Prospects of Mankind with Eleanor Roosevelt; 309; New Vistas for Television

Recorded on the campus of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, National Educational Television presents the WGBH-TV production, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Prospects of Mankind. This is Telstar, one of several types of experimental communication satellites now being perfected By means of these satellites, television programs can be beamed all over the world. Within the next month or two, Telstar, created by the Bell System, will be launched by the National Space Agency. Soon thereafter, live television programs will be exchanged between the United States and Europe. If the tests are successful, worldwide television will be an everyday fact of life by 1965. The implications of this new frontier of communications are enormous. Space will have been conquered, but how will it be used? Will the programs transmitted originate in that wasteland deplored by FCC Chairman Minow? Or will stimulating, creative programming give the critical world a more favorable image of the United States?

There are a few hopeful signs of change. With the superb Glenn coverage and excellent programs like the NBC White Paper and CBS Reports, the commercial networks have shown greater awareness of their responsibilities for balanced programming. Another encouraging note is the emergence of National Educational Television, an organization which serves over 60 stations throughout the country. The educational stations present two types of programs, in-school instruction at all levels and cultural and public affairs programs for adults. With limited resources to date, educational TV has had very high proportion of successes. Among them, What's New, a popular children's program. The MIT Science Reporter, exploring the frontiers of science. A Time to Dance featuring some of the world's greatest dancers. The Age of Kings, a Peabody Award winner featuring productions of Shakespeare's historical plays. Pablo Casals Master Class, the world's greatest cellist instructing highly qualified students.

The ragtime era, Max Morath's nostalgic recreation of the not so distant past. The government's recent allocation of money for the construction of educational TV stations means that more people will be able to receive these types of programs. By the time the satellites are in regular use, there is good reason to hope that the images they beam will reflect a balanced picture of the United States. But this will depend largely upon whether the Federal Communications Commission continues to be actively concerned with the quality and content of television, and whether both commercial and educational networks cooperate. Joining Mrs. Roosevelt to discuss the new vistas in television are Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Soon after his appointment a year ago, he created a furor by his critical remarks about

the television industry. Mr. Minow has just won a George Foster Peabody Award, the first government official to be so cited for his determined efforts to improve television programming. Irving Gitlin, award-winning television writer and director, executive producer, creative projects, NBC News and Public Affairs, which produces the widely acclaimed NBC White Paper. Before joining NBC, Mr. Gitlin held a similar post with CBS. His special responsibility in both positions has been the creation of high-appeal information programming. John White, President of the National Educational Television and Radio Center, was formerly Vice President of Western Reserve University and General Manager of Pittsburgh's Educational Television Station, WQED. Under his direction, National Educational Television has become the country's fourth network. Maria Maniz, television and theater critic for The Reporter Magazine, has appeared frequently on network radio and TV programs.

Journalist, woman of letters, she has revealed great versatility as a writer and a crusading spirit in a wide range of fields. She will assist Mrs. Roosevelt in directing the discussion. Now here is Mrs. Roosevelt. I'm very happy to welcome all of you gentlemen here today, and my first question is one really addressed not only to you, but to Mrs. Maniz, who is helping me. But I will begin with you, Mr. Commissioner Minow. What is the function of television? Well, I think television's function is to use man's greatest invention, really, of communication, and marriage of sight and sound is the best way we've ever found to communicate with each other. Many people think that the mission of television is to entertain, they call it the entertainment business.

I think its function is to communicate ideas, to enlarge our vision, our understanding of our world, to instruct us, to guide us. I think the best example of that is Colonel Glenn's recent flight into space, in which each of us was present. The television made that possible. So I think its mission really is to communicate ideas and not simply to give us entertainment. But ideas should also be entertainment. Now how about this? Well, I would, and I'm sure each one of this panel would agree with the chairman in principle. The fact is that one has to speak of the mission of television in this country, and that in doing that we would have to include entertainment, learning, and the exchange of ideas on as broad a base as possible in order that we as free people have free choice at any given moment of time. Would you not say, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Roosevelt, that what television is for is what television

under our form of government, the people of this country determine it shall be used for? Or if I'm going to argue this, go ahead. I think this is an abdication of responsibility to say the people must choose. How do they choose and how do you know what they want? How do you choose and how do you know what you want? That would take quite a while, but I think I would like to add my definition of the purpose of television, or rather my agreement that it is an enlargement of human experience. I think it is an extra dimension of feeling and thinking, and as we are going to get into the two areas, particularly the one of education, I think we must stop thinking in terms of entertainment on one side and education on the other, because all of television is an education in that it is what happens to a person, what he sees that makes him.

