Target Prime Time
Montgomer, Kathryn C.
BOOK REVIEWS rr elevision knows how to deal with 1 its enemies: give them airtime. A Detroit housewife, outraged by an eyeful of skimpy lingerie on the TV show "Married . . . With Children," writes...
...In 1966 a federal court ordered the FCC to grant a hearing to a coalition of civil rights groups which had petitioned to deny the license renewal of a Jackson, Mississippi, TV station on the grounds of racism...
...When other networks followed suit, producers complained and the rule was struck down as a violation of antitrust laws (as was the entire Code of Good Conduct...
...A Detroit housewife, outraged by an eyeful of skimpy lingerie on the TV show "Married . . . With Children," writes some letters, makes a phone call, and prestolightline...
...One of the targeted producers was Lear, a crusading liberal who hardly needed to be converted...
...Terry Rakolta...
...In the realm of made-for.TV movies, controversy has become a mainstay...
...loving and affectionate couples...
...Underneath: a photo of Rakolta terrorizing a Washington press conference...
...TV boils down to three stages: confrontation, cooperation, and incorporation...
...Hispanic leaders who protested the Frito Bandito and other Latino "stereotypes" were hired by network Standards and Practices departments (the censors) as "technical consultants...
...dollars...
...That Certain Summer," a 1972 ABC movie with Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen, sympathetically porTARGET...
...The show died after six episodes...
...Hispanics were with rare exceptions (like Desi Arnaz) outsiders in Hollywood, but homosexuals were inside...
...Government bureaucracies long ago mastered this tactic...
...They responded, with apologies, and three big spenders —Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, and McDonald's—promised to shun the show...
...Managing the mob" and "packaging controversy"—in Montgomery's words—became their stockin-trade...
...If anything, the evidence she has so thoroughly gathered in her book points in the opposite direction...
...Printed throughout in two colors with fifteen illustrations...
...Reaction was so strong to a CBS movie in which Linda Blair was raped with a mop handle by a gang of reform-school girls that the network instituted a "family viewing hour" during prime time...
...Not Mrs...
...Hollywood has learned fast...
...One of the targeted producers was Lear, a crusading liberal who hardly needed to be converted...
...Please send me a copy of your NEW 1989 catalogue...
...A fewsponsors pulled out...
...Black groups had opposed "Amos 'n' Andy" in the '50s but ratings kept the show alive andunaltered...
...The most powerful Hollywood lobbyist will always be the one sitting at home in front of the TV set, thumb poised on the remote control...
...Congress will likely bring back the Fairness Doctrine...
...Lear's "All in the Family," from which Maude the outspoken feminist was spun off, had already enragedboth liberal and conservative groups: ethnic antidefamation leagues complained about Archie Bunker's bigotry, and religious organizations were offended by the show's apparent biases in favor of homosexuality, premarital sex, and atheism...
...It finished in the top ten the week it aired and could easily make up the lost ad revenues if released on videocassette...
...Again, the industry adapted...
...And though her conclusions don't scan, the 200-plus pages leading up to them contain a wealth of essential information...
...Groups like the Gay Activist Alliance, the Gay Media Task Force, and the National Gay and Lesbian 'ask Force had "agents in place" at all levels of the business and became known, Montgomery notes, as "the most sophisticated and successful advocacy group[s] operating in network television...
...History doesn't bear her theories out...
...Joyce Appleby, University of California A/Tercy Otis Warren was the most formidable woman intel.01.1ectual in early America, and a proponent of the American Revolution...
...A firestorm of protest ensued and cowed ABC, which began to retain homosexual consultants...
...Name Address City State/Zip Mail to: Liberty Fund, Inc...
...So much for that theory...
...The new problem was the conservative backlash...
...7440 North Shadeland Avenue, Dept...
...Wildmon was invited to an all-expenses-paid conference in Aspen on "Special Interest Groups and the Media...
...Donald Wildmon of 'llipelo, Mississippi, founded the National Federation for Decency and launched the first of his many boycotts...
...It's impossible to know if Wildmon, Rakolta & Co...
...In other words, she did what every successful Hollywood lobbyist does: she formed an interest group—effectively, an interest group of one...
...Ethnic characters have remained "marginalized," she says, and the self-censoring quest for "balance" has led to wishy-washiness...
