Copyright Notice: Copyright 1970 by Bantam Books, Inc.; Copyright 1996 by Nicholas Johnson. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any medium known now or in the future. Provided, however, that permission is hereby granted to distribute this book under the following conditions: (1) that it is distributed in its entirety, including this copyright notice, (2) that no charge is exacted, or revenue received, directly or indirectly, by anyone in connection with the transfer, and (3) as a matter of courtesy and information, that the author be informed, simultaneously with the distribution, of any distribution to more than one person or posting for availability on the Internet, Web, or publicly available directory. Any other use requires the prior permission of the author: Nicholas Johnson, njohnson@inav.net, Postal: Box 1876, Iowa City IA 52244-1876, U.S.A.
Cover, title page, credits, acknowledgments, contents, appendices
2 The Media Barons and the Public Interest 37
4 New Attitudes, New Understanding, New Will: The Media and the Unheard 89
5 A Concept of Communications: A Systems Approach 105
6 Communications and the Year 2000 119
8 Reforming Television: Institutional Realignments 157
9 What You Can Do to Improve TV [includes appendices listed below] 185
An intense and timely book--what you can do to improve
TV!
Nicholas Johnson
How to talk back to your television set
N5720 * 95 cents * A BANTAM BOOK [symbol]
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In the United States, where more than 95% of all homes have at least one television set, the average TV is on nearly 6 hours each day. By the age of five, a child normally has spent more time watching TV than he will spend in college classrooms . . .
Frightening? It is if television programming is inadequate . . . and Nicholas Johnson thinks it is. Read his concrete, tough-minded proposals in
HOW TO TALK BACK TO YOUR TELEVISION SET
____________________________________________________________
"Nick Johnson is currently the citizen's least frightened
friend in Washington and this book tells why."
---John Kenneth Galbraith
____________________________________________________________
"What this good book says is that forty years of experimenting
with private enterprise in the public sector has produced a national humiliation."
---Fred W. Friendly,
former director, C.B.S.
news staff
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Nicholas Johnson
How to talk back to your television set
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This edition contains everything in the hardbound edition
published by Atlantic-Little, Brown. But material has been added, as the
book has been significantly updated and edited, and also contains added
features: two bibliographies and an index. Bantam hopes these changes and
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valuable to the student and general reader. As with the Atlantic-Little,
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Bantam edition will also be distributed by Little, Brown to "organizations
devoted to improving the contribution of television to the quality of American
life."
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HOW TO TALK BACK TO YOUR TELEVISION SET
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Little, Brown and Company
PRINTING HISTORY
Little, Brown edition published March 1970
Bantam edition published June 1970
2nd printing
3rd printing
4th printing
The author wishes to thank the following magazines for permission to reprint articles which appeared originally, in somewhat different form, in their pages: the ATLANTIC, for "The Media Barons and the Public Interest"; HARPER'S Magazine, for "What You Can Do to Improve TV"; TV GUIDE, for "The Silent Screen" (Copyright ? 1969 by Triangle Publications, Inc.); THE SATURDAY REVIEW, for "CATV: Promise and Peril" (Copyright ? 1967 by Saturday Review, Inc.). Early versions of some of the appendices appeared in an article entitled "How to Talk Back to Your Television Set" in the AFL-CIO FEDERATIONIST.
The quotation from a song of the Rolling Stones Copyright
? 1965
by Immediate Music Inc. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
International copyright secured.
The lines written by Mason Williams Copyright 1969 by
Mason
Williams. Used by permission.
Back cover photo by John Neubauer.
All rights reserved
Copyright 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 by Little, Brown and
Company.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
IN ADDITION TO THE MANY people whose invaluable
assistance is referred to in the Introduction, there are a few to whom
I would like specifically to dedicate this book:
My mother, Edna, my late father, Wendell Johnson
(whose studies of general semantics and speech pathology gave me my first
introduction to "communications"), and my sister, Katy -- into whose
home and care I was so fortunate to be born.
My wife, Karen, and my children -- Julie, Sherman and Gregory -- who have provided me the love and understanding that makes bearable and even satisfying the harassment of officialdom.
My classmates, teachers, employers, and colleagues along the way in Iowa City, Austin, Houston, Washington, Berkeley, and Washington again, who have given me the example, the skills, and the motivation.
Lyndon B. Johnson, a man who was selected for great responsibilities at the age of twenty-seven by another President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and perhaps therefore felt a twenty-nine-year-old stranger from Iowa was worth a gamble as Maritime Administrator in February 1964. Without his commitment and confidence I would never have been offered, and persuaded to accept, the position of FCC Commissioner in the first place.
NICHOLAS JOHNSON
Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C. 20554
October 1969
Introduction
1
1 The Crush of Television
9
2 The Media Barons and the Public Interest
37
3 The Silent Screen
71
4 New Attitudes, New Understanding, New Will:
The Media and the Unheard 89
5 A Concept of Communications: A Systems Approach
105
6 Communications and the Year 2000
119
7 CATV: Promise and Peril
137
8 Reforming Television: Institutional Realignments
157
9 What You Can Do to Improve TV
185
Appendices
WHAT TO DO 208
FREE MATERIALS 209
LOCAL INFORMATION 210
WHERE TO WRITE 211
LICENSE RENEWALS 214
BIBLIOGRAPHIES 217
INDEX 237
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How to talk back to your television set
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TELEVISION IS ONE OF THE most powerful forces man has ever unleashed upon himself. The quality of human life may depend enormously upon our efforts to comprehend and control that force. This book represents my small contribution in that direction.
The responsibilities of the Federal Communications Commission, and my own interests, go well beyond traditional broadcasting issues to the regulation of telephone rates, communications satellites, allocation of frequencies for mobile radio, computer networks, and many more. Such important and fascinating concerns have been largely excluded here in order to emphasize broadcasting matters.
