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"WHEN TELEVISION IS BAD, NOTHING IS
WORSE." - NEWTON MINOW 1961
Television and the Public Interest
It follows the full text transcript of
Newton Minow's Television and the Public
Interest speech, delivered at
Washington D.C. - May 9, 1961.
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Thank you for this
opportunity to meet with you today. |
This is my first public address since I took over my new
job. When the New
Frontiersmen rode into town, I locked myself in
my office to do my
homework and get my feet wet. But apparently I
haven't managed to stay
out of hot water. I seem to have detected a
certain nervous apprehension
about what I might say or do when I emerged from
that locked office for
this, my maiden station break.
First, let me begin by dispelling a rumor. I was
not picked for this job
because I regard myself as the fastest draw on
the New Frontier.
Second, let me start a rumor. Like you, I have
carefully read President
Kennedy's messages about the regulatory
agencies, conflict of interest and
the dangers of ex parte contacts. And of course,
we at the Federal
Communications Commission will do our part.
Indeed, I may even suggest
that we change the name of the FCC to The Seven
Untouchables!
It may also come as a surprise to some of you,
but I want you to know
that you have my admiration and respect. Yours
is a most honorable
profession. Anyone who is in the broadcasting
business has a tough row to
hoe. You earn your bread by using public
property. When you work in
broadcasting, you volunteer for public service,
public pressure and public
regulation. You must compete with other
attractions and other investments,
and the only way you can do it is to prove to us
every three years that you
should have been in business in the first place.
I can think of easier ways to make a living.
But I cannot think of more satisfying ways.
I admire your courage—but that doesn't mean I
would make life any
easier for you. Your license lets you use the
public's airwaves as trustees
for 180 million Americans. The public is your
beneficiary. If you want to
stay on as trustees, you must deliver a decent
return to the public—not only
to your stockholders. So, as a representative of
the public, your health and
your product are among my chief concerns.
As to your health: let's talk only of television
today. In 1960 gross
broadcast revenues of the television industry
were over $1,268,000,000;
profit before taxes was $243,900,000—an average
return on revenue of
19.2 per cent. Compare this with 1959, when
gross broadcast revenues
were $1,163,900,000, and profit before taxes was
$222,300,000, an average
return on revenue of 19.1 per cent. So the
percentage increase of total
revenues from 1959 to 1960 was 9 per cent, and
the percentage increase of
profit was 9.7 per cent. This, despite a
recession. For your investors, the
price has indeed been right.
I have confidence in your health.
But not in your product.
It is with this and much more in mind that I
come before you today.
One editorialist in the trade press wrote that
"the FCC of the New
Frontier is going to be one of the toughest
FCC's in the history of broadcast
regulation." If he meant that we intend to
enforce the law in the public
interest, let me make it perfectly clear that he
is right—we do.
If he meant that we intend to muzzle or censor
broadcasting, he is
dead wrong.
It would not surprise me if some of you had
expected me to come
here today and say in effect, "Clean up your own
house or the government
will do it for you."
Well, in a limited sense, you would be
right—I've just said it.
But I want to say to you earnestly that it is
not in that spirit that I
come before you today, nor is it in that spirit
that I intend to serve the FCC.
I am in Washington to help broadcasting, not to
harm it; to strengthen
it, not weaken it; to reward it, not punish it;
to encourage it, not threaten it;
to stimulate it, not censor it.
Above all, I am here to uphold and protect the
public interest.
What do we mean by "the public interest"? Some
say the public
interest is merely what interests the public.
I disagree.
So does your distinguished president, Governor
Collins. In a recent
speech he said, "Broadcasting, to serve the
public interest, must have a soul
and a conscience, a burning desire to excel, as
well as to sell; the urge to
build the character, citizenship and
intellectual stature of people, as well as
to expand the gross national product. . . . By
no means do I imply that
broadcasters disregard the public interest. . .
. But a much better job can be
done, and should be done."
I could not agree more.
And I would add that in today's world, with
chaos in Laos and the
Congo aflame, with Communist tyranny on our
Caribbean doorstep and
relentless pressure on our Atlantic alliance,
with social and economic
problems at home of the gravest nature, yes, and
with technological
knowledge that makes it possible, as our
President has said, not only to
destroy our world but to destroy poverty around
the world—in a time of
peril and opportunity, the old complacent,
unbalanced fare of action-adventure
and situation comedies is simply not good
enough.
Your industry possesses the most powerful voice
in America. It has
an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with
intelligence and with
leadership. In a few years this exciting
industry has grown from a novelty
to an instrument of overwhelming impact on the
American people. It
should be making ready for the kind of
leadership that newspapers and
magazines assumed years ago, to make our people
aware of their world.
Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic
age, the space age. It is
also, I submit, the television age. And just as
history will decide whether
the leaders of today's world employed the atom
to destroy the world or
rebuild it for mankind's benefit, so will
history decide whether today's
broadcasters employed their powerful voice to
enrich the people or debase
them.
If I seem today to address myself chiefly to the
problems of
television, I don't want any of you radio
broadcasters to think we've gone
to sleep at your switch—we haven't. We still
listen. But in recent years
most of the controversies and crosscurrents in
broadcast programming have
swirled around television. And so my subject
today is the television
industry and the public interest.
Like everybody, I wear more than one hat. I am
the Chairman of the
FCC. I am also a television viewer and the
husband and father of other
television viewers. I have seen a great many
television programs that
seemed to me eminently worthwhile, and I am not
talking about the much-bemoaned
good old days of "Playhouse 90" and "Studio
One."
I am talking about this past season. Some were
wonderfully
entertaining, such as "The Fabulous Fifties,"
the "Fred Astaire Show" and
the "Bing Crosby Special"; some were dramatic
and moving, such as
Conrad's "Victory" and "Twilight Zone"; some
were marvelously
informative, such as "The Nation's Future," "CBS
Reports," and "The
Valiant Years." I could list many more—programs
that I am sure everyone
here felt enriched his own life and that of his
family. When television is
good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines
or newspapers—nothing
is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I
invite you to sit down
in front of your television set when your
station goes on the air and stay
there without a book, magazine, newspaper,
profit-and-loss sheet or rating
book to distract you—and keep your eyes glued to
that set until the station
signs off. I can assure you that you will
observe a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows,
violence, audience
participation shows, formula comedies about
totally unbelievable families,
blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism,
murder, Western bad-men,
Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more
violence and cartoons.
And, endlessly, commercials—many screaming,
cajoling and offending.
And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a
few things you will enjoy.
But they will be very, very few. And if you
think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there one person in this room who claims that
broadcasting can't do
better?
Well, a glance at next season's proposed
programming can give us
little heart. Of seventy-three and a half hours
of prime evening time, the
networks have tentatively scheduled fifty-nine
hours to categories of "action-adventure," situation comedy, variety,
quiz and movies.
Is there one network president in this room who
claims he can't do
better?
Well, is there at least one network president
who believes that the
other networks can't do better?
Gentlemen, your trust accounting with your
beneficiaries is overdue.
Never have so few owed so much to so many.
Why is so much of television so bad? I have
heard many answers:
demands of your advertisers; competition for
ever higher ratings; the need
always to attract a mass audience; the high cost
of television programs; the
insatiable appetite for programming
material—these are some of them.
Unquestionably these are tough problems not
susceptible to easy answers.
But I am not convinced that you have tried hard
enough to solve
them.
I do not accept the idea that the present
over-all programming is
aimed accurately at the public taste. The
ratings tell us only that some
people have their television sets turned on, and
of that number, so many are
tuned to one channel and so many to another.
They don't tell us what the
public might watch if they were offered half a
dozen additional choices. A
rating, at best, is an indication of how many
people saw what you gave
them. Unfortunately it does not reveal the depth
of the penetration, or the
intensity of reaction, and it never reveals what
the acceptance would have
been if what you gave them had been better—if
all the forces of art and
creativity and daring and imagination had been
unleashed. I believe in the
people's good sense and good taste, and I am not
convinced that the
people's taste is as low as some of you assume.
My concern with the rating services is not with
their accuracy.
Perhaps they are accurate. I really don't know.
What, then, is wrong with
the ratings? It's not been their accuracy—it's
been their use.
Certainly I hope you will agree that ratings
should have little
influence where children are concerned. The best
estimates indicate that
during the hours of 5 to 6 P.M., 60 per cent of
your audience is composed of
children under twelve. And most young children
today, believe it or not,
spend as much time watching television as they
do in the schoolroom. I
repeat—let that sink in—most young children
today spend as much time
watching television as they do in the
schoolroom. It used to be said that
there were three great influences on a child:
home, school and church.
Today there is a fourth great influence, and you
ladies and gentlemen
control it.
If parents, teachers and ministers conducted
their responsibilities by
following the ratings, children would have a
steady diet of ice cream,
school holidays and no Sunday School. What about
your responsibilities?