Would you agree that it is then educational, either good education or bad education, but all of television, entertainment included, is an education? Even the western is educational. Even the commercial. I mean, if the commercial wasn't educational, a sponsor would really have no interest in showing it to you. You're expected to learn something from it, so every bit of television, everything you see is definitely educational. And we're in agreement that all of television is educational, and really there's no real issue with that? No, yeah, but the issue that I think you've drawn here at the outset, and I must confess I didn't know you were going to draw it, is whether we, who control education as managers of stations or heads of networks, are to follow or are to lead. And I would maintain that one of our functions is to lead, whereas by your statement I assume you are saying that we have no function but to be jello and follow. No, no, no, I think you're misreading my statement.

I say one of our functions is to lead, but to lead with reference to what the people, all the people, in fact want, and that there is a great danger of an elite, and I don't care what you call it, whether it be a governmental elite, an intellectual elite, determining and setting standards for the people of the United States. This worries me. I think we must face the fact that as managers and as program producers and as responsible officials, obviously we are concerned with the future and we are concerned with the onward movement of television. No one argues with that, but I am worried that the inarticulate person perhaps doesn't have his position represented, for example, in a panel like this. But Irv, if you really believe what we're saying and we really speak about our form of government and how it works, we need not worry about an elite because NBC, which you represent, and NET, which I represent, is not going to program for very long that which

no one watches, and therefore the final judgment is made by the people themselves. Mike, I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. No, go ahead, Marty. I just wanted to get in this business. You left out one elite, and that is the business elite, which more or less determines what the great American public sees on television, and it is not what the people, it is on the basis sometimes of 1,100 families through ratings that the choice of what America must see lies, and I call this, if you want to bring up an elite, let's include that. Yes, my position would be that I would be against any elite oligarchic control of television, and my whole point is that there must be reference to the people in our form of government by all who participate in the rather complicated structure that is television. Well, I don't think anyone would disagree with that.

From the government's point of view, government's mission in broadcasting occurs because not everyone who wants to be a broadcaster can be. We have as many as a dozen people fighting over a television channel. Each saying, give it to me, I'll do a better job than the other 11. Someone has to make the unpleasant choice of deciding who will be the lucky fellow to enlarge his voice out to the whole community, in some cases have the eyes and the ears and the attention of the whole world, the whole nation. Now the government has to make that choice because we don't have any other mechanism of making that judgment, and then to decide whether he has fulfilled his public trust. I think that the government should never be an elite setting of what should be on the air, but should rather, A, insist upon the standards of performance which the broadcaster said he would fulfill, that they are fulfilled, and two, to make as many channels available as possible, to broaden the range of choice for the public so that then the public will

be able to choose, instead of choosing between westerns, let us say, but to choose between a wide range of different kinds of programs on the air. Would you consider, Mr. Chairman, that there was some analogy between, let's say, the FCC and the Food and Drug Act, which insists that the contents of a bottle, A, be not injurious to the person who has it, and B, be clearly labeled? In other words, this is, I would think, is some, you wouldn't call that an elite dictating, would you, to the masses, to have a slight policing of promise fulfilled? I would say that it's much easier to identify poison or adulterated food than it is to identify adulterated ideas. Do you think that? Yes I do, Maria. I think that if you and I give to the American public enough choice, enough selection, we need not worry about the American public in 1962 any more than

we have in any other year of our history. And I don't think personally that this need to be done by regulation. I think it needs to be done by opportunity. And I just don't think that we provide enough opportunity to the American people. Well that's what we're trying to do in the government, is to provide more opportunity, to provide more stations, to provide more choices. Unfortunately now there are only less than 550 television stations in the country in a population of 180 million people. There are only three networks, three television networks, although we're hoping that the educational network will become a full network in that sense and be the great fourth. This means that with this narrow number of choices that a program on television must achieve an audience which ranges into the many, many millions, an audience even of 12, 13 million

people is a failure, is a failure simply because there are so few channels. If we had more choices I think that an audience of 12 million could be a success. Could be a success. That's right. There isn't a magazine in the country I think with the exception of perhaps the Reader's Digest that has that largest circulation. But in television those numbers are infinitesimal. So the real problem it seems to me is broadening the choices and in the meantime insisting, insisting that those who are lucky enough to monopolize the channels of communication adhere to the high standards which they themselves have set in winning their license. You said something before which interested me when you said that commercials should be about education and entertainment at the same time. I'm wondering if that is the concept usually of those who really think up commercials and write them and put them on. Well most American children, even the little ones, can recite many of the television commercials

which is some tribute to the impact. But are they? Are they really? According to our original definition they are. We're dealing here with semantics. What is education? If a commercial attracts you and I have learned and I think we're using the definition that learning is education. I'm going to make a rather scandalously unpopular statement but I think that those of us who are in the news and public affairs side of television, those of us who are dealing with complicated ideas and those of us who are in education have something to learn from the commercials. That in terms of clarity of presentation, simplicity of presentation, drama of presentation, if we could do with the common market what our commercial producers do with a much simpler subject of selling products, we would be in pretty good shape.

