Word: minow
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...critic was Newton N. Minow, 35, new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and his audience was the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Washington. Accustomed to a mild FCC that never interfered with programing, the TV owners and operators were more deeply shaken by Minow's blast than they had been by the quiz scandals or anything else in TV history...
Debts to Be Paid. Lawyer Minow refused to accept the broadcasters' argument that they are only giving the public what it wants. For one thing, there is some doubt as to what the public wants, and ratings are at best only "an indication of how many people saw what you gave them . . . I am not convinced that the people's taste is as low as some of you assume." Broadcasters, said Minow, ought to follow the example of the newspaper publishers, whose own polls consistently show that the two most popular items in the papers are the comics...
Even if "people would more often prefer to be entertained than stimulated or informed," said Minow, "your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popularity . . . It is not enough to cater to the nation's whims-you must also serve the nation's needs. The people own the air. They own it as much in prime evening time as they do at 6 o'clock Sunday morning. For every hour that the people give you, you owe them something. I intend to see that your debt is paid with service . . . Never have so few owed...
...Bridge the Gap. While promising that there would be no censorship, Minow announced that the FCC will no longer automatically renew the licenses of stations that insist on lowest-common-denominator programing. In the future, the agency will hold public hearings on stations whose performance has not measured up to their promise to offer a diversified output. "For those few of you who really believe that the public interest is merely what interests the public," said
Appearing before the Senate Commerce Committee prior to his confirmation as chairman of the FCC, Chicago Lawyer Newton N. Minow, 35, enunciated a television creed to build a dream on: "I will work toward more wide-open spaces between the westerns and more public affairs instead of private eyes...