Nyhl henson biography of alberta

Nyhl Henson came home this weekend from Los Angeles to attend the Wayne City, Ill. Bean Days Celebration.

While he was in the area, he spoke to the local Rotary Club. A friend asked if I’d like to interview Nyhl, assuring me that he was quite an interesting fellow. “What’s his claim to fame?” I asked. “I’ll let him tell you,” he said.

I first learned that Mr. Henson graduated from Wayne City High School in 1966 and attended Southern Illinois University. His goal was to earn a degree in history and become a teacher and coach. “My big plan was to teach history in Decatur, Illinois and coach the Decatur Reds,” Nyhl said.

However, a chance encounter in Carbondale with renowned architect and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller changed Nyhl’s life forever.

“I was involved in a lot of tom foolery when I was a kid,” Nyhl said. “I made crop art and did a lot of nonsense things. Mr. Fuller told me I should play out those visions. ”Fuller encouraged him to take a battery of aptitude tests and see if he might be better suited for something besides teaching. “You’re a media guy,” Nyhl was told. “So, I changed my major to journalism and communications.”

While in Carbondale, Nyhl got involved in producing content for area cable TV systems. He first produced a news show and later some music programs.With a master’s degree in hand, he wrote letters to the biggest cable TV outfits in the country at the time – Teleprompter and Warner Brothers, hoping for a job offer. No response came from Warner Brothers, but Teleprompter wrote – “If half of what you say you’ve done is true, you’ve got a job,” they said. In a matter of days, Nhyl was at the Drake Hotel in Chicago and signed a deal with Teleprompter. It was a move that would ignite his career.

Nyhl’s first created home shopping for cable TV. It was launched in Reno, Nevada and later became the Home Shopping Network.After the home shopping success, Warner Brothers called Nyhl and offered him a bigger job. He took the position and set up shop in Columbus, Ohio in what he described as “the ultimate test market”.

During his four years in Columbus, Nyhl thought it was time to create some cable TV content for children. The new creation was called - Nickelodeon. Nyhl’s true passion though was music. With tons of money and an unbridled imagination, Nyhl launched what is known today as the “pay per view” genre. He signed up two bands – the Rolling Stones and The Who.

While producing these live concerts, Nhyl came up with another idea – music videos. To test the idea, he produced some music videos and slipped them between segments of Nickelodeon. College students on the campus of Ohio University in Columbus quickly noticed and wanted more. That’s when MTV was born – another Nyhl Henson creation.

“I was on a plane with The Who one day and Pete Townshend handed me his brand new Bose headphones,” Nyhl said. “I didn’t know if he wanted me to see how good they were or what,” Nyhl said. “The song he was playing was George Jones singing “He Stopped Loving Her Today”. Now, I never liked country music, but Pete was trying to tell me something.”That something was that country music needed its own music video network. “At the time, all we had was the Nashville Network,” Nyhl said. “Heck, that wasn’t much more than Hee Haw TV.” With inspiration from a rock legend, Nyhl went back to work and created the Country Music Television (CMT) network.

Now in his late 60’s you’d think Nyhl might be thinking about slowing down – or even retiring.Not even close.During my interview, Nyhl made a little announcement. “On Easter Sunday, I’m launching a new network,” Nyhl said. “I’m calling it “See Him TV” – it will be music TV with a purpose.” The new network will feature popular Christian music artists and other Christian-based programming.

Had Nyhl Henson not had a chance encounter with R. Buckminster Fuller in Carbondale, he probably would have gone on to be a history teacher. Who knows how long it would have been before shows like home shopping, Nickelodeon, MTV, CMT and pay per view were developed.

Isn’t it amazing how just one person can inspire another to do great things?