If you’re looking for information about the early days of television in central Illinois such as shows like the “Capt. Jinks Show” that entertained Peoria-area children in the 50s, there aren’t many places to turn.
One of them is the Central Illinois’ On-Line Broadcast Museum at dougquick.com. The site was set up by Doug Quick, a retired TV broadcaster in Springfield who was recently named a Downstate Broadcast Pioneer by the Illinois Broadcasters Association’s 2022.
At the time of his retirement in September of last year, Quick was considered the longest-tenured central Illinois weathercaster following a career that began in 1974 on his hometown’s radio stations in Taylorville, followed by stops in Springfield and Decatur with most of his radio career spent at stations in Danville.
Quick added television to his resume in 1994, joining WICD in Champaign as the station promotions director. He then added the title of weekend weathercaster to his responsibilities and in 1998 became the weekday morning weathercaster and news co-anchor for NewsChannel 15 in Champaign.
His radio and television work continued simultaneously until 2002 when he left Danville’s radio stations and became a news/weather anchor on WICD-TV. Later he would shift over to WCCU, FOX-Illinois as a news/weather anchor, in addition to occasionally filling in on NewsChannel 15/20 in Springfield.
When he wasn’t pursuing a 40-year career in broadcasting, Quick published a book, “Pictures on the Prairie: The First Ten Years of Mid-Illinois Television History”) and created the online museum that details some of the history of stations—both radio and TV--across downstate Illinois.