...S&P divisions are back in force...
...The network reportedly lost $1 million in advertising, scared away by petitions from Wildmon and others who complained that it was pro-choice propaganda...
...Montgomery, who teaches film and TV at UCLA, is the first to attempt a history of, as her subtitle says, "Advocacy Groups and the Struggle Over Entertainment Television...
...Again, the industry adapted...
...Anyone who has seen Mrs...
...Congress will likely bring back the Fairness Doctrine...
...He eventually got it in the form of ABC's equally inflammatory, but "right-wing," miniseries "Amerika," which posited a Soviet takeover of the United States...
...Please send me a copy of your NEW 1989 catalogue...
...T he first serious assault on network 1 politics didn't come until the late 1960s and early '70s...
...The Los Angeles Times ran a lead story in its Calendar section trumpeting "The Taming of Prime Time...
...Terry Rakolta...
...To order, or for a copy of our NEW 1989 catalogue, write: Foreward, bibliography, edis...
...Wade" went through seventeen drafts, the final product was anything but "balanced...
...That incredible list (note the promiscuity prohibition in 1978—the dawn of AIDS) narrowed the field down to this: gay cops, business executives, athletes, "people of courage...
...22.50 Rick Marin 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 trayed a young man's admission of homosexuality to his father...
...tor's note, list of abbreviation Volume II — 380 + xv pages...
...From then on, homosexual groups could threaten to start another "Welby-ish" confrontation...
...That effort failed...
...The TV industry, chameleon of the mass media, merely plays along...
...It was time to roll back prime time's "secular supremacy...
...Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...
...That Certain Summer," a 1972 ABC movie with Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen, sympathetically porTARGET...
...The show featured several attractive student nurses frolicking in sexy lingerie...
...The most powerful Hollywood lobbyist will always be the one sitting at home in front of the TV set, thumb poised on the remote control...
...The combined effect of this bipartisan hype was that 38.5 million people watched the movie, 62 percent of the viewing public (a staggeringly high rating...
...Hispanics were with rare exceptions (like Desi Arnaz) outsiders in Hollywood, but homosexuals were inside...
...Hardcover $30.00 the set Paperback $15.00 the set Also Available: GEORGE WASHINGTON: A COLLECTION Compiled and edited by W. B. Allen mhe bicentennial of George Washington's presidency begins April 1989...
...The Washington-based Population Institute set out to "educate" Hollywood on the matter of abortion in the late 1960s...
...Among them: "The Morton Downey, Jr...
...Last year the three major networks cut back their Standards and Practices divisions (Fox never had one) on the theory that producers would censor themselves and cable had inured viewers to more explicit material...
...Does one needle equal two hits of crack, or ten bottles of beer...
...This time the outrage came from the right...
...It was time to roll back prime time's "secular supremacy...
...Thiry Rakolta in action can hardly claim viewers are disenfranchised...
...And no boycott is going to scare "Married .. . With Children" or "60 Minutes" off the air, as long as they continue to earn their respective networks ratings and revenues...
...Motion pictures, comic books, plays, newspapers, and textbooks...
...Hollywood has learned fast...
...Because Warren was deeply engaged in the political and moral issues of her day, her writing represents a treasure trove...
...S&P divisions are back in force...
...Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine demanded equal time...
...Her warning of the threat to American democracy and her call for a "media policy . . . high on the public agenda" ring with Ivory Tower paranoia...
...How all this came to pass is the subject of Kathryn Rick Marin is television critic for the Washington Times...
...Wade" at the very time the Supreme Court was hearing arguments to overturn the 1973 abortion ruling...
...A BC's deliberately provocative satire, "Soap," which Newsweek called "one long dirty joke," made church groups livid...
...Thiry Rakolta in action can hardly claim viewers are disenfranchised...
...Underneath: a photo of Rakolta terrorizing a Washington press conference...
...Some concerned viewers might have been content to leave it at that...
...Some concerned viewers might have been content to leave it at that...
...Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine demanded equal time...
...She called the New York Times...
...Government bureaucracies long ago mastered this tactic...
...blood-thirsty or sex-crazed...
...Advertisers caved in to the pressure and began leaning on the networks to tailor programming to conservative demands...
...It worked...
