Nicholas Johnson, How to Talk Back to Your Television Set (New York: Bantam Books, 1970) 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, 1035393@mcimail.com, postal: Box 1876, Iowa City IA 52244-1876, U.S.A. # # # # p. 185 # 9 What You Can Do to Improve TV # p. 186 # [blank] # p. 187 # CRITICS OF RADIO AND television are generally agreed that the Federal Communications Commission is a far from effective guardian of the public interest in broadcasting. It has failed -- according to one widely accepted view -- because it has, in effect, been captured by the industry it was established to regulate. How did this come about? And what can you do about it? Thousands of people have written me letters asking essentially that question. This is an attempt at an answer. So far as I know, the problem is not that sinister forces staged a coup one dark night in the FCC's headquarters at 20th and M Streets in Washington. The problem is much more subtle, and common to virtually all regulatory agencies. As James Landis put it in his devastating report to President Kennedy: "It is the daily machine-gun-like impact on both agency and its staff of industry representatives that makes for industry orientation on the part of many honest and capable agency members as well as agency staffs." The remedy, in my view, is not going to come from spontaneous government action. This is a do-it-yourself nation, with government to match. Ordinary citizens can, must--and occasionally do -- influence administrative decisions. But effective # p. 188 # citizen representation requires considerably more sophistication than has been generally evidenced. One basic principle, which I will call the law of effective reform, is this: in order to get relief from legal institutions (Congress, courts, agencies) one must assert, first, the factual basis for the grievance and the specific parties involved; second, the legal principle that indicates relief is due (constitutional provision, statute, regulation, court or agency decision); and third, the precise remedy sought (new legislation or regulations, license revocation, fines, or an order changing practices). When this principle is not understood, which is most of the time, the most legitimate public protests from thousands of citizens fall like drops of rain upon lonely and uncharted seas. But by understanding and using the right strategy the meekest among us can roll back the ocean. Here is an illustration of both points. The health hazards of cigarette smoking and, especially, the impact of TV cigarette commercials on teenagers, have been matters of wide concern for a good many years. Yet despite ominous government reports, and despite the warning notice now printed on cigarette packages, the commercials continued, cigarette consumption increased, and more and more teenagers picked up a habit which TV told them was the road to sexual prowess and a fun-packed adult world. A Federal Trade Commission report deplored the impact of cigarette commercials. Senator Robert Kennedy had suggested legislation outlawing them. Hundreds of thousands of Americans wrote letters to everybody they could think of -- Senators, Congressmen, the networks, advertisers, the FTC-- # p. 189 # and the FCC. Most got replies; some did not. But nothing happened. This protest failed, I believe, because it ignored the law of effective reform. Vague feelings rather than facts were presented. The letter writers were not specific about who had done something wrong. They did not refer to any legal principle that had been violated. And, finally, they did not seek a precise remedy. Indeed, many such letters begin, "Can't the FCC do something about . . . ?" The answer is that it can't -- or at least that it won't -- until you tell it just what you want it to do. Fortunately, however, there was one young man who understood the law of effective reform and attacked the problem accordingly. He was John Banzhaf, a New York lawyer in his twenties--now a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Mr. Banzhaf, too, wrote to Washington. But his letter was different. He called it a "fairness complaint." In it he specified an offender: the CBS-owned flagship station in New York City, WCBS. He said the station ran great quantities of cigarette commercials. He then referred to a legal principle, the "fairness doctrine," which has evolved over the years from the Communications Act, FCC regulations, and FCC and court decisions. It provides, in summary, that a broadcaster has an obligation to treat "controversial issues of public importance" fairly, and to present all sides of such issues during the course of his programming. The remedy it provides, and which John Banzhaf sought, is that the FCC can order a station complained of to present the omitted points of view. (The FCC generally leaves it up to the station to decide how this is to be # p. 190 # done.) In this case, said Mr. Banzhaf, the debate about cigarette smoking is "a controversial issue of public importance." Cigarette commercials constitute the presentation of a particular point of view. (Cigarette smoking is associated with vigor, success, and good times.) WCBS had failed, he said, to present the other point of view. (Cigarette smoking is also associated with gruesome lingering illnesses and death.) The "fairness doctrine" requires, therefore, that the FCC order WCBS (and, by implication, all other stations) to present information about the health hazards of cigarette smoking. Mr. Banzhaf won. A potential of some fifty to one hundred million dollars' worth of free anti-smoking commercials were soon thereafter being presented in the course of a year over radio and television. Through his rather simple act and investment in a six-cent stamp he had produced a result that federal officials and hundreds of thousands of concerned Americans had been unable to bring about: cigarette consumption declined in our nation for one of the first times in its history. The point of this story is not that "one man can make a difference" (although he can, and did), or that the fairness doctrine is the magic solution to all complaints about broadcasting (although it has not been used as much as it might). The point is that for each citizen grievance (about broadcasting or other matters) there is one particular course of action suggested by the law of effective reform that will bring the quickest and