Is there no room on television to teach, to
inform, to uplift, to stretch, to
enlarge the capacities of our children? Is there
no room for programs
deepening their understanding of children in
other lands? Is there no room
for a children's news show explaining something
about the world to them
at their level of understanding? Is there no
room for reading the great
literature of the past, teaching them the great
traditions of freedom? There
are some fine children's shows, but they are
drowned out in the massive
doses of cartoons, violence and more violence.
Must these be your
trademarks? Search your consciences and see if
you cannot offer more to
your young beneficiaries, whose future you guide
so many hours each and
every day.
What about adult programming and ratings? You
know, newspaper
publishers take popularity ratings too. The
answers are pretty clear; it is
almost always the comics, followed by the
advice-to-the-lovelorn columns.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the news is still on
the front page of all
newspapers, the editorials are not replaced by
more comics, the newspapers
have not become one long collection of advice to
the lovelorn. Yet
newspapers do not need a license from the
government to be in business—
they do not use public property. But in
television—where your
responsibilities as public trustees are so
plain—the moment that the ratings
indicate that Westerns are popular, there are
new imitations of Westerns on
the air faster than the old coaxial cable could
take us from Hollywood to
New York. Broadcasting cannot continue to live
by the numbers. Ratings
ought to be the slave of the broadcaster, not
his master. And you and I both
know that the rating services themselves would
agree.
Let me make clear that what I am talking about
is balance. I believe
that the public interest is made up of many
interests. There are many people
in this great country, and you must serve all of
us. You will get no
argument from me if you say that, given a choice
between a Western and a
symphony, more people will watch the Western. I
like Westerns and
private eyes too—but a steady diet for the whole
country is obviously not
in the public interest. We all know that people
would more often prefer to
be entertained than stimulated or informed. But
your obligations are not
satisfied if you look only to popularity as a
test of what to broadcast. You
are not only in show business; you are free to
communicate ideas as well as
relaxation. You must provide a wider range of
choices, more diversity,
more alternatives. It is not enough to cater to
the nation's whims—you
must also serve the nation's needs.
And I would add this—that if some of you persist
in a relentless
search for the highest rating and the lowest
common denominator, you may
very well lose your audience. Because, to
paraphrase a great American who
was recently my law partner, the people are
wise, wiser than some of the
broadcasters—and politicians—think.
As you may have gathered, I would like to see
television improved.
But how is this to be brought about? By
voluntary action by the
broadcasters themselves? By direct government
intervention? Or how?
Let me address myself now to my role, not as a
viewer, but as
Chairman of the FCC. I could not if I would
chart for you this afternoon in
detail all of the actions I contemplate.
Instead, I want to make clear some of
the fundamental principles which guide me.
1. The people own the air. They own it as
much in prime evening
time as they do at 6 o'clock Sunday morning. For
every hour that the
people give you, you owe them something. I
intend to see that your debt is
paid with service.
2. I think it would be foolish and wasteful
for us to continue
any worn-out wrangle over the problems of
payola, rigged quiz shows, and
other mistakes of the past. There are laws on
the books which we will
enforce. But there is no chip on my shoulder. We
live together in perilous,
uncertain times; we face together staggering
problems; and we must not
waste much time now by rehashing the clichés of
past controversy. To
quarrel over the past is to lose the future.
3. I believe in the free enterprise system.
I want to see
broadcasting improved and I want you to do the
job. I am proud to
champion your cause. It is not rare for American
businessmen to serve a
public trust. Yours is a special trust because
it is imposed by law.
4. I will do all I can to help educational
television. There are still
not enough educational stations, and major
centers of the country still lack
usable educational channels. If there were a
limited number of printing
presses in this country, you may be sure that a
fair proportion of them
would be put to educational use. Educational
television has an enormous
contribution to make to the future, and I intend
to give it a hand along the
way. If there is not a nationwide educational
television system in this
country, it will not be the fault of the FCC.
5. I am unalterably opposed to governmental
censorship. There
will be no suppression of programming which does
not meet with
bureaucratic tastes. Censorship strikes at the
tap root of our free society.
6. I did not come to Washington to idly
observe the squandering
of the public's airwaves. The squandering of our
airwaves is no less
important than the lavish waste of any precious
natural resource. I intend to
take the job of Chairman of the FCC very
seriously. I believe in the gravity
of my own particular sector of the New Frontier.
There will be times
perhaps when you will consider that I take
myself or my job too seriously.
Frankly, I don't care if you do. For I am
convinced that either one takes this
job seriously—or one can be seriously taken.
Now, how will these principles be applied?
Clearly, at the heart of the
FCC's authority lies its power to license, to
renew or fail to renew, or to
revoke a license. As you know, when your license
comes up for renewal,
your performance is compared with your promises.
