Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1959)

EDITORIAL The crisis and its cures I N ALL its history broadcasting has never faced a I crisis as severe as the one precipitated by the television quiz hearings. The crisis will get worse. It will involve radio as well as television and stations as well as networks. In Congress and in government agencies the investigations of broadcasting have only begun. Some of those to come may well exceed the quiz hearings in their impact on the public. Never has the climate in government been more hostile to radio and tv. It is a climate that can breed hysteria and irrational reactions that could seriously diminish the effectiveness of broadcasting. It is also the kind of climate in which statesmen are born. If statesmanship wins over panic, broadcasting will emerge stronger, more dynamic, more important than it was before the quiz mess boiled over. It seems to us that there are two main directions in which broadcasting must move if it is to capitalize on the maturing experiences through which it now is going. Internally, the main components of broadcasting — the networks and the stations — must assert their authority and responsibility over their entire program output. Externally, broadcasters must move at once in a massive group effort to take the initiative in government relations. There has suddenly been created an unprecedented opportunity for broadcasters to lead the way in shaping a national policy on broadcasting. This opportunity will be lost, and indeed could be turned into a disaster for radio and television, if broadcasters themselves do not immediately organize to take advantage of it. These adjustments will be discussed separately below. THE INTERNAL reorientation of networks and stations will require basic changes in the viewpoints of both those who run and those who use the television and radio facilities of the United States. As reported elsewhere in this issue, a good many of the users of these facilities are not willing to relinquish the tight controls they have been accustomed to exercise over programs. Our surveys of advertiser sentiment indicate little support — at this point — for the proposal that advertisers should get out of the program business. Broadcasters, especially the networks, foresee practical difficulties of immense proportions in any attempt to centralize their authority over programming. For one thing, they fear a revolt by sponsors. This fear becomes particularly acute when one broadcaster, in considering steps which may reduce his customers' controls over programs, realizes that a competitor may entice the customers away by giving them the free rein they have been accustomed to. For another thing, the networks fear antitrust reprisal. This is a wholly understandable fear. One of the main arguments used before congressional committees and in the FCC's own Network Study report to support the contention that networks are violating antitrust laws was that they were excluding independent program producers from the air. The tighter the controls that networks exercise over their program schedules, the better that argument becomes — if anyone in a position to enforce the antitrust laws wants to make it. Yet it is possible, we suggest, for broadcasters to work out a way to take control without risking wholesale defections by advertisers or antitrust prosecution by the government. The way is that of evolution — the gradual application of a firm policy — rather than a convulsive seizure of authority. Piece by piece the networks and stations must reclaim total editorial control. This does not mean they must or could absorb the total job of program production. But they must gradually condition advertisers to the idea that television is no more the property of advertisers than the editorial content of a respectable magazine is. They must also reach an accord with the government on antitrust application. Perhaps one device would be to assure that although the broadcaster exercised editorial control he would guarantee a specified minimum of program time to outside productions. The broad objectives to be attained in the internal redirecting of broadcast management are clear. So are those of the external adjustments. THE FCC last week announced a sweeping inquiry into the whole field of broadcast programming and advertising and of government regulation of radio and tv. To some, the announcement sounded like a threat. We suggest it could be converted into an invitation to broadcasters to participate, or rather to lead, in the formation of a national policy under which both radio and television could grow to new importance. This will not come about, however, without a mass effort of unprecedented size and unanimity on the part of all networks and stations. The job cannot be done piecemeal or with diverse measures of enthusiasm among the components of radio and tv. Neither can it be done if it is not begun at once. Without delay there must be formed a task force of broadcasters to assemble the facts and formulate proposals for presentation in the forthcoming hearings of the FCC. We do not think it at all unrealistic to suggest that this task force should address itself to the huge job of drafting a new Communications Act. This would occupy the full attention of a substantial staff operating at full speed. Yet we can think of no other efforts short of that which would take advantage of the opportunity that the FCC has offered. There is no time to form a new broadcaster association or to find new leadership outside broadcasting for the purpose of executing this great effort. The work must be done within existing structures which is to say within the only organization that now embraces both stations and networks and both radio and tv — the NAB. The future of the NAB and indeed of all broadcasting will be determined by the response which is made to the FCC invitation. If that response is not immediate and vigorous, the NAB will lose much of its reason for being. Drawn for BROADCASTING by Sid Hix "It's the product you hear so much about on television." 122 BROADCASTING, November 16, 1959