most thorough results in the most efficient and cheapest way. Any effective reformer must spend at least as much energy planning that optimum strategy as executing it. You can fight city hall, the "little # p. 191 # man" can do effective battle with massive corporate and governmental institutions, the government can be made to be responsive to an individual citizen's desires. The individual's frustration in our institutionalized society comes only from ignorance, not impotence. Those who preach the necessity for revolution in this country might do better to study and practice the strategy of utilizing presently available techniques of reform. It is obviously impossible to spell out in advance all potential grievances about broadcasting, let alone the optimum remedy for each. But a few more examples may be useful. Though you may not know it, you can, and should, have a voice in deciding who will operate radio and TV stations in your community. This is the citizen's ultimate control over broadcast programming. A broadcast station owner is using the public's property -- the airwaves -- and Congress has provided that he cannot "own" this property in the sense that the corner druggist owns his drugstore. A broadcaster is like an elected official, and his license entitles him to no more than a three-year term, after which he must either have his license renewed by the FCC or be turned out of office. You--his constituents--who are supposed to vote in this election often do not even know it is being held. All the licenses in each state expire at the same time. Any local organization with a stake in the quality of broadcasting (church, union, civil rights group, or civic club) can appear as a party in a license renewal proceeding by writing the FCC that it wishes to be a party, expressing its views in writing, or requesting an oral hearing. It not only can participate in the FCC proceeding, # p. 192 # but also--and often more important -- it can appeal to a court for reversal if the FCC grants the renewal unjustifiably. This right to challenge license renewals was first established in 1966, after the United Church of Christ, along with two leaders of the Jackson, Mississippi, Negro community, the Reverend Robert L. T. Smith and Mr. Aaron Henry, filed with the FCC a petition to deny the application for license renewal of the local TV station, WLBT. Their petition, which represented the culmination of a decade of complaints by Jackson Negroes against WLBT, alleged that the station systematically excluded Negroes from access to its facilities and that it had systematically promoted segregationist views and denied presentation of opposing views supported by Negroes. The Commission, which tended to regard these public intruders as some sort of unfamiliar pestilence to be scourged from its corridors, refused to accord the petitioners "standing" to participate in the renewal proceeding as parties. Instead of packing to return home, these representatives of the Jackson black community took an appeal to the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals and won. The court held that local citizens do have "standing" as parties before the FCC, remanded the proceeding to the Commission for another hearing, and retained jurisdiction to finally dispose of the case. The FCC subsequently held the hearing, admitting the church as an active party to the proceeding, and later granted the station a renewal--over the dissenting protests of Commissioner Kenneth A. Cox and myself. Without blinking, the church went back to the court of appeals again, and this time the court, in # p. 193 # exasperation with the Commission, itself ordered the Commission to accept new applications for the station's license in some of the harshest language ever directed by a court at a federal regulatory agency. Judge Warren E. Burger (now Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court) expressed "profound concern" at the Commission's "impatience" with the church as a representative of the public, and condemned in no uncertain terms the Commission's "hostility" toward its efforts. This decision will go into the record books as a ringing reaffirmation of the public right to "cast its vote" in the proceedings of its Federal Communications Commission. Many have argued that public participation in the license renewal process be made easier. Congressman John Moss says: "It is time to make every single broadcast license renewal application subject to a public proceeding within the city or region where the station is located." Consumers Union has urged that broadcasters be required to carry more meaningful and regular announcements about the public's rights. And a number of local and national citizens groups show signs of possessing the capacity and courage to play a very constructive role in this regard. Agency legal action is not, of course, the only form of popular participation in policy formation. John Banzhaf could have organized mass picketing, protesting the immorality of stations and tobacco manufacturers profiting from the promotion of disease and death. The church could have obtained thousands of signatures on a petition and sent it to the President, or to Jackson's Congressman. Either could have conducted a sit-in at the FCC or at station WLBT. (In early 1968 WNDT- # p. 194 # TV in New York was seized by twenty young people during a "broadcast-in.") The point is not that the activities John Banzhaf and the church chose to pursue were somewhat more gentlemanly. It's that the appropriate legal remedy is often the most efficient and effective path to reform. Within the past two years a number of other groups have bestirred themselves, by effective legal means, about the broadcasting situation in their communities. Four interesting cases are illustrative. One concerns the renewal application of radio station WXUR in Media, Pennsylvania. Some nineteen local organizations banded together and hired a Washington lawyer to protest WXUR's alleged policy of carrying masses of right-wing political programming unrelieved by programs promoting other viewpoints. They requested, and obtained, a public hearing in their own home town. On different grounds a group of Los Angeles businessmen petitioned the Commission not to renew the license of TV station KHJ. They charged it had provided inadequate local service to the area. Moreover, these businessmen asserted