...TV boils down to three stages: confrontation, cooperation, and incorporation...
...sensitive, compassionate, ethical, and personable heroes...
...The Rev...
...Montgomery, who has a sense of humor, also recounts the efforts of a group of sales executives to have a TV version of Arthur Miller's play retitled "Life of a Salesman...
...sensitive, compassionate, ethical, and personable heroes...
...In addition to the sex objections, studies by scientists on the effects of TV violence became ammunition for groups like Morality in Media and the Moral Majority in their ongoing battle to "clean up" TV...
...But not too fast for Rakolta to form Americans for Responsible Television, launch a nationwide media blitz, and threaten a boycott...
...In what Chester Riley might have called a revoltin' development, veteran shlockmeister Aaron Spelling ("Charlie's Angels," "Dynasty") was forced to publicly recant after his series "Nightingales" was accused of wanton prurience...
...In the realm of made-for.TV movies, controversy has become a mainstay...
...Fact-based" docudramas about incest ("Something About Amelia"), AIDS NEW FROM LibertyClassics HISTORY OF TEE RISE, PROGRESS, TEE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INTERSPERSED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL By Mercy Otis Warren Edited and annotated by Lester H. Cohen n modern edition of Warren's History edited by a leading authority on the historical literature of eighteenth-century America is indeed a publishing event...
...Predictably, Maudes pregnancy at middle age and her decision to have an abortion touched a nerve...
...Now, TV violence and sex are hard enough to quantify, but drug use...
...Groups like the Gay Activist Alliance, the Gay Media Task Force, and the National Gay and Lesbian 'ask Force had "agents in place" at all levels of the business and became known, Montgomery notes, as "the most sophisticated and successful advocacy group[s] operating in network television...
...Enclosed is my check or money order made payable to Liberty Fund, Inc...
...When other networks followed suit, producers complained and the rule was struck down as a violation of antitrust laws (as was the entire Code of Good Conduct...
...And yet, past experience notwithstanding, she still manages to advocate more government intervention as the solution...
...All orders must be prepaid in U.S...
...That incredible list (note the promiscuity prohibition in 1978—the dawn of AIDS) narrowed the field down to this: gay cops, business executives, athletes, "people of courage...
...Fearing interference from Washington, the industry adopted a "Code of Good Conduct," a PR move that silenced most critics while enforcing only the vaguest rules of broadcast behavior...
...But not too fast for Rakolta to form Americans for Responsible Television, launch a nationwide media blitz, and threaten a boycott...
...Paul Simon has introduced legislation (backed by Jesse Helms) partially exempting the networks from antitrust laws so they can develop a new "code" to curb violence, sex, and drug use on TV...
...It and the other networks began to grasp that the best tactic was not to stonewall controversy or simply to ride it out but to incorporate it...
...Motion pictures, comic books, plays, newspapers, and textbooks...
...They can be hooked to headlines—a sales ploy that feature films, with their longer gestation time, can't match...
...She is aware that "during the twentieth century, all forms of the mass media have been targets of advocacy groups at one time or another...
...The new trick was playing one adversary off against another...
...The show died after six episodes...
...Jerry Falwell, meanwhile, called it "a threat to our national security...
...Wade" at the very time the Supreme Court was hearing arguments to overturn the 1973 abortion ruling...
...He eventually got it in the form of ABC's equally inflammatory, but "right-wing," miniseries "Amerika," which posited a Soviet takeover of the United States...
...No-nos included murderers, child molesters, promiscuous men, weak or absent fathers, domineering mothers, swishy or limpwristed men who want to be women, transvestites, transsexuals, or homosexuals with mental disturbances or unhappy childhoods...
...Like most TV academics, Montgomery believes the medium's corporate proprietors—networks, producers, advertisers—conspire to co-opt anything or anyone standing in their way...
...The movie was praised for its candor, but some still complained it didn't go far enough because the male lovers never touched or kissed...
...These groups are the reason why you almost never see a really swishy "fag" or a black mugger or hear the word "Mafia" on TV...
...The TV industry, chameleon of the mass media, merely plays along...
...Lear's "All in the Family," from which Maude the outspoken feminist was spun off, had already enragedboth liberal and conservative groups: ethnic antidefamation leagues complained about Archie Bunker's bigotry, and religious organizations were offended by the show's apparent biases in favor of homosexuality, premarital sex, and atheism...
