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Address by Robert W. Sarnoff Chairman of the Board National Broadcasting Company, Inc. Before The Executives’ Club of Chicago Chicago, Illinois October 20, 1951
"THE RACE TO 1980"
I was highly honored by Mr. Stewart’s invitation to join the ranks of the distinguished speakers who have faced this distinguished audience. I suspect that he may have been influenced somewhat by the interest most of us seem to share in television. I hope it will not violate my franchise here to skip rather lightly over that subject and devote this talk to a matter that concerns me less as a broadcaster than as an American living in a dangerous year of a turbulent century.
Let me assure you first that television is still going strong. The number of homes equipped with television and the number of hours devoted to viewing stand at all-time highs. Last week 133*000^000 Americans spent a good deal of their spare time watching the NBC Tele¬ vision Network alone. I have no doubt that many of them liked a lot of what they saw. If the day ever comes when all of them like all they see, it will be a triumph for television - but a sad day for American individualism.
Much of what I have been reading about television reminds me of a letter received not long ago by the NBC station in New York. It said: "Please look at your TV picture on Channel 4, as I think there is
a dirty spot which shows on screen from your TV station." Well, I submit that sometimes the fault may be at the receiving end, or even in the eye of the beholder. We have our faults, too, but not for lack of trying, year in and year out, to do a better job in serving a total public .
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