over the closest competition. The popularity of his radio commentary induced him to create the SetonnoteS web site, on which he posts week-daily commentary of the sociopolitical variety.

When the corporate mire at the radio station putrefied, a listener who owned a conglomerate offered Tony a marketing position at four times his station salary. Though not used to a real j-j-job, Tony gave it a whirl, creating logos, mottos, newsletters, television and radio commercials, print ads for five companies, including an airline, a real estate investment firm, and a computer school. But after five months, he gratefully escaped what had become another mess. Free at last, Tony then had the time to produce "From the Ground Up" for a national audience.

In addition to being a pilot, Tony describes himself first as a broadcast journalist, then as a writer, political consultant, and photographer who is generally sedentary but for walks every day with the dawg, a yellow Lab mix named Buster.

In 2002 Tony produced a half-hour public television program on child-rearing. Mother Nurture explores the transformative developments in parenting through the eyes of two generations of California mothers. The program won The Videographer 2002 Award of Distinction for News/Documentary, and The Communicator 2002 Award of Distinction for Cable TV/Issue Program.

In 2003 he complete another half-hour program called Divorce -- Collaborative Style, which explores the sea change in family law that allows people to dissolve their marriage with for less money in less time for less pain.