New York public-access television host whom Bob recalls as a long-running interlocutor after his 2000 move from radio into TV. He first appears in passing in dialogue 05 (a Harry Lauder line Bob reads as the cul-de-sac); dialogue 55 gives the fuller portrait. A video-interview veteran since the late 1960s who leaned toward Buckminster Fuller, Channer ran a recurring on-air debate — Bob taking McLuhan, Channer taking Fuller — across roughly a dozen shows over fifteen years. New to him — start with dialogue 55.
Across the dialogues
Fills out into Bob's public-access foil — the video-art veteran who staged a running McLuhan-vs-Fuller debate with Bob across a dozen shows, one of Bob's routes out of radio into television
Bob credits Channer with a founding place in New York video art — second only to Nam June Paik in getting a portable camera — the pedigree behind his decades of public-access interviews.
"He got the second camera off the boat after Nam June Paik did in New York City."
The Bob–Channer partnership took the form of a staged rivalry — Bob arguing McLuhan against Channer's Fuller across "12 shows over the next 11 years," Bob's account of his own passage from radio into television.
"So we started a debate between McLuhan and Fuller, he being Fuller, me being McLuhan."
Connections
On Channer's public-access show Channer played the Fuller side against Bob's McLuhan across a dozen debates.
Bob took the McLuhan side of the recurring McLuhan-vs-Fuller debate on Channer's program.