Television digest with AM-FM reports (Jan-Dec 1951)

fore be provided by this Commission for education. Without sufficient television channels at their disposal, schools and educators in all parts of our country will not be able to take full advantage of the unprecedented opportunity which television offers them. Inadequate provision for educational television primarily penalizes, not the educators, but rather the American people, who own these airwaves. The Commission now proposes to allocate and open up for licensing all of the remaining frequencies that are available for telecasting, and, as far as we know, all that will ever be available. Provision for educational television and adequate recognition of its needs must therefore be made now or never. The reservoir of television channels is virtually being exhausted by this allocation and, for all practical purposes, future provision for educational-television channels is now being foreclosed. In view of these facts, the Commission is particularly obligated to bear in mind the future needs and demands of the country as well as those apparent at the present time. We must think here not in terms of months or years, but of generations. We must not permit ourselves to be unduly swayed by the entreaties of those whose interest is the immediate commercial use of the medium. Foresight as to the television service of the future allows these present demands to be weighed in proper balance. The uniquely valuable services that the educator is willing to offer on a non-commercial basis should not be lost to the American people. The Commission’s duty, laid upon it by Congress, to encourage the larger and more effective use of television in the public interest, appears almost specially designed to fit the particular problems presented by educational television. The true test of a technological innovation lies in the ultimate uses to which it is put for the public benefit. I firmly believe that without full provision for education, the electronic marvel of television will not gain the respected place on the American scene and throughout the world that it should hold. II As I have already stated, the Commission has recognized the principle of reserving channels for educational television, but has made inadequate provision for it. We ought not, while conceding the principle of educational television, kill it in practice. Mere recognition of a principle will not of itself produce practical results. Adequate means must be supplied to properly effectuate the broad policy adopted. I recognize that the Commission’s action is in the form of a proposal and I hope that the inadequacies within it will be remedied before the action is made final. To do so, I would extend the reservation of channels for educational purposes to eliminate the following defects of the proposed plan : The Commission’s proposal does not provide sufficient channels for a nation-wide system — a minimum requirement for adequate use of television by educators. At the outset I should like to make clear that I fully support the principle that the television spectrum in the main should be devoted to use by commercial broadcasters, in accordance with the traditional concepts of American broadcasting. Commercial broadcasters serve a very important function which non-commercial broadcasting cannot fulfill. With full respect for the scarcity of available frequencies and the acknowledged needs of commercial operations, I firmly believe that the Commission has struck an imbalance of the various interests here involved and has not provided education with the proportionate share of the channels it deserves. The Commission, in reserving approximately 10% of the total assignments in the 48 states, has failed to provide facilities for education in a large number of cities of substantial size. Thus, there is no frequency reserved in more than one-fourth of the 168 standard metropolitan areas in the United States, although these cities range from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with a population of 65,000, to Youngstown, Ohio, with a population of 525,000. The absence of a reservation is particularly serious in those cities where important colleges and universities and successful educational broadcasters are located. These include Lansing, Michigan (the home of Michigan State College), Lexington, Kentucky (the home of the University of Kentucky), and Springfield, Massachusetts (the home of Smith, Mt. Holyoke and the University of Massachusetts).* The basis for the Commission’s action in failing to resei-ve one frequency for education in the many cities where two frequencies have been assigned, can only be that such reservation would leave but one commercial station in that city and thus encourage a potential monopoly. This basis is inadequate in light of the record and the public policies here involved. The total exclusion of educators from television and the resultant loss to these communities is too high a price to pay for the encouragement of competition between the two commercial stations in a two-channel city. These two stations, on the basis of our experience in radio as well as television, will to a large extent broadcast the same general type of programs, with too little recognition or attention to the needs of education on the air. Certainly, cultural monopoly of this kind is as much, if not more, to be abhorred than economic monopoly. As guardian of the public’s airwaves and entrusted with their regulation in the public interest, the Commission should be no less concerned about cultural monopoly than about its commercial counterpart. Educational and non-commercial television, insofar as this Committee can provide, should be made readily available to every community in the United States. The Commission’s proposal in many of our largest cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, Cleveland and others, confines the reservation for education to the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, and makes no provision for educational broadcasting in the very high frequency (VHF) band now in use. It is common knowledge that some of our greatest educational needs are to be found in these giant metropolitan centers. It is equally obvious that educational television can be most effectively used in such metropolitan areas where one station can serve from 300,000 to a million school children as well as a total population of from one to eleven million people. Furthermore, in these cities, there are available the most ample educational resources, such as funds, program material and large numbers of educational institutions and civic and community organization able to cooperate in the building and opei-ation of educational-TV stations. To restrict education in these cities solely to an outlet in UHF is to place it at a fundamental disadvantage, cut sharply into its potential effectiveness and add an unusually heavy burden to those already carried by the local educators. Up to now, UHF operations have been completely experimental, and we have no assurance as to when UHF equipment will be available and UHF stations in operation. In each of these cities, however, there are at least three or more VHF stations already in operation; in addition, a large proportion, if not a majority, of the families there already own VHF receivers that cannot without extensive conversion, receive telecasts in UHF. For example, there are already over two and one-quarter million VHF sets in the New York metropolitan area that will be lost to education on UHF, unless additional tuners and antennas are added to them. In these circumstances, the Commission quite properly indicates concern that even commercial interests in UHF will be required to face substantial economic problems beyond those ordinarily faced by a VHF operation. How then can the Commission, consonant with the practical realities of the situation, force educators in these localities to carry the additional burden of UHF operations, which they clearly are ill-equipped to do? In such circumstances, it is extremely unwise for the * In addition, there are other omissions in the Commission’s proposed reservation. For example, the state of New Jersey, with its large cities, with its millions of residents plus its many fine educational institutions, has not been given a single channel for education. Still another example is Stillwater, Oklahoma, the home of Oklahoma A&M, a college which has an outstanding broadcasting record. 6