...That effort failed...
...They responded, with apologies, and three big spenders —Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, and McDonald's—promised to shun the show...
...The conspiracy, as such, has been on the part of the special interest groups...
...represent the views of the average viewer or just a vocal minority, but the industry has decided to play it safe...
...most were persuaded to stay in...
...Her warning of the threat to American democracy and her call for a "media policy . . . high on the public agenda" ring with Ivory Tower paranoia...
...7440 North Shadeland Avenue, Dept...
...We pay book rate postage on prepaid orders...
...A TV show can have any number of biases: liberal or conservative...
...Homosexual activists were in an even better position...
...Index for both volumes...
...Volume I - 382 + xliv pages...
...Also, Mars, Exxon, and other major sponsors have drawn up "hit lists" of shows they intend to boycott...
...Editor's note, acknowledgements, chronology, list of illustrations, index of recipients, subject index...
...0-86597-066-1 0-86597-069-6 Liberty Fund, Inc...
...And inevitably, people watched it...
...Most TV critics, however, praised the movie...
...PRIME TIME ADVOCACY GROUPS AND THE STRUGGLE OVER ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION Kathryn C. Montgomery/Oxford University Press/272 pp...
...The letters, written in January, were meant to dissuade forty-five major advertisers from sponsoring Fox Televi...
...That's partly true, but there are also less obvious forces at work determining what we watch: the NAACP, Moral Majority, Gray Panthers, Lesbian Feminist Liberation Organization, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League, PTA, Population Institute, and International Association of Machinists, to name but a few...
...Wildmon was invited to an all-expenses-paid conference in Aspen on "Special Interest Groups and the Media...
...The backlash didn't let up...
...These groups are the reason why you almost never see a really swishy "fag" or a black mugger or hear the word "Mafia" on TV...
...The network recruited those groups to lobby advertisers Wildmon had made skittish...
...The answer isn't more federal intrusion but less...
...Reaction was so strong to a CBS movie in which Linda Blair was raped with a mop handle by a gang of reform-school girls that the network instituted a "family viewing hour" during prime time...
...0-86597-066-1 0-86597-069-6 Liberty Fund, Inc...
...Conventional wisdom casts TV as a tyranny of the majority, a mass-cult religion (the lowest common denomination) ruled by the god Nielsen...
...More than a thousand antinuke organizations spent over $300,000 promoting ABC's "The Day After...
...And though the script of "Roe vs...
...Spelling, always unabashed about his predilection for titillating fluff, announced: "We did some things we're not proud of...
...She blames the decline of public affairs programming on deregulation and the demise of the Fairness Doctrine under Ronald Reagan's FCC chairman, Mark Fowler...
...A Harvard professor with a knack for the quiet soft-sell has infiltrated several major TV shows with his "Don't drink and drive" message...
...Great reading but also more than that...
...It all happened so fast...
...most were persuaded to stay in...
...The Los Angeles Times ran a lead story in its Calendar section trumpeting "The Taming of Prime Time...
...Managing the mob" and "packaging controversy"—in Montgomery's words—became their stockin-trade...
...The new problem was the conservative backlash...
...A Harvard professor with a knack for the quiet soft-sell has infiltrated several major TV shows with his "Don't drink and drive" message...
...And though her conclusions don't scan, the 200-plus pages leading up to them contain a wealth of essential information...
...He pushed the idea, and soon enough Maude was pregnant...
...All orders from outside the United States must be prepaid in U.S...
...An outfit called the Solar Lobby tried to imitate the Population Institute approach, but its campaign peaked with a solar-powered still on "The Dukes of Hazzard...
...Show," "Geraldo," "The New Dating Game," "Golden Girls," "Nightline," and "60 Minutes...
...As Montgomery explains: "The petition to deny could now be used as a weapon against station licensees...
...Anyone who has seen Mrs...
...In 1978 they presented to CBS "Bad News" and "Good News" lists dictating the proper representation of homosexuality on TV...
...More than a thousand antinuke organizations spent over $300,000 promoting ABC's "The Day After...
...Forrest McDonald, University of Alabama 715 + xxviii pages...
...And though the script of "Roe vs...