The opening chapter, "The Crush of Television," enumerates the ways in which television influences our individual lives and our society. "The Media Barons and the Public Interest" discusses the growing concentration of ownership and control of the mass media in the hands of a few, and the implications that concentrated control may have on the content of televised information and opinion. In "The Silent Screen" we turn more specifically to the problem of corporate censorship. "New Attitudes, New Understanding, New Will" addresses the present and potential
impact of the mass media on race relations. The next two chapters, "A Concept of Communications" and "Communications and the Year 2000," treat the larger issues posed by our developing communications technology. "CATV: Promise and Peril" is a survey of certain issues raised by the growth of cable television as an alternative to over-the-air broadcasting.
The book closes with two chapters proposing specific changes in broadcasting. The first, "Reforming Television: Institutional Realignments," is principally concerned with changes that Congress or the FCC might implement. "What You Can Do to Improve TV" is addressed to steps the individual citizen might take.
This collection is modest in scope and purpose. It is not a history of the FCC, a treatise on broadcasting, or even a thorough chronicle of the first half of my own seven-year term (beginning July 1, 1966). It is a sampling. I would readily acknowledge that much of this book was originally prepared under much greater pressure than the most thorough and thoughtful scholarship would require. I can only hope there are compensating virtues as well-that I may have captured some of the drama of the moment. I hope this will be much more than a "how to" book. But it is that, too. It is intended to be instructive and interesting for the thoughtful general reader and student of the mass media. But it is also intended as a manual for practicing pragmatists--in school or out.
My intention has been to encourage bringing more national resources of talent and creativity to bear upon the national policy questions involving broadcasting--resources from industry, universities, foundations, research organizations, govern-
ment, and of course from the mass media. Others, too, have felt this need to focus our nation's talent on the problems of broadcasting, and all of us have been working toward the same general ends. There is therefore no single achievement that I could, or would, claim as mine alone. There have been many, and will be many more, that are consistent with the general direction in which we have been moving.
The Public Broadcasting Corporation is a reality. President Johnson's Presidential Task Force on Telecommunications Policy has collected millions of dollars worth of research and published the results. There is more program diversity available to the American people than ever before--educational radio and television, UHF television stations, separate programming on commonly owned AM-FM stations, cable television and the authorization of pay television. The FCC is at least considering, or investigating, conglomerate corporations' ownership of stations, joint media ownership in single markets, network domination of the television program production market, and new cable television regulations. The Justice Department has taken a meaningful role in attempting to reverse the trend to larger and larger mergers of broadcast properties. And, most significant of all, citizens of all ages, in all corners of this country, have begun to grasp the absolutely crucial need to reform television if any progress is to be made on the rest of our national agenda. They are participating in the license renewal process before the FCC, watching for violations of the fairness doctrine, and generally making commercial broadcasters more responsive to their public trust. But, as is too often the case, their very action has produced an even more hostile reaction from the
broadcasting establishment -- without question the single most economically and politically powerful industry in our nation's history.
I do not have the space to list all the people to whom I am indebted in this study, and many prefer to remain anonymous. (It is a tragic fact of life that there seems to be an inverse correlation between power and tolerance of dissent. In no industry is that more true than in broadcasting.) In the three and one-half years I have been at the Commission I have met, talked to, or corresponded with, literally thousands of people. I could not begin to list the names of all the authors, critics and reporters who have provided the massive printed grist for my mental mill. Each individual has had some impact upon me, for I came to this assignment with no particular expertise in the area and felt a special obligation to examine as many points of view as possible before making up my mind on the issues.
I have talked with the businessmen who run this industry, and their lawyers, a surprising large minority of whom are full of refreshing encouragement and candor -- off the record, of course. I am especially indebted to their employees--the television and radio reporters, writers, producers, and others who have a professional commitment to improving the programming product of this industry. There are many Senators and Congressmen, and their staffs, who share my concerns.
The FCC is blessed with many men and women who would genuinely like to do the job the Communications Act calls upon them to do--but often feel frustrated by inertia and an unresponsive bureaucracy. They have been a quiet but effective source of strength. Many university campuses con-
tain schools, or at least a few scattered professors, who are focusing their talents on broadcasting: schools of communication and journalism, law schools, economic departments and business schools, sociologists, psychologists, electrical engineers, and so forth. I have visited with many of them, and their students, and have always benefited from the exchange. There has also been assistance from numerous study groups and task forces, foundations, research organizations, centers, consultants, and various other institutions and individuals who do research in areas at least peripherally related to broadcasting. In one sense this book ia dedicated to these people because it is they who have provided me the information and intellectual stimulation to feel, and to write, as I have.
All of those involved in this book are working, in a sense, to improve the quality of life for all Americans. Very few of the American people are performing at more than five percent of their capacity -- their capacity to perceive, to produce, to understand, to create, to relate to others, to experience joy. Of all the tragedies confronting an America of the 1970's, this one may well be the most sad. I believe that television--which provides most of the people of this country with their principal source of education, entertainment, information and opinion -- bears perhaps more responsibility for this state of the nation than any other single institution. It can do better; it must do better. And I believe, with your comprehension and commitment, eventually it will do better.
Thomas Paine said, "Words pile up and afterwards men do things. First the words." Whether or not the pen be mightier than the sword, it is the
only weapon available to a Federal Communications Commissioner
in his daily skirmishes on behalf of the amorphous "public interest." What
you hold here are the words. They have piled up -- in articles, opinions,
testimony and speeches. This book represents an effort to select a few
of these ideas and sort them out. Whether or not men "do things" remains
to be seen. The need is clear. Some of the methods are at hand. It is up
to you.