Obituary
Otto Schlaak, Milwaukee station builder, 89
Otto F. Schlaak, g.m. of Milwaukee’s public TV operation for 26 years and a key employee for six years earlier, died Dec. 15 after contracting pneumonia during a visit to his daughter in Virginia. He was 89.
“Otto’s name was synonymous with Milwaukee public television,” said Ellis Bromberg, his latest successor at MPTV, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Schlaak was known as “Dr. Television,” the newspaper said, because of his doctorate in broadcasting. The operation, licensed to the Milwaukee Area Technical College, was the first in public TV to broadcast regularly in color; one of the first to add a UHF channel, pairing Channel 36 with the original Channel 10; the first in the city to receive programs by satellite; and the first in the state with regular stereo sound, MPTV said.
He launched Channel 10’s Great TV Auction, still one of the most successful in public TV.
Viewers knew him as a theater fan who hosted the station’s Way Off Broadway program, interviewing touring stage stars with his wife, Nancy. The couple had met in student theater at the University of Iowa.
Schlaak backed extensive local programming, including remote coverage of the Circus Parade, trials and other events, and broadcasts of ballet and orchestra companies.
He joined the licensee’s educational TV project in 1954, helped put Channel 10 on the air in 1957 and became g.m. in 1960. The station put Channel 36 on the air in 1963.
He and his wife, Nancy, moved to the Tampa area after he retired in 1986. She died in 1994. Surviving are his son, Robert; daughter, Deb; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Dec. 28 in Clearwater, Fla., and a service will be held in Wisconsin in May, the newspaper said.
Web page posted Dec. 22, 2008
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