...Enclosed is my check or money order made payable to Liberty Fund, Inc...
...blood-thirsty or sex-crazed...
...The next major bone of contention was a two-part abortion story on Norman Lear's series "Maude" in 1972...
...What about antidrug shows, practically the only context in which substance abuse is allowed on TV anyway...
...The Washington-based Population Institute set out to "educate" Hollywood on the matter of abortion in the late 1960s...
...Those still unsatisfied with this loose honor code took another tack...
...Hardcover $26.00 0-86597-059-9 Paperback $ 9.50 0-86597-060-2 Prepayment is required on all orders not for resale...
...The more interesting story Montgomery uncovers is that an advocacy group actually precipitated the abortion episodes in the first place...
...tor's note, list of abbreviation Volume II — 380 + xv pages...
...PRIME TIME ADVOCACY GROUPS AND THE STRUGGLE OVER ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION Kathryn C. Montgomery/Oxford University Press/272 pp...
...She imagines them, Big Brother-like, engaging in a collective conspiracy...
...Montgomery, who has a sense of humor, also recounts the efforts of a group of sales executives to have a TV version of Arthur Miller's play retitled "Life of a Salesman...
...It's impossible to know if Wildmon, Rakolta & Co...
...All orders must be prepaid in U.S...
...In May NBC broadcast "Roe vs...
...During the 1972-73 season it was offering cash awards of $10,000 and $5,000 to producers who succeeded in getting the abortion message on the air...
...The letters, written in January, were meant to dissuade forty-five major advertisers from sponsoring Fox Television's scabrous satire...
...Paul Simon has introduced legislation (backed by Jesse Helms) partially exempting the networks from antitrust laws so they can develop a new "code" to curb violence, sex, and drug use on TV...
...7440 North Shadeland Avenue Indianapolis, IN 46250 AND TERMINATION OF AND MORAL OBSERVATIONS Please send me: Quantity Ordered Title Editton Price Amount History of the Rise . . . of the American Revolution Hardcover $30.00 Paperback 15.00 George Washington: A Collection Hardcover $26.00 Paperback 9.50 Subtotal Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...
...Editor's note, acknowledgements, chronology, list of illustrations, index of recipients, subject index...
...He pushed the idea, and soon enough Maude was pregnant...
...History doesn't bear her theories out...
...It all happened so fast...
...The combined effect of this bipartisan hype was that 38.5 million people watched the movie, 62 percent of the viewing public (a staggeringly high rating...
...The Rev...
...loving and affectionate couples...
...Show," "Geraldo," "The New Dating Game," "Golden Girls," "Nightline," and "60 Minutes...
...As she tells it, the history of advocacy groups vs...
...We pay book rate postage on prepaid orders...
...How all this came to pass is the subject of Kathryn Rick Marin is television critic for the Washington Times...
...Those still unsatisfied with this loose honor code took another tack...
...7440 North Shadeland Avenue Indianapolis, IN 46250 AND TERMINATION OF AND MORAL OBSERVATIONS Please send me: Quantity Ordered Title Editton Price Amount History of the Rise . . . of the American Revolution Hardcover $30.00 Paperback 15.00 George Washington: A Collection Hardcover $26.00 Paperback 9.50 Subtotal Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...
...A Detroit housewife, outraged by an eyeful of skimpy lingerie on the TV show "Married . . . With Children," writes some letters, makes a phone call, and prestolightline...
...Conservatives were outraged and demanded that the Fairness Doctrine—an FCC rule mandating equal broadcast time to opposing political views—be enforced...
...populist or elitist...
...Last year the three major networks cut back their Standards and Practices divisions (Fox never had one) on the theory that producers would censor themselves and cable had inured viewers to more explicit material...
...A BC's deliberately provocative satire, "Soap," which Newsweek called "one long dirty joke," made church groups livid...
...represent the views of the average viewer or just a vocal minority, but the industry has decided to play it safe...
...Conventional wisdom casts TV as a tyranny of the majority, a mass-cult religion (the lowest common denomination) ruled by the god Nielsen...
...The Cosby Show" is a powerful argument against "marginalization...
...The sidewalk protester pickets, is then hired as a "consultant" by whomever he was picketing, and ultimately becomes a shill selling the company (usually a network) to the same minority or interest group he set out to defend...
