Word: sarnoffs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...Sarnoff stoutly defended rating systems as the best way to find an audience and understand its nature. NBC Vice President Hugh Beville backed this up with the observation that viewers do not always mean what they say when they howl for culture. During a test conducted in Pittsburgh, a large majority of interviewees declared that they craved opera, philosophy lectures, etc., on the air. But virtually none of the same people had bothered to watch the opera and the philosophy lectures that had been broadcast in Pittsburgh that week. One commissioner wanted to know who had watched...
...most the commission could get out of Sarnoff was a grudging concession: "I think there are occasions when a slap on the wrist, or a little harder than that, helps. I don't object to that." Said Minow tartly: "Unless we are going to have more than slaps on the wrist, the industry is going to have to be forthcoming with some proposed changes...