Just look at some of the characteristics. Simple ideas, clearly and forcefully presented and reiterated. Now when I was an educator, I recall people who were teaching me and training me were saying that that was the essence of good education. But you would include the fact that you'd be permitted to repeat it 15 times a week too. I'm glad you said that Mr. White because the whole technique of the commercial is towards the slow learner. Are you defining all of this? You don't make commercials do you Mr. Gittlin? You do the finest stuff I think on television among several others but I would like to get back, I think we might get back to this dreadful word education because you're sandaled with it as you well know and is there no other way of defining it? I mean educational as a term has been a kiss of death hasn't it? You're quite right and you can tell that we've talked about this before. To my way of thinking

the very worst thing that happened to this movement which I head was the label that was attached to it by the agency represented by our friend on my left. The FCC it was who determined that this should be called educational television. This is a bad word for a number of reasons. In the first place it drives a good many people away from us and in the second place if you sat where I sit you'd also recognize that it attracts every nut in the country and no matter how bad it is if it's education it's just per se good. The fact is that we do need a better label and the best that we've come up with is non-commercial. You've got to be better than that. Well you see this is what you have when you deal with governmental agencies. But the fact is that you have here a service institution. An institution which differs from its commercial colleagues in that it is not our function and I mean that this is an honorable function

to make money. That is not our function therefore we do not have to view audience size or the balance sheet as a factor in making a program decision. The commercial station has to do this and it's understandable. Our function is not to make money it's to spend money. Every single cent we can lay on put our hands on in the service of people. Therefore we do not have to ask about what this will do to our audience size or balance sheet. There is just one question that an educational station manager has to ask and that's what good does it do for whom. Now this gives us great freedom. But doesn't for how many come into that consideration? Not necessarily because if it's a very small group. Civilian defense workers if they need specific instruction I think that the instrument of television is a very valuable source for that and I think it's our job to provide that service. If you had the opportunity as you

are on an educational station of talking to all the people in the community or in talking only to civil defense workers and because of limitations of time and limitations of frequencies you had the choice. Which choice would you make? I think if it was important enough if it was an important message that needed to be carried to civil defense workers we have no choice but to elect that. But if you could reach the civil defense workers let's say through a press campaign which would cost let's say $20,000 or issue books through direct mailing whereas you have your expensive educational television facilities which are capable of being received by all the people in the community and you can do a broad educational job with all the people in the community isn't that necessarily your choice in a popular medium? Not necessarily. Let's change our example a little bit. Yes couldn't we get out of civil defense? Let's leave civil defense. Let's talk about specialized courses for the schools. No school system can afford the talents which are required to take care of this very small but very important segment of our school population. Television can be a very important

instrument and I think it's our function to do it. Well someone once said about educational television that its job in life was to be good and not necessarily popular. Right. And I think an example of the problems that you run into on the other side the commercial side as opposed to that. Several months ago you may remember that one of the networks did a series of programs with President Eisenhower. It was on in the evening. It was on in a good time but it was up against two extremely popular commercial programs. The result was that some 24 million people watched one I think sing along with Mitch. 22 million people watched the Untouchables. Six million people watched President Eisenhower. Now under commercial standards six million people is nothing. President Eisenhower had written a book. He couldn't have reached six million people but under commercial television standards six million people is nothing. But it seems to me the problem is in figuring out that you must devote

some time some time to minority audiences a balance of time not to get all the people all the time but to give some of the people a fair share of the use of a public resource in the public area. And this is where the argument really gets down to and that is how much time do you devote to this and how much time do you devote to that. But you would agree though that there is very little debate about the necessity for commercial television to provide programs like that CBS reports on Eisenhower or like the NBC white papers that more and more particularly in this last year there's been a great increase in that type of program. But where the discussion comes in is to what extent would be in the program schedule and who determines it. Isn't that where the argument lies. I think that's right and of course I think that under our system that judgment has got to be made by the broadcasters and our hope is that there will be enough broadcasters and enough facilities