...M ontgomery argues that the im- pact of Hollywood lobbying isin remission...
...Sen...
...And yet, past experience notwithstanding, she still manages to advocate more government intervention as the solution...
...Hardcover $26.00 0-86597-059-9 Paperback $ 9.50 0-86597-060-2 Prepayment is required on all orders not for resale...
...Joyce Appleby, University of California A/Tercy Otis Warren was the most formidable woman intel.01.1ectual in early America, and a proponent of the American Revolution...
...drew considerably more ire because the good doctor was shown to "cure" a man of his homosexuality...
...The sidewalk protester pickets, is then hired as a "consultant" by whomever he was picketing, and ultimately becomes a shill selling the company (usually a network) to the same minority or interest group he set out to defend...
...The network reportedly lost $1 million in advertising, scared away by petitions from Wildmon and others who complained that it was pro-choice propaganda...
...Hispanic leaders who protested the Frito Bandito and other Latino "stereotypes" were hired by network Standards and Practices departments (the censors) as "technical consultants...
...As she tells it, the history of advocacy groups vs...
...By now almost everyone with a cause has at least tried to snatch a piece of prime time, some more successfully than others...
...It's a subtler tyranny of multiple minorities, activist-advocates whose names never appear on the credit rolls but whose influence is immense—and largely unknown...
...If anything, the evidence she has so thoroughly gathered in her book points in the opposite direction...
...In what Chester Riley might have called a revoltin' development, veteran shlockmeister Aaron Spelling ("Charlie's Angels," "Dynasty") was forced to publicly recant after his series "Nightingales" was accused of wanton prurience...
...So much for that theory...
...A CBS movie that the Reverend decried as "anti-Christian" was enthusiastically supported by black groups...
...An episode of "Marcus Welby, M.D...
...Not Mrs...
...It's a subtler tyranny of multiple minorities, activist-advocates whose names never appear on the credit rolls but whose influence is immense—and largely unknown...
...Spelling, always unabashed about his predilection for titillating fluff, announced: "We did some things we're not proud of...
...And no boycott is going to scare "Married .. . With Children" or "60 Minutes" off the air, as long as they continue to earn their respective networks ratings and revenues...
...Together they entered into "dialogue" on network racial policy...
...As Montgomery explains: "The petition to deny could now be used as a weapon against station licensees...
...An episode of "Marcus Welby, M.D...
...A CBS movie that the Reverend decried as "anti-Christian" was enthusiastically supported by black groups...
...By now almost everyone with a cause has at least tried to snatch a piece of prime time, some more successfully than others...
...Montgomery, who teaches film and TV at UCLA, is the first to attempt a history of, as her subtitle says, "Advocacy Groups and the Struggle Over Entertainment Television...
...The network recruited those groups to lobby advertisers Wildmon had made skittish...
...This time the outrage came from the right...
...The PTA and other parent groups made noises about TV violence, but the shift from sole sponsorship to spot advertising made the networks even less vulnerable to consumer complaint...
...No-nos included murderers, child molesters, promiscuous men, weak or absent fathers, domineering mothers, swishy or limpwristed men who want to be women, transvestites, transsexuals, or homosexuals with mental disturbances or unhappy childhoods...
...Hardcover $30.00 the set Paperback $15.00 the set Also Available: GEORGE WASHINGTON: A COLLECTION Compiled and edited by W. B. Allen mhe bicentennial of George Washington's presidency begins April 1989...
...Among them: "The Morton Downey, Jr...
...Fact-based" docudramas about incest ("Something About Amelia"), AIDS NEW FROM LibertyClassics HISTORY OF TEE RISE, PROGRESS, TEE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INTERSPERSED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL By Mercy Otis Warren Edited and annotated by Lester H. Cohen n modern edition of Warren's History edited by a leading authority on the historical literature of eighteenth-century America is indeed a publishing event...
...The doctrine didn't apply to entertainment programming as it did to news and public affairs...
...Black groups had opposed "Amos 'n' Andy" in the '50s but ratings kept the show alive andunaltered...
...This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is an exciting narrative of the Revolution, from the Stamp Act of 1765 through ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88...
...She called the New York Times...
...T he first serious assault on network 1 politics didn't come until the late 1960s and early '70s...