their rights under the Communications Act to apply for a license to operate this profitable station themselves. In Ashtabula, Ohio, a local of the Retail Clerks Union, petitioned the Commission to deny license renewal to several nearby radio stations which refused to carry the local's paid advertisements urging consumers to boycott a department store with which it had been involved in a labor dispute. It argued that the fairness doctrine required the sta- # p. 195 # tions to match the department store's commercials urging people to shop at the store with the union's contrary message. In St. Louis organizations of young blacks protested that three local Negro-oriented ("soul") radio stations were not providing adequate service to the city's Negro population. On a national level, the American Civil Liberties Union intervened in the FCC's proceeding involving the proposed takeover of ABC by International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. (The Justice Department ultimately appealed the FCC approved merger to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the parties called it off before the court resolved the matter.) The AFL-CIO has taken a general interest in the application of the fairness doctrine, especially, of course, when unions are attacked. The Washington-based Institute for American Democracy exists solely to combat hate programming and publishes How to Combat Air Pollution and a newsletter. John Banzhaf is now supported in his follow-up activities by an organization called Action on Safety and Health. He urged a license revocation proceeding against NBC-owned WNBC in New York on the grounds it had failed to comply with the FCC's cigarette fairness ruling, and intervened in the renewals of several California stations. (In an "unrelated" action the NBC network subsequently volunteered to put on a fixed number of anti-cigarette-smoking commercials during prime-time.) A group of good music lovers in Chicago (Citizens Committee to Save WFMT-FM) made an effort to prevent the Chicago Tribune from acquiring the station. Similar groups in Atlanta and Seattle inundated the FCC with # p. 196 # mail protesting the possible loss of broadcast classical music in their cities. The American Civil Liberties Union has recently suggested that instead of relying on the spontaneous activities of existing organizations or the formation of ad hoc groups, the FCC should set up local committees of citizen volunteers to monitor local radio and TV, particularly with respect to the fairness doctrine. Monitoring is one of the most important aspects of effective broadcasting reform. It is an ideal group project for people of all ages, but must be done right to be useful: The United Church of Christ has had the most experience. One means of influencing programming performance is simply to report--and compare--the job being done by the stations in your community. Commissioner Cox and I have attempted this with our three analyses of stations in Oklahoma, New York, and Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia (cited in the appendix). No station likes to show up badly in anyone's evaluation. There are two ways of objectively evaluating the performance of a station or group of stations--absolute standards and comparative standards. An absolute standard (such as, "Does the radio station have a newswire service at the studio?") enables you to group all stations into only two categories: those that have met the standard and those that have not. A comparative standard (such as, "What percentage of the television station's programming between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. is news, public affairs, cultural and educational?") enables you to rank all stations from best to worst. You can then compare a specific station with: all # p. 197 # other stations in your community, all other stations in your state or renewal area, all similar stations in your renewal area or the country generally (for example, "educational television stations," "network affiliated television stations in the top 50 markets," "daytime-only radio stations in cities under 50,000" and so forth). Use your own imagination to devise standards for comparing stations' performances. Here are some examples of standards used by Commissioner Cox and me in our published renewal studies of Oklahoma, New York, and D.C.-Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia. Percentage of total programming devoted to "news," to "public affairs," to all programming other than entertainment and sports, and to "locally originated programming" can be obtained from each station's license renewal form. Percentages of local and regional news and the number of news employees are indicated. The number of public service announcements during the composite week are reported, as well as the number of hours during which certain maximum numbers of commercials were exceeded. Promises in these categories in one license renewal form can be compared with actual performance in these categories in the next license renewal form; performance trends can be charted every three years. Once the FCC's minority employment forms begin to be filed it will be possible to compare stations' performances in the percentages of minority employees. These factors are the easiest to analyze because they are reported in the license renewal forms. If you are able to monitor a station's performance, or even examine the newspaper or TV Guide notices of its programming, you can come up with more # p. 198 # detailed analyses. You can analyze patterns of commercial content: minutes of nonprogram material in an hour, number of interruptions, or number of announcements. You may wish to give special attention to prime time (7:00 to 11:00 p.m.) television programming: the percentage that is locally originated (rather than network), or the percentage that is something other than series-films-light entertainment-sports. Maybe you have a special interest in the quantity of locally-originated programming: programs about local people, events and organizations. Perhaps you are interested in the number of hours of quality children's programming regularly available in your community, or useful programs for women. If you can get ahold of a report of the network-originated news and public affairs programs (perhaps New York City listings), it is often revealing to know how much of the best