On Television

...If a show hints there may indeed be only one answer to a problem, it is in critical trouble...

...But these are only minor details I would let the script writer handle...

...Power corrupts...

...in The FBI Story and the cia trying to plant correspondents in the network news departments in Vietnam...

...The issues in the Gould-Friendly exchange are too complex for the truly average viewer to understand...

...The Jack Gould Fellowships, as I shall have Fred Friendly call them, would attempt to make all critics Renaissance Men...

...he urged the Ford people to stop meddling in programming...

...Then it occurred to me that Gould had failed to explore sufficiently other government agencies as depositories...

...The next day Friendly told the press that he found pbl "disappointing...

...While all of this makes it sound as though I should be the Average Viewer for educational television programmers, I wouldn't be any better than Jack Gould...

...in fact, they arc just coming into focus for me...

...Perhaps he is an insomniac and opera is the only thing that can put him to sleep...

...Some television analysts explain why Friendly seemed so upset this way: "You would be, too, if somebody suggested in the New York Times that your job be eliminated...

...But I think the difficulties can be overcome...

...Television is the kind of industry where you can't tell who the players are even with a scorecard...

...For just as every magazine is edited with a Typical Reader in mind, so educational television has decided that its Average Viewer is Jack Gould...

...A prime area for the Kitman Corporation to meddle in is children's programming...

...Why not the Securities and Exchange Commission...

...Briefly, my nominee for this hypothetical cross section is a former cbs News executive who rose to fame as Ed Murrow's associate...

...The only trouble with all of these groups is that they raise the fear of government influence in educational television programming...

...Gould seemed to say this would bring an increased diversity in funding...

...He likes humor on television, but sometimes does not seem to have a sense of humor...

...Or hew...

...He was a little hard to reach on the subject afterward...

...Just to prove he could write for television, Robbins would do it for practically nothing, $20 million instead of his usual fee of $30 million...

...Yet in the Times of Sunday, May 24, Gould attacked the foundation for what it has done...

...We already have enough of that in commercial tv, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation working as consultant to Effem Zimbalist Jr...

...Obviously, the only institution free of government influence at the present time is the critics...

...Nevertheless, the New York Times television critic serves an important function in the medium: His readers can be assured they will enjoy a show if he has panned it...

...Ford should hand its money over to a man who knows good television when he sees it, a critic of a small intellectual journal like this one...

...But those who take such a narrow view of the issues are guilty of vicious personal attacks on Friendly, and I do not indulge in vicious personal attacks...

...President Nixon recently released a long list of government agencies without any current function, like the commission to supervise the Sino-American Treaty of 1853, which might want to get into broadcasting to help save taxpayers' money...

...There are technical problems...

...It was then that he discovered his network was primarily interested in profit...

...I understand television...

...The Ford Foundation is usually attacked for what it has not done in broadcasting...

...Although Gould and Friendly are the two best friends educational television has, the great powers began feuding in the pages of the New York Times last month...

...1 hereby inform the Ford Foundation official who gives out the money that I have decided to make myself available as a conduit...

...If Fred Friendly does not approve of that idea, waiting in the wings is The Rockefeller Saga...

...I didn't quite understand the logic of that, but I decided to look into the funding problem anyway...

...In his rebuttal the following Sunday, Friendly corrected a number of factual errors (Ford had spent $200 million trying to improve the quality of television, not 100 million) and, more importantly, he defended meddling...

...He was merely trying to undercut Ford's traditional role in broadcasting by urging the foundation to stop throwing its money around selectively and instead give it all to the recently created quasi-governmental Corporation for Public Broadcasting (cpb...

...Gould is also very fond of opera on television...

...He may even be able to run the three-minute mile...

...Actually, Gould is above average...

...He should be a major American novelist in need of encouragement...

...Or the National Wildlife Commission...

...Any such group would not be complete without Fred Friendly, the television adviser at the Ford Foundation...

...I don't want to give away the whole plot here, but it's one of those turn-of-the-century stories about a bicycle-maker who discovers the mass-production assembly line for making automobiles...

...After giving out the grant to fund it, he proceeded to hire the staff, pbl was panned by Jack Gould: He found it "disappointing...

...What experience has the cpb had in broadcasting...

...He quit cbs when it decided to run / Love Lucy reruns in place of congressional hearings on Vietnam...

...And if that is still too controversial, I can see a great show in The Par-van Saga, starring William O. Douglas as old Jolion Parvan...

...One of his major accomplishments was the Public Broadcast Laboratory (pbl), even though he was involved with it only slightly...

...He usually likes serious programs, discussion shows and documentaries—provided they are socially relevant and give "a balanced, fair treatment...

...In fact, sometimes I think I am the only one who does...

...Unfortunately, the people who program educational television shows do not understand this simple fact as well as I do...

...First I studied the cpb's qualifications for handling all of Ford's money...

...Another view of the controversy is that Gould, after years of influencing educational programming indirectly through his reviews, finally decideu to meddle openly...

...Those scenes of old John Rockefeller shooting the workers, and the marital problems of the son who thought every American boy can grow up to be President, would bring violence, sex and political satire back to educational television...

...He was trying to explain banking and finance to the television audience, for God's sake," an abc spokesman explained...

...At present there is only one critic who is qualified to review televised opera, theater, ballet, movies, painting, and sculpture...

...The most important contribution to television the Kitman Corporation could make would be using Ford's money to underwrite the cultural enrichment of tv critics...

...If six people outside the educational television establishment know and appreciate Jack Gould, maybe five people know who Fred Friendly is...

...Where there were two places educational television program planners could go for money, there would be one...

...They'll be rioting at five...

...Still, Friendly has done a lot of good things since he started advising the Ford Foundation about where to put its money...

...Such are the secrets men carry around with them for years...

...My recommendation for the job would be Harold Robbins, currently disenchanted with television after abc threw away his scripts for The Survivors last season because they were too serious...

...For example, I would have to be given a tax exemption...

...I don't know what I will finance to replace Sesame Street, but I'm sure five or six study groups composed of the best authorities money can buy could tell me...

...It will take three weeks just to explain the Protocols of the Elders of Zion chapter in the family's life...

...It may even be that wit is over his head...

...If I had my way, there would be nothing on the air but Pittsburgh Pirates' baseball games, adult movies, biting political satire—I agree with critic Stephanie Harrington that Mrs...

...John Mitchell should have her own telephone show—and mature soap operas...

...Wait until a new generation of kids who have learned the alphabet at two and a half invade the classrooms...

...What educational television needs, it seems to me, is a cross section of average viewers...

...In fact, I really wish they would call on me soon because as a critic, I don't make much money...

...Whatever the case, there is at present more political satire found in one hour of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In on the traditionally timorous nbc than in a year's net programs...

...Besides, I have this great idea for a program: a continuing drama which I shall call The Ford Saga...

...Sesame Street was a disaster to the American school system, though the educators don't yet know it...