...It and the other networks began to grasp that the best tactic was not to stonewall controversy or simply to ride it out but to incorporate it...
...In other words, she did what every successful Hollywood lobbyist does: she formed an interest group—effectively, an interest group of one...
...In the last twenty years the TV industry has opened itself up as a Promised Land of special interests, second only to Washington as a nexus of ideological schmooze...
...In 1966 a federal court ordered the FCC to grant a hearing to a coalition of civil rights groups which had petitioned to deny the license renewal of a Jackson, Mississippi, TV station on the grounds of racism...
...In this handsome book, the only one-volume compilation of his vast writings in print, Washington speaks for himself on behalf of liberty and the American Republic...
...The letters, written in January, were meant to dissuade forty-five major advertisers from sponsoring Fox Television's scabrous satire...
...She blames the decline of public affairs programming on deregulation and the demise of the Fairness Doctrine under Ronald Reagan's FCC chairman, Mark Fowler...
...It worked...
...dollars...
...C. Montgomery's book Target Prime Time...
...Volume I - 382 + xliv pages...
...She is aware that "during the twentieth century, all forms of the mass media have been targets of advocacy groups at one time or another...
...This work (in the first new edition since 1805) is an exciting narrative of the Revolution, from the Stamp Act of 1765 through ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88...
...The movie was praised for its candor, but some still complained it didn't go far enough because the male lovers never touched or kissed...
...Donald Wildmon of 'llipelo, Mississippi, founded the National Federation for Decency and launched the first of his many boycotts...
...In the last twenty years the TV industry has opened itself up as a Promised Land of special interests, second only to Washington as a nexus of ideological schmooze...
...Please allow approximately 4 weeks for delivery...
...In May NBC broadcast "Roe vs...
...In this handsome book, the only one-volume compilation of his vast writings in print, Washington speaks for himself on behalf of liberty and the American Republic...
...All orders from outside the United States must be prepaid in U.S...
...Forrest McDonald, University of Alabama 715 + xxviii pages...
...A TV show can have any number of biases: liberal or conservative...
...She imagines them, Big Brother-like, engaging in a collective conspiracy...
...That's partly true, but there are also less obvious forces at work determining what we watch: the NAACP, Moral Majority, Gray Panthers, Lesbian Feminist Liberation Organization, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League, PTA, Population Institute, and International Association of Machinists, to name but a few...
...Printed throughout in two colors with fifteen illustrations...
...A firestorm of protest ensued and cowed ABC, which began to retain homosexual consultants...
...drew considerably more ire because the good doctor was shown to "cure" a man of his homosexuality...
...And inevitably, people watched it...
...Ethnic characters have remained "marginalized," she says, and the self-censoring quest for "balance" has led to wishy-washiness...
...The cutbacks in Standards and Practices have since been reversed...
...In 1978 they presented to CBS "Bad News" and "Good News" lists dictating the proper representation of homosexuality on TV...
...The Cosby Show" is a powerful argument against "marginalization...
...Execs fret as program jitters kill ABC shows," ran a headline in Advertising Age...
...Because Warren was deeply engaged in the political and moral issues of her day, her writing represents a treasure trove...
...dollars...
...Z101 Indianapolis, IN 46250 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 35 ("An Early Frost"), or nuclear war ("The Day After") are marketable commodities...
...During the 1972-73 season it was offering cash awards of $10,000 and $5,000 to producers who succeeded in getting the abortion message on the air...
...Most TV critics, however, praised the movie...
...The answer isn't more federal intrusion but less...
...Index for both volumes...
...Wade" went through seventeen drafts, the final product was anything but "balanced...
...populist or elitist...
...36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 BOOK REVIEWS rr elevision knows how to deal with 1 its enemies: give them airtime...
...In the end, her abortion probably caused CBS more trouble than the free publicity was worth...
...In addition to the sex objections, studies by scientists on the effects of TV violence became ammunition for groups like Morality in Media and the Moral Majority in their ongoing battle to "clean up" TV...
...Like most TV academics, Montgomery believes the medium's corporate proprietors—networks, producers, advertisers—conspire to co-opt anything or anyone standing in their way...
...The networks continued to commit periodic gaffes—most notoriously NBC's 1980 antebellum miniseries "Beulah Land'!----but for the most part the liberal consciences they'd put on the payroll kept them in check...