I understand that many
people feel that in the past licenses were often
renewed pro forma. I say to
you now: renewal will not be pro forma in the
future. There is nothing
permanent or sacred about a broadcast license.
But simply matching promises and performance is
not enough. I
intend to do more. I intend to find out whether
the people care. I intend to
find out whether the community which each
broadcaster serves believes he
has been serving the public interest. When a
renewal is set down for
hearing, I intend—wherever possible—to hold a
well-advertised public
hearing, right in the community you have
promised to serve. I want the
people who own the air and the homes that
television enters to tell you and
the FCC what's been going on. I want the
people—if they are truly
interested in the service you give them—to make
notes, document cases,
tell us the facts. For those few of you who
really believe that the public
interest is merely what interests the public—I
hope that these hearings will
arouse no little interest.
The FCC has a fine reserve of monitors—almost
180 million
Americans gathered around 56 million sets. If
you want those monitors to
be your friends at court—it's up to you.
Some of you may say,
"Yes, but I still do not
know where the line is
between a grant of a renewal and the hearing you
just spoke of." My
answer is: why should you want to know how close
you can come to the
edge of the cliff? What the Commission asks of
you is to make a
conscientious good-faith effort to serve the
public interest. Everyone of you
serves a community in which the people would
benefit by educational,
religious, instructive or other public service
programming. Every one of
you serves an area which has local needs—as to
local elections,
controversial issues, local news, local talent.
Make a serious, genuine effort
to put on that programming. When you do, you
will not be playing
brinkmanship with the public interest.
What I've been saying applies to broadcast
stations. Now a station
break for the networks:
You know your importance in this great industry.
Today, more than
one-half of all hours of television station
programming comes from the
networks; in prime time, this rises to more than
three-fourths of the
available hours.
You know that the FCC has been studying network
operations for
some time. I intend to press this to a speedy
conclusion with useful results.
I can tell you right now, however, that I am
deeply concerned with
concentration of power in the hands of the
networks. As a result, too many
local stations have foregone any efforts at
local programming, with little
use of live talent and local service. Too many
local stations operate with
one hand on the network switch and the other on
a projector loaded with
old movies. We want the individual stations to
be free to meet their legal
responsibilities to serve their communities.
I join Governor Collins in his views so well
expressed to the
advertisers who use the public air. I urge the
networks to join him and
undertake a very special mission on behalf of
this industry: you can tell
your advertisers, "This is the high quality we
are going to serve—take it or
other people will. If you think you can find a
better place to move
automobiles, cigarettes and soap—go ahead and
try."
Tell your sponsors to be less concerned with
costs per thousand and
more concerned with understanding per millions.
And remind your
stockholders that an investment in broadcasting
is buying a share in public
responsibility.
The networks can start this industry on the road
to freedom from the
dictatorship of numbers.
But there is more to the problem than network
influences on stations
or advertiser influences on networks. I know the
problems networks face in
trying to clear some of their best programs—the
informational programs
that exemplify public service. They are your
finest hours, whether
sustaining or commercial, whether regularly
scheduled or special; these are
the signs that broadcasting knows the way to
leadership. They make the
public's trust in you a wise choice.
They should be seen. As you know, we are
readying for use new
forms by which broadcast stations will report
their programming to the
Commission. You probably also know that special
attention will be paid in
these reports to public service programming. I
believe that stations taking
network service should also be required to
report the extent of the local
clearance of network public service programming,
and when they fail to
clear them, they should explain why. If it is to
put on some outstanding
local program, this is one reason. But, if it is
simply to carry some old
movie that is an entirely different matter. The
Commission should consider
such clearance reports carefully when making up
its mind about the
licensee's over-all programming.
We intend to move—and as you know, indeed the
FCC was rapidly
moving in other new areas before the new
Administration arrived in
Washington. And I want to pay my public respects
to my very able
predecessor, Fred Ford, and my colleagues on the
Commission who have
welcomed me to the FCC with warmth and
cooperation.
We have approved an experiment with pay TV, and
in New York we
are testing the potential of UHF broadcasting.
Either or both of these may
revolutionize television. Only a foolish prophet
would venture to guess the
direction they will take, and their effect. But
we intend that they shall be
explored fully—for they are part of
broadcasting's new frontier.
The questions surrounding pay TV are largely
economic. The
questions surrounding UHF are largely
technological. We are going to give
the infant pay TV a chance to prove whether it
can offer a useful service;
we are going to protect it from those who would
strangle it in its crib.
