Broadcasting Telecasting (Jan-Mar 1956)

Damned If You Do . . . THE extent to which television has become big business is reflected in the formal confirmation last week by Assistant Attorney General Stanley Barnes that his Antitrust Division is looking into network and film syndication practices. It was an open secret that the government had been nosing around in tv, but it took the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee hearings to bring the fact into the sunlight, even though garbed in the guarded language of the Dept. of lustice. An investigation, of course, doesn't necessarily mean prosecution. Some inquiries go on for years and then are dropped. Several culminated recently in consent actions — the most notable the case against the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies. But there must be confusion among the networks and the advertising agencies over the disclosure that the department is studying complaints that tv networks are pressuring sponsors into using programs owned or controlled by the networks. It was not too long ago that in both radio and tv, the government complaint was that the networks had abdicated control of programs to Madison Ave. The big question was whether the networks were simply serving as conduits for the advertisers and their agencies. The station or network operator is responsible for his programming to the same extent that a publisher or editor decides the editorial content of his publication. There must be balance. Programs are developed and positioned — many of them initially on a speculative, or sustaining basis — to provide this balance. There may be some practices which tend to run counter to the antitrust laws developing in television. If that's so, now is the time to root them out. We doubt, however, whether Mr. Barnes will find anything horrendous in the networks' trend toward assuming more and more responsibility for their own programming. We think they have been rather slow in reaching that point. Statistics by Sarnoff BY SETTING its goal at one-tenth of one per cent above the 1955 level and aiming at 2.4% instead of 2.3% of the national economy, advertising this year could add a cool $400 million to the $9.25 billion which has been forecast as its 1956 total, NBC President Robert W. Sarnoff stated in his address as chairman of National Advertising Week [B«T, Feb. 27]. He noted that this was no impossible target, as in the prewar years advertising revenues totaled 3% of the overall figure. Mr. Sarnoff did not pursue this point, but we should like to. If television's share of the 1956 advertising total were to be the same per cent as for last year, $46 million of that $400 million extra would be added to the tv total. And, as the youngest and most rapidly growing advertising medium — even without color which inevitably will bulk up tv's share this year — the tv share would probably be well above that sum. Radio, if its 1955 proportion of the advertising total continues unchanged through 1956, would benefit by some $24 million if that extra one-tenth of one per cent of the national economy were to go into advertising. Printed media would similarly benefit. Tidy sums, those, and well worth the extra effort on the part of all media called for by Mr. Sarnoff, even if the motive were purely mercenary. But when it is realized, as he so clearly put it, that this added $400 million for advertising would be "well spent in terms of increasing the nation's gross consumption and in terms of strengthening industry's profit base," the achievement of this goal becomes a responsibility of advertising, an integral part of advertising's role in maintaining national prosperity. The Spiked Canon IT WOULD be difficult to exaggerate the importance of last week's decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to allow radio and television coverage of trials within its jurisdiction. While the decision applies only to courts in Colorado, it will have wide effects. In the administration of law, precedent is valued highly, and precedent for contemporizing the judiciary's attitudes toward modern journalism has definitely been set. It is a precedent which courts outside Colorado cannot ignore. We commend to the reading of anyone who pretends interest in the basic freedoms of this country the language of the decision which is reproduced on other pages of this magazine. It is the Page 114 • March 5, 1956 Drawn for BROADCASTING . TELECASTING by Sid Hix "Is that what you call the idiot board?" language of Justice Otto Moore, who admitted that before conducting the hearing of the broadcasters' case he was prejudiced against the admission of radio and television to court proceedings but that after observing radio-tv equipment in action and listening to the broadcasters' arguments he was obliged to conclude that the historic restrictions were absurdly out of date. Justice Moore was finally persuaded that those who have upheld the validity of the American Bar Assn.'s Canon 35 prohibiting photography, radio and television in courtrooms "have failed, neglected or refused to expose themselves to the information, evidence and demonstrations of progress ... in this field." In his decision — which was adopted by the entire court — Justice Moore batted down all the arguments which have been used to oppose the broadcasting of legal proceedings. He denied that radio and tv provide distractions, encourage ham acting or invade privacy. These arguments against radio-tv will sound very empty from now on. The Colorado decision is a break-through in the broadcasters' long campaign for equality with the press in access to public events. All who represented radio or television in testimony and in preparing the demonstrations for the Denver hearing have earned a place in broadcasting history. We would particularly mention Judge Justin Miller, former president and chairman of the NARTB, who appeared not only as a representative of broadcasting but also as a distinguished member of the bar. As said above, the Colorado action is a break-through, and it must now be exploited. It becomes the job of broadcasters everywhere to intensify the fight for equal access and to capitalize — to the benefit of themselves and the U. S. public — on what their fellows have done in Denver. IT WAS appropriate that the rights which radio and television won in the Colorado Supreme Court last week were obtained in part by the exercise of another right which was won only a few years ago — the right to editorialize. The Colorado court set the special hearing after broadcasters had protested the exclusion of radio and television from a court hearing involving John Gilbert Graham, accused of planting the bomb that killed his mother and 43 others on an airplane. The most vociferous protest came in an on-the-air editorial broadcast by Hugh Terry of KLZ-AM-TV. Timid broadcasters who have questioned the wisdom or effectiveness of using the right to editorialize should take courage from the KLZ example. If ever an editorial produced results, this was it. The right to editorialize and the right to cover news as it happens where it happens must be exercised if radio and television hope to take their place as basic news media. There is encouraging evidence that broadcasters are working toward that place. More and more stations are beefing up their news operations. More and more are speaking their opinions, as representatives of any mature news medium must do. Broadcasting • Telecasting