available so that there will be more time devoted to this for the people as a whole. Our argument the business about the elite it seems to me is always necessarily means that the government is going to become a czar or a dictator or a censor and say you must do this. But I find this impossible to understand. The law is specific. The law says we cannot censor a program quite properly so might as well then forget about a free broadcasting system. All we're doing is insisting that a broadcaster who as I say is usually the winner of a great contest to get that station that he keep his promise of public service and it seems to me it's as simple as that. Mr. Chairman hasn't something happened this week speaking about the government and television that is really a revolutionary in this passing of this bill for educational television. Yes the president this week signed a bill which

for the first time will commit to federal funds for the construction of pardon the term educational television stations and to link these stations together. This will be the time that it's on a matching basis with states and private institutions that federal funds public funds will be committed to this purpose. I think it's a landmark you know in many countries the government operates broadcasting. We've taken a different course in this country of ours. We've said that broadcasting should be in private hands and the commercial side for private profit but in the public interest. Now we're hoping to develop and build an alternative service for those people who want it and I hope now that the private resources will take over and make educational television rich and lively and full of entertainment as well as as well as pedantry. What kind of I just want to ask the chairman what kind

of private resources. I mean where do you see this money for programming and for establishing a network coming from. Well the great foundations have been generous in the past. I hope they'll be in the future. In some cases local citizens contribute a dollar or contribute to 50 cents or five dollars to helping stations get along. In some cases these school boards will provide the funds of course for in-school service and I would hope that we would try many ways to experiment to finance these stations. There's some people who want to try pay television for education. Do you need money more or talent more Mr. White? This reflects the importance of other discussions again. I differ in my opinion from a great many people in terms of what is the most important problem facing educational television. It seems to me that the easy answer is to say money that you can buy quality. I can't accept this. I think that the most important problem facing educational television today tomorrow and in the weeks

to come and the years to come is the problem of talent. That if we attract to this movement bright young men and women and they assume leadership the dollars will come. You say you attract nuts. How are you going to get. I'm sorry I said it but I did. John White and I have sat together on other panels that have been concerned with the future of educational television and John certainly more than I were both deeply interested in seeing educational TV advance. But I differ with him on this one point because I really think that the problem is not talent but money and that there has been a great deal of unrealistic thinking not on the part of those in educational TV but upon the part of those who would set up educational TV to think that you can mount anything as expensive as complicated as difficult as an educational television network without doing some hard thinking about the financing

in advance. It is my contention that the way in which you set up your financing predetermines what you are going to see to a very large extent in the future and that on the question of talent that a young person dedicated who comes into educational TV who learns in educational TV and who then after acquiring all the craft of television and perhaps some of the art of television receives an offer from a commercial station in terms of his own personal self fulfillment in terms of his own career must take that offer. And so that while you will provide a very fine training ground for the commercial networks and certainly we do need such a training ground there is no question in my mind that you are going to lose your people. Well you see I don't object to losing my people because I just have faith enough in Americans that there will be more young people coming behind them in the first place. But would you like to keep the best of them? Yes and we will as all of you know. Then why should they be underpaid? Well they are not necessarily underpaid. In the first place

had we taken the position you now assume educational television in this country would never have resisted. It took a few people. It took a great deal of chicken wire and chewing gum but we did mount an educational television movement. In the last two years the average operating budget of the existing educational television stations have increased over 30%. Now you wouldn't have had the opportunity for an increase if you hadn't had this. Secondly now the fact is that educational stations are maturing are becoming more sophisticated and those which have been on long enough are beginning to pay the kind of salaries that attract people and you would be amazed I think at the names of some of the people in your own industry who would love nothing better than to take a sacrifice financially to come back and work with us. I think Mr. White is absolutely right because commercial television has lost some of its best talent in the last five years because of lack of freedom because of commercial pressures and so forth. But I would like to ask Mrs. Roosevelt since we

are really back on educational television when you think of the term Mrs. Roosevelt what would you hope to see on an educational station that is in the evening and what would give you pleasure what kind of program that you don't get on commercial. I can think of a great many programs that I would like to see but one of the first that I would like to see educational television develop is more information about what our own government is doing throughout the world that so many of us know so little about. Now that may be Mr. White an almost impossible thing to do but I would think that it would be a very great value because I am constantly running across things that I'm surprised to find my government is doing in other countries and thinking all the time but why don't we know about it at home. Why don't we hear more about it and the way to hear is through television

and perhaps dramatizing a little bit what is really happening you see which would make it I think for us a very very important and valuable thing in broadening our whole sense of being the leaders of the non-communist world and understanding what that meant and what it was meaning. Don't you think one thing that if I can say this without being called a censor one of the things I think educational television might do is show us a lot of programs which are done in other countries which are done by other foreign broadcasting systems. Television is growing all over the world each year more countries develop. We could have exchanges. That's right and we could be seeing more of what the other countries are producing this would be one of the great it seems to me. I know you're doing a lot. I couldn't agree more. The fact is that in terms of our present program scheduled from NET to our