As for UHF, I'm sure you know about our test in
the canyons of New
York City. We will take every possible positive
step to break through the
allocations barrier into UHF. We will put this
sleeping giant to use, and in
the years ahead we may have twice as many
channels operating in cities
where now there are only two or three. We may
have a half-dozen
networks instead of three.
I have told you that I believe in the free
enterprise system. I believe
that most of television's problems stem from
lack of competition. This is
the importance of UHF to me: with more channels
on the air, we will be
able to provide every community with enough
stations to offer service to
all parts of the public. Programs with a
mass-market appeal required by
mass-product advertisers certainly will still be
available. But other stations
will recognize the need to appeal to more
limited markets and to special
tastes. In this way we can all have a much wider
range of programs.
Television should thrive on this competition—and
the country should
benefit from alternative sources of service to
the public. And, Governor
Collins, I hope the NAB will benefit from many
new members.
Another, and perhaps the most important,
frontier: television will
rapidly join the parade into space.
International television will be with us
soon. No one knows how long it will be until a
broadcast from a studio in
New York will be viewed in India as well as in
Indiana, will be seen in the
Congo as it is seen in Chicago. But as surely as
we are meeting here today,
that day will come—and once again our world will
shrink.
What will the people of other countries think of
us when they see our
Western bad-men and good men punching each other
in the jaw in between
the shooting? What will the Latin American or
African child learn of
America from our great communications industry?
We cannot permit
television in its present form to be our voice
overseas.
There is your challenge to leadership. You must
reexamine some
fundamentals of your industry. You must open
your minds and open your
hearts to the limitless horizons of tomorrow.
I can suggest some words that should serve to
guide you:
Television and all who participate in it are
jointly accountable
to the American public for respect for the
special needs of
children, for community responsibility, for the
advancement of
education and culture, for the acceptability of
the program
materials chosen, for decency and decorum in
production, and
for propriety in advertising. This
responsibility cannot be
discharged by any given group of programs, but
can be
discharged only through the highest standards of
respect for the
American home, applied to every moment of every
program
presented by television.
Program materials should enlarge the horizons of
the viewer,
provide him with wholesome entertainment, afford
helpful
stimulation, and remind him of the
responsibilities which the
citizen has toward his society.
These words are not mine. They are yours. They
are taken literally
from your own Television Code. They reflect the
leadership and aspirations
of your own great industry. I urge you to
respect them as I do. And I urge
you to respect the intelligent and farsighted
leadership of Governor LeRoy
Collins and to make this meeting a creative act.
I urge you at this meeting
and, after you leave, back home, at your
stations and your networks, to
strive ceaselessly to improve your product and
to better serve your viewers,
the American people.
I hope that we at the FCC will not allow
ourselves to become so
bogged down in the mountain of papers, hearings,
memoranda, orders and
the daily routine that we close our eyes to the
wider view of the public
interest. And I hope that you broadcasters will
not permit yourselves to
become so absorbed in the chase for ratings,
sales and profits that you lose
this wider view. Now more than ever before in
broadcasting's history the
times demand the best of all of us.
We need imagination in programming, not
sterility; creativity, not
imitation; experimentation, not conformity;
excellence, not mediocrity.
Television is filled with creative, imaginative
people. You must strive to set
them free.
Television in its young life has had many hours
of greatness—its "Victory at Sea," its Army-McCarthy hearings,
its "Peter Pan," its "Kraft
Theater," its "See It Now," its "Project 20,"
the World Series, its political
conventions and campaigns, the Great Debates—and
it has had its endless
hours of mediocrity and its moments of public
disgrace. There are
estimates that today the average viewer spends
about 200 minutes daily
with television, while the average reader spends
thirty-eight minutes with
magazines and forty minutes with newspapers.
Television has grown faster
than a teenager, and now it is time to grow up.
What you gentlemen broadcast through the
people's air affects the
people's taste, their knowledge, their opinions,
their understanding of
themselves and of their world. And their future.
The power of instantaneous sight and sound is
without precedent in
mankind's history. This is an awesome power. It
has limitless capabilities
for good—and for evil. And it carries with it
awesome responsibilities—
responsibilities which you and I cannot escape.
In his stirring Inaugural Address, our President
said, "And so, my
fellow Americans: ask not what your country can
do for you—ask what
you can do for your country."
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Ask not what broadcasting can do for you—ask
what you can do for
broadcasting.
I urge you to put the people's airwaves to the
service of the people
and the cause of freedom. You must help prepare
a generation for great
decisions. You must help a great nation fulfill
its future.
Do this, and I pledge you our help.
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