NEW BRAWL IN TELEVISION
Landry, Robert
New Brawl in Television By ROBERT J. LANDRY DURING these early months of 1951 a series of bold head-on attacks upon previously unchallenged assumptions has radically altered the outlook for...
...Until two years ago when the FCC's own engineering miscalculations forced the present freeze on more TV stations, licenses were being granted at a rapid rate on a first-come-first-served basis, of which the sold-out and sewed-up cities of New York, Los Angeles, Columbus, O., and Bloomington, Ind., are evidence...
...The educators shrug off the commercial industry's worries...
...They argue that at least one TV channel in every community should be "reserved" for education and culture, the "reservation" to run 30 years so that even if the available channel in a given area is not taken up there will be no forfeiture of future opportunity...
...In some 33 important markets only four TV channels will be available...
...Certainly there is a firm skepticism as to the "educational" promises of the commercial industry...
...There is little precedent here save the Rocky Mountain Radio Council of Denver and the Lowell Institute of Boston, both of which operate under private (and very modest) grants-in-aid...
...Heretofore the broadcasting industry has invariably had the best of it in brains, financial resources, debating skill, and Washington leverage...
...The educators point to this as the danger...
...The spiritual roost of the covey is the University of Chicago...
...Those educators who belatedly realize that but for the FCC's blunder, engineering-wise, all or nearly all of the channels might now be assigned, shudder for the accidental nature of their present chance to force a re-evaluation of basic assumptions...
...The hucksters will look after themselves...
...Always the industry contended there was "plenty of room for all" in the spectrum and when this wore thin regarding amplitude modulation stations, they went on pointing to frequency modulation stations as ideal for educational use...
...The industry has reckoned without the possibility of Rockefeller, Ford, or other foundations supporting TV stations...
...But the facts of television channelling are rigid facts, and the educators are cleverly exploiting this scarcity...
...How complacent was the industry is proven by the fact that only one spokesman, Dr...
...Many a member of Congress has been lined up, including that arch enterpriser, Sen...
...Telford Taylor, and a volunteer public relations counsel, Edward L. Bernays...
...The rationale of the movement owes much to the writings of such men as Robert M. Hutchins, Gilbert Seldes, Leo Rosten, Charles Siepmann of New York University, and Norman Woelfel of Ohio State...
...Commercial telecasters have already developed a severe dislike of sharing local station air-hours and clearances with rival networks...
...The broadcasters might concede some merit to the complaint, in theory, but hate to see the granting of educational stations in disregard of the commercial facts of life...
...They know, quite well, that some 175 stations licensed to education, in radio, evaporated, lapsed, went commercial, or were stolen by politicians, leaving only some 22 radio stations in the whole of the United States in educational hands...
...Extend the same rule of educational "reservation" to areas assigned only one, two, or three stations and the networks find themselves crowded...
...ROBERT J. LANDRY, editor of Space & Time, a weekly commentary on advertising, was Variety's original radio editor and served for six years as Director of Program Writing at the Columbia Broadcasting System...
...It hampers the industry that the sober gentry of the country has been finally persuaded that nothing counts, realistically, but who gets what in the first grab...
...It favors the educational plea that the Administration seems disposed to appease highbrow public opinion...
...John Bricker of Ohio...
...New York City has seven TV channels, all in commercial hands...
...Spearhead of the present movement is the Joint Committee for Educational Television, representing half a dozen collegiate associations...
...They don't want to see history repeat itself...
...Winning channel "reservation," the troubles of educational television will, obviously, have only begun...
...The group has vigorously pressed a campaign designed to stop dead in its tracks the precipitate development of American television upon the single frame of advertising sponsorship...
...It is on this issue that the second phase of the debate will center...
...They well know that education moves slowly, finds new money with difficulty—the exact opposite of commercial broadcasting...
...A TV station, ready to go on the air, runs about $350,000, minimum...
...Deducting one for education, leaves three for network TV...
...It should come as a surprise to nobody that commercial television worries newspapers and magazines no little, and the fewer advertising stations there are the better they'll fancy the situation...
...Even with economies, can education manage...
...long frustrated about radio...
...That's as it may be, but meantime the minimal goal of the present drive is a divided television structure, at least one part savant to four parts soap...
...Charles Siepmann, a friend of the pedagogues, describes TV as low on his list of priorities for school and college education, adding, "Long before we get it, I want provision made for better teachers, more rigorously trained, and better paid...
...They assumed they had long ago borne home the- bacon...
...Frank Stanton of CBS, showed up at the Federal Com-unications Commission's hearings and he was given a hard time by the FCC's only woman member, Frieda Hennock, an avowed advocate of "reservation" of television channels for possible non-commercial development...
...The industry will argue, "If you don't want, or can't finance, channels, we should be able to step in," but the educators and their friends have set their faces against this...
...Advocacy of "reservation" comes from more than a few powerful publishers who have not yet been counted publicly...
...Lacking foundation funds, how shall educational TV pay its bills...
...They know something else, too...
...Again and again the educators were repulsed in their arguments against commercial radio...
...Electricity, studios, staff, music, and other basic operational items can easily amount to $200,000 a year, by commercial estimates...
...Undoubtedly the educators derive real moral confidence this time from the tentative sympathy of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, whence funds are expected...
...Not every member of every faculty is well disposed to institutional broadcast plans...
...New Brawl in Television By ROBERT J. LANDRY DURING these early months of 1951 a series of bold head-on attacks upon previously unchallenged assumptions has radically altered the outlook for television license control in the United States...
...Assurances for the ultimate enlightened utilization of a great new medium of communication must over-ride the convenience of those who hawk advertising time...
...In the end it will be disinclination to go along with out-and-out laissez-faire, as in radio, which colors discriminating public opinion...
...Broadcasters will certainly intensify their counter-attack once they've recovered from the shock of the sudden change in political and propaganda climate...
...There is a paid legal counsel...
...Credit this change to a motley group of college, municipal, labor, and educational broadcasters joining forces with lawyers, publicists, professors, highbrows, clubwomen, and legislators...
...For once—and this is historic— the "educators" have been well organized and intelligently advised while, for once, the "broadcasters" have been asleep at the switch...
Vol. 15 • April 1951 • No. 4