the networks have to offer has been pre-empted in your community in favor of old movies (and commercials sold by your local stations). Of course, fairness or other complaints and license renewal challenges can be filed against any station. It is not necessary to select a station that ranks poorly by comparative criteria. It is not even necessary to use objective rather than subjective criteria. But if you can demonstrate that a given station is not only doing very poorly by your own standards, but is not even performing up to the level of comparable stations, it should make it much more difficult for the FCC to reject your complaints. Unfortunately there are few presently recognized legal rights or remedies that will affect the # p. 199 # quality of programs, protect us from an inundation of commercials, or guarantee the opportunity to express our views or talents over the airwaves. In time there will be -- when you, and others like you, finally harness your outrage and your imagination to the law of effective reform and pull other newly recognized legal rights into the stable of remedies. At the same time, it is easy enough to write or phone a local station manager and even to arrange a conference with him. He is not likely to be unresponsive. Similar]y, letters to network presidents and to advertisers can be influential. (If one-tenth of one percent of the audience of the average network series show were to request its continuation it probably would not be canceled.) You can also send such general letters to the FCC, which, if you request, will be included in the station's "complaint file" for consideration at license renewal time. However, they will not have maximum impact unless a citizens' group subsequently appears and raises the issues as a party contesting the license renewal. In fairness to the broadcasters, it should be said that citizens' groups and listeners and viewers are not generally too helpful when it comes to suggesting new program ideas. What many organizations think would be a good program often turns out to be a dud. When offered free air-time, many organizations do not take it, or do not follow through for a sustained period. (On the other hand, some radio station managers who have been offered locally produced programs of good quality have turned them down in favor of cheaper and easier disc-jockey or phone-in shows.) Many communities have the blessing of com- # p. 200 # munity-supported noncommercial stations. The Pacifica Foundation operates radio stations WBAI in New York, KPFA in Berkeley, and KPRK in Los Angeles. It has recently begun a new station in Houston. Seattle has listener-supported KRAB. Public television stations (or "educational television") now exist in about a hundred and ninety communities (such as Channel 13 in New York and Channel 28 in Los Angeles). Such stations should be especially responsive to listener-viewer commendation, criticism, and contributions, since most are heavily dependent upon audience financial support. If your town doesn't have such a station you might want to investigate starting one. If cable television is to be installed as a profit-making venture in your community (instead of community-owned) you will want to be sure the licensing authority (often the city council) requires it to provide a number of "free" channels for educational programming to schools and community programming to homes. You may want to insist on a "common carrier" principle: that anyone who can afford to pay the leasing fee must be given access to a channel by the cable company to distribute his program. Much has happened during the past year or so. Citizen groups and individuals all over the country have cast their vote in the decision-making process at the FCC by filing petitions to deny license renewals, competing applications for licenses of existing stations, and petitions to prevent the transfer of ownership or control of existing stations. A new technique for asserting local control over radio and television stations has been pioneered by the United Church of Christ in Texarkana, Texas, and Rochester, New York. And the # p. 201 # National Association of Broadcasters reacted by sponsoring legislation (Senate Bill S. 2004) which would counteract much of this wave of citizens' participation by prohibiting the filing of competing applications for existing radio and television stations. A brief summary of the last year's activity illustrates the growing national interest in the operations of local broadcast stations. Petitions to deny. Petitions to deny the renewal of radio and television station licenses have been filed in many communities--against WMAL-TV and WTOP-TV, Washington, D.C.; KRON-TV, San Francisco; KFBC-TV, Cheyenne, Wyoming; KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, Utah; WFIL-TV, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; WHTN-TV Huntington, West Virginia; and KEWQ-AM, Paradise, California. The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., has produced a study analyzing the ownership, programming, and community surveys of all the television stations in the Virginia-Maryland-West Virginia-Washington, D.C., renewal group. This landmark effort may become a model which local citizens' groups can follow to analyze, assess and criticize the performance of local stations. Competing applications. A number of citizens' groups have taken a more exhaustive (and expensive) approach by filing their own applications for the licenses of stations in their communities. In a landmark opinion, the FCC gave these efforts a large measure of support by taking away the license of WHDH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, and giving it to a citizens' group that had been trying for a decade to obtain that license. The case then went into the courts. In what may prove to be another landmark opinion, an FCC hearing exam- # p. 202 # iner took away the license of KHJ-TV in Los Angeles, California, and gave it to a competing group of businessmen and local citizens. That case must eventually be considered by the full Commission, and will then no doubt be taken to the courts. Other groups have filed competing applications against such stations as KNBC-TV, Los Angeles, California (since withdrawn); WPIX-TV, New York; WFAN-TV and WOOK-AM, Washington, D. C.; WNAC-TV, Boston, Massachusetts; and WTAR-TV, Norfolk, Virginia. Transfers of ownership