...Conservatives were outraged and demanded that the Fairness Doctrine—an FCC rule mandating equal broadcast time to opposing political views—be enforced...
...They're why abortion is always the best solution to unwanted pregnancy, why the Frito Bandito is no longer selling corn chips, and why someone at ABC spends his working hours cutting the "violence" out of Tweety Bird cartoons...
...Does one needle equal two hits of crack, or ten bottles of beer...
...The backlash didn't let up...
...The show featured several attractive student nurses frolicking in sexy lingerie...
...M ontgomery argues that the im- pact of Hollywood lobbying isin remission...
...The doctrine didn't apply to entertainment programming as it did to news and public affairs...
...Execs fret as program jitters kill ABC shows," ran a headline in Advertising Age...
...dollars...
...The new trick was playing one adversary off against another...
...The more interesting story Montgomery uncovers is that an advocacy group actually precipitated the abortion episodes in the first place...
...Also, Mars, Exxon, and other major sponsors have drawn up "hit lists" of shows they intend to boycott...
...It finished in the top ten the week it aired and could easily make up the lost ad revenues if released on videocassette...
...What about antidrug shows, practically the only context in which substance abuse is allowed on TV anyway...
...It provides a privileged experience, that of reliving with the greatest of Americans his public career, through a judicious and well-annotated selection of his own writings...
...Homosexual activists were in an even better position...
...22.50 Rick Marin 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 trayed a young man's admission of homosexuality to his father...
...A Detroit housewife, outraged by an eyeful of skimpy lingerie on the TV show "Married . . . With Children," writes some letters, makes a phone call, and prestolightline...
...Z101 Indianapolis, IN 46250 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 35 ("An Early Frost"), or nuclear war ("The Day After") are marketable commodities...
...The conspiracy, as such, has been on the part of the special interest groups...
...The next major bone of contention was a two-part abortion story on Norman Lear's series "Maude" in 1972...
...Now, TV violence and sex are hard enough to quantify, but drug use...
...They're why abortion is always the best solution to unwanted pregnancy, why the Frito Bandito is no longer selling corn chips, and why someone at ABC spends his working hours cutting the "violence" out of Tweety Bird cartoons...
...The networks continued to commit periodic gaffes—most notoriously NBC's 1980 antebellum miniseries "Beulah Land'!----but for the most part the liberal consciences they'd put on the payroll kept them in check...
...They can be hooked to headlines—a sales ploy that feature films, with their longer gestation time, can't match...
...only "mainstream, incidental" homosexuality—that, and lots more lesbians...
...Jerry Falwell, meanwhile, called it "a threat to our national security...
...The PTA and other parent groups made noises about TV violence, but the shift from sole sponsorship to spot advertising made the networks even less vulnerable to consumer complaint...
...In the end, her abortion probably caused CBS more trouble than the free publicity was worth...
...The cutbacks in Standards and Practices have since been reversed...
...A fewsponsors pulled out...
...only "mainstream, incidental" homosexuality—that, and lots more lesbians...
...To order, or for a copy of our NEW 1989 catalogue, write: Foreward, bibliography, edis...
...Together they entered into "dialogue" on network racial policy...
...Advertisers caved in to the pressure and began leaning on the networks to tailor programming to conservative demands...
...Name Address City State/Zip Mail to: Liberty Fund, Inc...
...Fearing interference from Washington, the industry adopted a "Code of Good Conduct," a PR move that silenced most critics while enforcing only the vaguest rules of broadcast behavior...
...Predictably, Maudes pregnancy at middle age and her decision to have an abortion touched a nerve...
...An outfit called the Solar Lobby tried to imitate the Population Institute approach, but its campaign peaked with a solar-powered still on "The Dukes of Hazzard...
...36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1989 BOOK REVIEWS rr elevision knows how to deal with 1 its enemies: give them airtime...
...Great reading but also more than that...
...Sen...
...It provides a privileged experience, that of reliving with the greatest of Americans his public career, through a judicious and well-annotated selection of his own writings...
...C. Montgomery's book Target Prime Time...
...From then on, homosexual groups could threaten to start another "Welby-ish" confrontation...
Vol. 22 • September 1989 • No. 9
