Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

EDITORIALS The mutable law SIX months ago, those with hardy memories may recall, the A. C. Nielsen Co., along with other ratings services, was being vilified before a House subcommittee. Last week the first national Nielsen ratings for the new television season were received with such reverence and fear that they might have been carried down a sacred mount by a man with a long white beard instead of delivered by a postman with a bent back and aching arches. The Nielsen pocket piece shapes the fates of men and their works. It or something like it will exist as long as networks and their advertisers have no other means of discovering what is happening at the receiving end of their transmissions. The hope must remain, however, that the user of ratings will pause occasionally to question their divinity before he starts lopping off programs and, possibly, heads. Equal treatment THE FCC's Broadcast Bureau, which has made most of the bricks the commission has thrown at broadcasters, is bent upon becoming the executioner as well as the prosecutor. It seems to be mad at everybody. In case after case it has opposed leniency or a second chance for first offenders. It wants nothing short of the supreme penalty — revocation. A current case involves the license renewal of WGMA, a 1,000 watt daytime station in Hollywood, Fla. owned by Jack Barry and Daniel Enright who were involved in the quiz-rigging scandals of 1959. The Broadcast Bureau insists these men lack the character qualifications to be licensees. This in the face of the findings by an experienced FCC examiner, Elizabeth Smith, that those activities did not constitute "an absolute disqualification as to basic character attributes" required for renewal. She found the station, since the partners acquired it in 1957, had provided an outstanding public service. Moreover, she pointed out, no law had been violated in the quiz-rigging. The law came afterward. Aside from Miss Smith's findings, the FCC had established substantial precedent for renewals in similar cases. The networks that carried quiz programs that proved to be rigged were not threatened with the loss of their station licenses. Messrs. Barry and Enright were simply network employes, not policy-making officials. Miss Smith pointed out that the licenses of the 14 TV, AM and FM stations held by Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. were renewed after the conviction of officers of WBC's parent, Westinghouse Electric Corp., on price-fixing charges. Similarly, the FCC has renewed the licenses of multiple owners involved in ex-parte cases on the premise that the infractions applied only to the particular stations directly involved. With such ample precedent it is difficult to understand why the Broadcast Bureau persists in its effort to do in a little station owned by a couple of young men trying to make good after difficult experiences. The time could far better be spent in clearing up the renewal and transfer backlogs. An essential campaign THE government ought to do something about advertising. It ought to produce a directive to all government personnel (with copies to every member of Congress) reciting the role played by advertising in keeping the economy on the move, in building sales, employment, profit and the tax revenues that keep the ship of state afloat. The outline is already written in the economic growth that has lasted for 33 consecutive months. It is written in our Gross National Product which is at the highest levels in our history. It is written in the development of our 110 dynamic society under our free enterprise system. The directive would be an answer to those bureaucrats and others in public life, to the consumers unions and other pressure groups, who contend advertising is an economic waste. It should spell out how advertising makes possible our vast system of mass communications — radio, television, newspapers, magazines — which move products, to be sure, but also move news and comments and features and presidential news conferences and congressional hearings. There is a volunteer agency instantly available to implement this outline. It is the Advertising Council, supported by advertisers, agencies and media. Its function is to enhance the interests of government through voluntary advertising campaigns — everything from forest fire prevention to freedom from hunger, the Peace Corps and aid to higher education. The Advertising Council's annual report for 1962-63 details the contributions of industry in the conduct of these government campaigns, funds for which are provided by advertising people, with time and space contributed by media. An estimated $150 million worth of radio and TV time, for example, was contributed in 1962-63, representing 13 billion "home impressions." The council has the expertise to produce the directive for the government. A worthwhile by-product would be a council project using the same voluntary media to tell the people how advertising works and why it is essential as the spark plug of our economy. The taint of money THE noncommercial, educational television station in San Francisco, kqed, is soliciting contributions with a mailing piece that reads in part: "Remember ... the last time you turned off your TV in the middle of an annoying sales pitch, a pitch for something you didn't want or need, interrupting for the umpteenth time a program you did want or need, to a point where you felt one more 'commercial' would cause you to put your foot through the face of the TV screen!" The virtues of viewing (and contributing to) kqed, the piece explains, is that good shows are offered "with never a commercial to interrupt your viewing enjoyment." We thought these educational stations were supposed to be noncommercial, not anticommercial. If they really feel this way about stations that take advertising, they should reject those big donations they get from commercial broadcasters. Drawn for BROADCASTING by Sid Hix "It's that little old wine-maker . . . He comes here straight from work." BROADCASTING, November 4, 1963