and control. The Citizens Committee to Save WFMT-FM successfully obtained a court order directing the FCC to hold hearings on the question whether the Chicago Tribune should be permitted to acquire WFMT-FM, the city's classical music station. And the Tribune subsequently announced it was giving up the fight, and donated the station to a foundation which would preserve its classical music format. The FCC itself denied an application for transfer of control in a vitally important case: WCAM-AM in Camden, New Jersey. In the Camden case, an important consideration was the fear that the purchasers of these stations had failed adequately to survey the needs of the local community and design programming to accommodate those needs. This case may signal an increased alertness on the part of the Federal Communications Commission to subject proposed transfers to critical scrutiny in the future. Local negotiations. In two crucially important cases, citizens' groups filed petitions to deny the license renewals of television stations and then proceeded to bargain directly with those stations at the local level to obtain desired reforms. In Tex- # p. 203 # arkana, Texas, the United Church of Christ successfully persuaded station KTAL-TV to sign an agreement whereby it promised to recruit and train a staff member from each minority group in the community (including a minimum of two full-time Negro reporters), finance a toll-free line for requests from surrounding communities for news coverage and inquiries about public service announcements, increase its facilities for local news coverage, publicize the rights of the poor, broadcast religious programming covering the entire spectrum of religious thought in the community, and hold monthly meetings with a committee of local groups to discuss changes in station programming. Most importantly, the agreement states that it shall be considered a part of the station's license renewal application, and any "material variance" by the station will be considered a failure to operate in the public interest -- leading to revocation of that station's license. A similar agreement has just been negotiated between a citizens' group in Rochester, New York, and a local station, WHEC-TV. This immensely significant development may herald a new technique of community influence over the media, in which concerned citizens negotiate directly with their local stations to seek reforms without the complicated and costly legal proceedings required before the FCC and the courts. Straus Editor's Report indicates that both sides in Rochester now feel the cooperation was helpful. And in Atlanta a number of black groups succeeded in obtaining from the FCC a 30-day waiver of the license renewal protest filing deadline in order that negotiations could continue during March 1970. S. 2004. In 1969 legislation was introduced # p. 204 # which would effectively eliminate the present right of citizens to file competing applications for the licenses of local stations. Not surprisingly, this legislation has active and vocal enthusiasts throughout the broadcasting industry. Essentially, it would provide that the FCC could not accept a competing application for an existing radio or television station until the Commission had first independently refused to renew that station's license without knowing, that is, that any citizens' group was even interested in applying for that license. As Christopher Lydon of the New York Times has aptly put it, the bill is similar to a law that would prohibit anyone from running for election against an incumbent Congressman until that Congressman had first been impeached! The broadcasting industry has argued that it needs this legislation to protect its economic investments in broadcast properties. It argues that if citizens are allowed to think they might be permitted to operate local stations on their own, and thus permitted to challenge those stations' licenses, investments will be jeopardized and that risk will force reduction of the presently "high" programming expenditures -- to the detriment of the public, of course. As Variety magazine has reported, however, the opposite seems more the case. Faced with the threat of license challenges, station owners and managers have increased their programming expenditures (especially in news and public affairs) to polish up their track record and to stave off any pending or potential license challengers. If adopted, the bill would, among other things, undermine the type of local negotiations with television stations pioneered by the United Church of Christ in Texarkana, and would dash cold water # p. 205 # on the aspirations of many groups (often composed of minorities from the hearts of American cities) to increase the public service provided by radio and television facilities in their area. Only time will tell whether the powerful broadcasters' lobby in Washington has the political muscle to obtain this legislation without significant protest from citizens and consumers. The legislation brought unexpected testimony and other opposition from numerous outraged citizen groups. An unsigned billboard appeared on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles: Watch for this coming subtraction! S. 2004 Freedom's closing number brought to you by ABC, CBS & NBC Television By March 1970 S. 2004 had not yet become law. But the broadcasters' power had already had its effect. Policy statement. Even if the legislation is not adopted the broadcasters have already obtained much of what they sought in S. 2004. On January 15, 1970, the FCC adopted a Policy Statement on Comparative Hearings Involving Regular Renewal Applicants, which some people felt was simply an administrative enactment of S. 2004. The policy statement provided that an incumbent broadcaster will have his license renewed, regardless of any challenges against him, if his program service can be shown to be "substantially attuned to meeting the needs and interests" of his community. In a dissent to the Commission action, I # p. 206 # said: "There is no question but that the American people have been deprived of substantial rights by our action today." But I also said that if the policy statement prevents the enactment of S. 2004 it might have accomplished some good. In the final analysis, concerned citizens will not know what they have lost until the FCC interprets what is meant by "substantial." Organized groups, who participate in defining broadcasters' "substantial service" to their communities, may have a great role in formulating the final result in this whole episode. Other activities by citizen groups. Besides the categories of activities listed above, various citizen groups have been involved in myriad other efforts to improve television. BEST (Black Efforts for Soul in Television) and CCC (Citizens Communications Center) combined to challenge the Commission's policy statement on renewals. After being rebuked by the Commission, they have gone to court. These two groups have also combined in an attack on a Commission-proposed "primer on the ascertainment of community needs." The primer is an explanation to the stations of what is required from them in surveying their communities. It was written after consultation with broadcast groups, but BEST and CCC were in part responsible for forcing the Commission to listen to public groups before final action. A number of student groups at George Washington University Law School, under the direction of Professor John Banzhaf, have protested against deceptive advertising, and one, a group called TUBE (Terminating Unfair Broadcasting Excesses) petitioned the Commission for the adoption of a rule on deceptive ads on radio and television. A group of women from Boston, Action # p. 207 # for Children's Television, has petitioned the Commission for a rule barring all advertisements on children's shows, and establishing a requirement for a minimum number of hours of children's programming every week. Their efforts contributed to the appointment by all three networks of executives to supervise children's programming. These groups all have some things in common. They are disturbed by the failures of television, they have the imagination and energy to devote themselves to working some change, and they lack sufficient resources to be as effective as they might. Senator Edward M. Kennedy recently introduced a bill which would set up a Public Counsel's Office-- funded much like the Public Broadcasting Corporation. This office would work as lawyers for the public in actions before government agencies. Such a bill would go a long way toward correcting the problems faced by present citizen groups. The whole theoretical foundation of American broadcasting is the tie of a local station to its community and its local service. The station is licensed to serve the needs of the local community. And if it is not doing so we should seriously consider substituting direct satellite-to-home (or cable) broadcasting for a system that gives away 95 percent of the public's most valuable airwaves to the private profit of 7500 local stations. FCC regulations require the station to survey the community's local needs, and to provide programming to those needs. Station files at the FCC are supposed to be filled with comments from local citizens. The three-year license renewal process is designed to encourage local participation. In fact, greater community involvement in stations' affairs ought to be welcomed by the more # p. 208 # responsible broadcasters--better local service is usually translated into larger audiences and higher commercial rates and profits. The philosophy and rhetoric of participatory democracy is on the rise. All that remains is to translate its abundant energy and ideals into effective action. The legal process often offers the easiest route to results. Yet legal rights and powers lie about unknown and unused. Increasing sophistication has been reflected in greater public participation at the FCC. I, for one, welcome it. WHAT TO DO (1) Inform yourself about your rights in broadcasting. Write for literature to the FCC and to public-spirited organizations working in this area. Get the public library to buy the major reference works you'll need. Visit your stations (or the FCC) and examine the stations' application forms and other public files. (2) Take notes or make audio tape recordings when you listen to radio or watch television. Record what you like and don't like. Organize others to do the same. (3) Express your views. Write the stations, the networks, advertisers, the FCC. Develop specific suggestions about programs you would like to see -- or have taken off the air--or other specific suggestions for station management. Visit with your station managers. (4) Join others. Let the national organizations know you support their efforts. Find out if chapters or activities already exist in your community. Form television and radio committees in the union, # p. 209 # church, and civic organizations to which you belong. (5) Use the FCC. You should not hesitate to file fairness complaints when warranted, ask for, equal time for candidates, or ask to reply to personal attacks. Prepare and file reports with the FCC on the performance of your local stations when their licenses come up for renewal. Consider intervening as a party in the renewal hearing of any station whose record is especially bad. Urge the FCC to hold local hearings if warranted. See if others are interested in starting a station that might compete for the license of a present station at renewal time. This is not an easy road. All of us lead busy lives and have other things to do. You won't win any popularity contests with broadcasters, advertisers, some public officials and powerful local citizens. You may not be warmly received by the FCC. You may have to appeal to court. You may lose. But there is little that touches our lives as consumers more than the ever-present radio and television that fills our eyes and ears--and the minds of our children. It is clearly America's number one consumer product, our most powerful potential force for good -- or evil. And it is subject to our democratic control. But only if we know our rights and are prepared to fight for them. Besides, whoever said democracy--or consumer sovereignty--was going to be easy? FREE MATERIALS Applicability of the Fairness Doctrine in the Handling of Controversial Issues of Public Impor- # p. 210 # tance, Public Notice of July 1, 1964, available from FCC, Washington, D.C. 20554. Use of Broadcast Facilities by Candidates for Public Office, Public Notice of April 27, 1966, available from FCC, Washington, D.C. 20554. Personal Attack Rules, FCC 67-795, adopted July 5, 1967, available from FCC, Washington, D.C. 20554. How to Protect Citizen Rights