THE 10% SHOW: A FIRST ON CHICAGO TV
by John “Jack” Ryan




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John Ryan (far right) and some of his volunteers and crew for The 10% Show.

The 10% Show was Chicago's first television program dedicated to covering the political, social, entertainment and cultural goings-on of the city's LGBT community. The idea for the show started at the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1987. Just like a lot of people around the country, I returned home energized and inspired. I read that the march was covered by a group in New York City called the Gay Cable Network. I soon met with Lou Maletta, who created the program. I asked Lou about opening an office in Chicago.

I found out that local free cable-access rules dictated that we create our own programs devoted to Chicago. I had planned on doing that eventually, but the rules caused us to jump ahead and make our own programming. The studios and equipment of the nonprofit Chicago Access Corp. were available, but we were never allowed to run advertising. Finding funds and volunteer staff was daunting. I went through generations of volunteers over a period of two years until I was finally able to find the right people with the right skills along with the right dedication and dependability to make the show finally take off.

Our first program hit the air in the spring of 1989. We continued monthly until 1992. Our “funding” was basically the generosity of my partner, Dr. Thomas Stephens ( 1940—1992 ) , who was a highly esteemed physician and pathologist. Eventually we were also fortunate enough to get some monthly underwriting from the new bar at the time, Roscoe's, as well as an old U-matic videocassette recorder from Sidetrack.

The unique thing about The 10% Show was that we never produced anything in the studio. We took our cameras right to where the action was. Over the years we interviewed lots of movers and shakers in the community and everyday people. Some of the ones who come to mind: Phranc, Alix Dobkin, David Leavitt, Marie Kuda, Daniel Sotomayor, The Weather Girls, Linda Clifford, Jon-Henri Damski, Chuck Renslow, Jim Flint, Ralph Paul Gernhardt, International Mr. Leather and International Ms Leather contestants, Miss Continental contestants, Dawn Clark Netsch, Lee K, Sandy Duncan, drag queen wrestlers, the Dancing Queens, Bruce Koff, and Gregg Araki. We would have a segment covering the establishment of Chicago House and then show our coverage of a Girth and Mirth convention.

One of our most exciting programs involved our coverage of a 1989 community meeting with Mayor Richard M. Daley at the Ann Sather restaurant on West Belmont Avenue. The mayor ended up abruptly leaving the stage, muttering to his liaison and walking out. The next day I checked my voice mail and it was jammed with requests from virtually every channel in the city seeking our footage of the confrontation. I spent the whole day being driven to newsrooms where they copied our coverage for their evening's newscasts.

Our program started in Chicago, but over time we were producing episodes to run in other markets. Along with being shown on five cable systems in Illinois, we had requests from Cincinnati, Louisville, Los Angeles and New York. We might not have had the best program with the biggest budget in the country, but we did have some great people doing some great work, considering all our limitations. We actually had a name for our production company: SBC Productions, which stood for “shitty but cool.”

From Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Community, edited by Tracy Baim, Surrey Books, 2008.

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