Word: sarnoff
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...first week of hearings, the FCC and CBS had tilted with polite amiability. But it was NBC's turn last week, and NBC Chairman Robert Sarnoff bristled from the start. He began by charging that, for all Newton Minow's protestations, what the FCC obviously sought was Government control of network programming. Nettled and irritated, a couple of commissioners broke in to insist that the FCC had never said any such thing. Later, at his press conference, President Kennedy himself reiterated that the FCC had no intention of "changing the basic relationship which already exists...
...Sarnoff pointed out that a bill placed before the Senate last summer, containing a provision that "activities of networks shall not adversely affect the ability of broadcast licensees to operate their stations in the public interest," was "too broad in its language." As an NBC lawyer commented privately: "The phrase 'public interest' is so wide you could drive a Mack truck through...
...television dial is America's most ubiquitous and frequently used voting machine," said Sarnoff. "Against this remarkably effective system of free choice, some would impose the centralized authority of government to determine what is good for the public to see and hear...
...bill," said Sarnoff...
...Sarnoff's testimony was a ringing endorsement of the status quo. The quiz scandals, he said, "were unfortunate, but they are unlikely ever to happen again." The only practical alternative to the sponsor support system that now prevails, he told the commissioners, is outright government subsidy and government control-and that is what the commission had been claiming it did not want. "I do not believe regulation can remove the thorns without serious risk of nipping the roses...