in Television and Radio, available from Office of Communication, United Church of Christ, 289 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10010. The National Association of Broadcasters, an industry group formed by the broadcasters, is located at 1661 N Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. The NAB has established programming and advertising codes for the industry and can provide information about them upon request. The agreement to comply with the codes is voluntary on the part of each broadcast licensee. The Citizens Communications Center, at 1816 Jefferson Place N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, has recently been established to provide citizens with free legal assistance on selected communications matters. Free materials are available. LOCAL INFORMATION Local stations are required to maintain in your community and make available to you in their "station file for local public inspection": All applications made to the Commission since May 13, 1965, including exhibits, letters, documents and amendments. All correspondence between the station and the # p. 211 # Commission concerning applications. Ownership reports filed since May 13, 1965, and records of all requests for political broadcast time. Check your local library for these materials: Annual Report of FCC to Congress (75 cents); can be ordered from Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. How to Combat Air Pollution (50 cents); can be ordered from Institute for American Democracy, 1330 Massachusetts Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005. Broadcasting Yearbook ($10, one volume, published annually), Broadcasting Publications, Inc., 1735 De Sales Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. Television Factbook ($25, 2 volumes, published annually), Television Digest, Inc., 2025 Eye Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. CATV and Station Coverage Atlas, ($17.50, one volume, published annually), Television Digest, Inc., 2025 Eye Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006. The organizations listed in the "Where to Write" section may also publish materials. WHERE TO WRITE Action for Children's Television 33 Hancock Avenue Newton Centre, Massachusetts 02159 # p. 212 # Action on Safety and Health (formerly Action on Smoking and Health) 2000 H Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. 1330 Avenue of Americas New York, N.Y. 10019 American Council for Better Broadcasts 17 West Main Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Anti-Defamation League 315 Lexington Avenue New York, N.Y. 10016 Black Efforts for Soul in Television 1015 North Carolina Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003 Center for the Study of Responsive Law 1908 Q Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 Citizens Communications Center 1816 Jefferson Place N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. 51 West 52nd Street New York, N.Y. 10019 Communications Policy Committee American Civil Liberties Union 156 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y. 10010 Corporation for Public Broadcasting 888 16th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 Federal Communications Commission 1919 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 # p. 213 # Institute for American Democracy, Inc. 1330 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Institute for Policy Studies 1520 New Hampshire Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 Mutual Broadcasting Company 135 West 50th St. New York, N.Y. 10019 National Association for Better Broadcasting 373 Northwestern Avenue Los Angeles, California 90004 National Audience Board, Inc. 152 East End Avenue New York, N.Y. 10028 National Broadcasting Company 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, N.Y. 10020 National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting 609 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 Office of Communication United Church of Christ 289 Park Avenue South New York, N.Y. 10010 Television, Radio and Film Commission Terminate Unfair Broadcasting Excesses Students Opposing Unfair Practices Protesting Unfair Marketing Practices 2000 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 The Methodist Church 475 Riverside Drive New York, N.Y. 10027 # p. 214 # Urban Law Institute 2000 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 LICENSE RENEWALS All licenses expire on the same day within a given state every three years. Stations must file for license renewal with the FCC 90 days prior to the expiration date. Petitions to deny a station's license renewal application must be filed between 90 and 30 days prior to the expiration date. Forthcoming expiration dates* include: (1) For stations in Florida, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands: February 1--1970, 1973, 1976, and 1979. (2) For stations in Alabama and Georgia: April 1 -- 1970, 1973, 1976, and 1979. (3) For stations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi: June 1--1970, 1973, 1976, and 1979. (4) For stations in Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana: August 1 -- 1970, 1973, 1976, and 1979. (5) For stations in Ohio and Michigan: October 1--1970, 1973, 1976 and 1979. (6) For stations in Illinois and Wisconsin: December 1 -- 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979. (7) For stations in Iowa and Missouri: February 1 -- 1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980. (8) For Stations in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Colorado: April 1--1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980. (9) For stations in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska: June 1-- 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980. __________________ * Dates are subject to change. # p. 215 # (10) For stations in Texas: August 1 -- 1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980. (11) For stations in Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Idaho: October 1--1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980. (12) For stations in California: December 1-1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980. (13) For stations in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Guam, and Hawaii: FebruarY 1 -- 1972, 1976, 1978, and 1981. (14) For stations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont: April 1 -- 1972, 1975, 