Word: public
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Earlier in April, cable operators were partly freed of an obligation to broadcast shows they did not want to carry. The FCC had long required cable stations to provide "public access" air time to just about any group that put together a show. Though some of the programs perform a real public service (consumer-advice shows, for example), many are excruciatingly dull (talk shows on which people-in-the-street rattle on about nothing in particular) and a few border on pornography (nude dancing on Midnight Blue over Manhattan's Channel...
...Supreme Court struck down the public-access obligation on a federal level in early April. Local authorities can still compel cable operators to make available public-access air time, and cable companies cannot legally remove the raunchier shows. Still, the Supreme Court ruling gave cable operators somewhat more authority to choose from among programs that they think will actually arouse some interest...
...superstations' offerings to cable now consist largely of sports events and reruns of once popular network shows. But Ted Turner, the flamboyant yachtsman and owner of WTCG, promised last week to introduce some more appealing programs: original children's shows, reruns of highly rated public-broadcasting programs (e.g., The Ascent of Man) that may not have been seen in some areas that cable now reaches. Superstations, however, are running into furious opposition from conventional broadcasters and their allies in the sports and entertainment worlds. MCA-Universal and Paramount are balking at selling any of their TV shows...
...anyone who took high school or college biology before the enlightenment of the 1950s, the subject was closed. Even the magical initials DNA were scarcely known outside the scientific priesthood. But while the public remained ignorant of the intellectual time bomb silently ticking in its midst, a few young renegades created a startlingly new discipline that they called molecular biology...
Tradition calls for the nine Justices to appear from behind the burgundy curtains of the Supreme Court at exactly 10 a.m. to announce their rulings. That is supposed to be the first public word of a decision, and few journalists have been able, or especially eager, to penetrate the court's curtain of secrecy...