1978, and 1981. (15) For stations in New Jersey and New York: June 1-1972, 1975, 1978, and 1981. (16) For stations in Delaware and Pennsylvania: August 1 -- 1972, 1975, 1978, and 1981. (17) For stations in Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia: October 1--1972, 1975, 1978, and 1981. (18) For stations in North Carolina and South Carolina: December 1--1972, 1975, 1978, and 1981. # p. 216 # [blank] # p. 217 # Bibliographies THERE ARE TWO BIBLIOGRAPHIES. The first is a selected and annotated list of the author's writing in the communications field. The second is a sampling from others' material. Both emphasize broadcasting issues; neither is complete. Another selected bibliography of the author's writings about communications has been published by the International Society for General Semantics in a special issue of its journal, ETC., devoted to the writings of FCC Commissioners Lee Loevinger and Nicholas Johnson, 24 ETC. 372-83 (1969). A complete bibliography is available from him upon request (Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, FCC, Washington, D.C. 20554). There are general bibliographies of writings about communications published separately or as appendices in general texts. [Examples would include Dexter and White, People, Society and Mass Communications, 583-587 (1964); E. Blum, Reference Books in the Mass Media (1962); and President's Task Force on Communications Policy--Staff Papers--Bibliography, June 1969. No. PB # p. 218 # 184 424, Dept. of Commerce Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Springfield, Va.] 1. Selected Bibliography of Nicholas Johnson The bulk of my writings as a Commissioner about communications issues has appeared in the form of separate Commission opinions. These are published, along with most other official FCC material, in a set of bound volumes known as the "Federal Communications Commission Reports" (now in a "second series" cited as "FCC 2d"). The start of my term (July 1, 1966) coincides with volume four (4 FCC 2d). These FCC reports are available in many law school libraries and the larger public libraries. (They are sold by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, both as a subscription service to a weekly pamphlet of current decisions, and as the bound volumes published later.) There has been no attempt to list these hundreds of opinions; some of the more significant, and a sampling of others are included. In listing articles, testimony and speeches, an effort has been made to cite first the version that is developed most fully, or is apt to be most widely available. This is followed by citations to some of the sources where the item appeared in earlier versions, or was subsequently reprinted, for the benefit of those who may find some publications more readily available than others. This listing, like that of the opinions, is also an incomplete sampling. For example, there are no references to the earlier publication of statements which have been substantially included within the text of this # p. 219 # book. Nor are there any references to my publications on subjects other than communications, or those prior to July 1, 1966. 2. Selected General Bibliography The subject of "communications" can be defined to be as broad as the whole of human experience. There are those within virtually every academic discipline or field of interest who are writing about what could be considered a facet of communications. This bibliography emphasizes broadcasting policy questions, with some reference to other communications policy areas. It is limited to bound volumes, and is but an almost random sampling of them. Undoubtedly, there have been inadvertent and embarrassing omissions. Examples of more complete bibliographies are cited in the introductory note to this bibliographies section. As in any field, some of the most useful material is the hardest to obtain. Back issues of professional and trade publications are a boon to anyone who has them available: Broadcasting Magazine (1735 De Sales Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036), Columbia Journalism Review (602 Journalism Building, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027), Straus Newsletter (1211 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036), Television Digest (2025 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006), and Variety (154 West 46th Street, New York, N.Y. 10036) are examples. There are innumerable useful documents that are classified, out of print, or uncatalogued: studies prepared by government task forces, foundations, research organizations, trade associations, doctoral dissertations, or filings in FCC proceedings # p. 220 # ("dockets" ) and other unpublished "public information" virtually unrecoverable from FCC files. There are many excellent articles in scholarly and general magazines and newspapers. The basic FCC materials consist of the Communications Act of 1934 (and related statutes), available in a bound pamphlet from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, court decisions which are reprinted along with many FCC decisions in Pike and Fischer Radio Regulations, available in most law libraries, the FCC Reports, and the regulations of the FCC published in the Code of Federal Regulations. The FCC regulations are found in Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations (47 C.F.R.  0-99) revised annually and published in four volumes as of early 1970. They are available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. The FCC Public Information Office (FCC, Washington, D.C. 20554) will make free single-copy distribution of the "Fairness Primer," "Personal Attack Rules," and "Equal Time-Political Broadcasting Rules and Primer." It also has available brief general pamphlets on such subjects as: "What You Should Know About the FCC," "List of Printed Publications," "How to Apply for a Broadcast Station," "Broadcast Primer," "Radio Station and Other Lists," "Publications and Services," "A Short History of Electrical Communication," "Safety and Special Radio Services Primer," "Common Carrier Primer," "Radio Station Call Signs," "Regulation of Wire and Radio Communication," "Frequency Allocation," "Education Television," "Memo to All # p. 221 # Young People Interested in Radio," "Letter to a Schoolboy," "FCC Field Engineering Services," "Subscription TV and the FCC," and "Educational Radio." ###