affiliated stations they receive 10 hours a week which is 520 hours a year. 30 percent of that programming in the current year either deals with international subjects or is obtained from international sources. There are programs appearing on educational stations this year which have been made in Japan in France in Italy in Germany in England and all over. As a matter of fact we are just now beginning and what Mrs. Roosevelt and this group would agree there is no question about we have film crews as we sit here today this center which I had had film crews in Turkey and in Mexico. We are beginning to do this. Now I am the first to say that we cannot think about educational television yesterday nor should we think about it today. We've got to talk about tomorrow because we are less than seven years old.

We didn't have sponsors who would finances. We've had to grow. We've had to achieve sophistication if you will. But there isn't the slightest question about the role it should fill and the fact that we are struggling to fulfill. May I ask you a question. I don't want to be devil's advocate here but in a meeting we had I believe some of the educational television people said we are really interested in talking to the top one third of a particular community. And as I recall the attitude of the commercial broadcaster is that it is not sufficient to talk to the top one third of the community because that top third of the community can get its information through other sources. Isn't the responsibility of educational television to talk to the whole community. We're back to that point again. Well all right. But Irv that was one man representing if you recall a very sophisticated community and he was reflecting a fact of life. And one usually is satisfied with his fact of life. However

just this past week a depth survey of audience has been released in eight cities in the country it was done by Dr. Wilbur Schramm or under his supervision the head of the communications research institute at Stanford. This does bear out something of what you're saying. But instead of the typical survey as you and I know it this was based on four thousand telephone calls in each community plus two thousand personal interviews which usually extended to 45 minutes. To be classified as a regular listener to these educational stations a person must listen must have listened at least twice a week to this channel and more over must have listened at least once in the week prior to the interview and to be able to describe what it was he saw. Now with that standard in I'm going to use some figures in Pittsburgh and in San Francisco 24 percent of the set owners in the coverage area of

the stations were regular listeners. Forty five percent of those interviews were occasional listeners. Regular listeners across the country I should also add came out to about to an average of about two and a half hours of listening to their educational station. I would maintain that 24 percent is a whale of a lot of people even in San Francisco. They'll see this program. Twenty percent of the audience in Boston listens to WGBH. Fifteen percent in a small community champagne Urbana. We have the same problem you have because down at the other end we have a UHF station in a VHF market where it was just three percent. I'd like to ask Mr. Gitlin whether listening to that he feels the cold wind of competition. Mrs. Roseville do you think we might ask these not antagonists but what the one system is to start. My complaint about educational television is that we don't have enough competition.

I think that the best thing we can have is more and more competition. You don't think you turn it off because well it's off our backs. I don't think so. I think that those of us who are in commercial television and particularly in the side of it that is in the news and public affairs area feel very strongly that the opportunity is widening and that there are more and more important things to do. One of the interesting things that's happened in commercial television is that it has become economically feasible to do the kinds of programs that we are talking about. This gets to my point about the economic base. It does not have to be dull to be a good program. It does not have to be audience limiting. It does not have to be a stepchild who's looked down and done to keep Mr. Minnell happy. We don't have to do that. These programs to an increasing extent are standing on their own feet. They're standing on their own feet because the public is choosing to watch. Now

why they are choosing to watch becomes a very complicated subject. They've never had too much of an opportunity to make that choice before. I do think they've had more of an opportunity than many of us have said because the record of news and informational programming runs back to the very start of television, but I do think that one of the factors that has been taking place is what I call the restlessness factor and that as the entertainment side has larger and larger problems in getting fresh formats and getting ideas that in fact are alive. By comparison, the vitality of the maturing news and public affairs area looks pretty good to me. Also, people don't want to be entertained all the time. You can get too much of that. I don't think they have to be in the top third or anything. Every human being, particularly in a free democratic country like ours, wants to know what's going on. He wants to know if the bomb's going to go off. He wants to know if we're going to stay alive. He wants

to know what this means for his children. The more exposure that he has to this, it seems to me, the better off we all are. Irv, if I could make one point, you'll recognize that you're now talking about ideas and creativity, not necessarily dollars. I'm talking about ideas and creativity, but when I think of a network news organization which makes possible the articulation of these ideas and creativity, when I think of the dollars that they cost, thousands of people involved in an organization of that kind, I say, how would we do that without the dollars? We need the dollars. We say, for example, I ask the question, why isn't there more news and news documentary on educational television? The answer I get generally from my friends in educational TV is one, the networks are doing it well, and two, we don't have the dollars to mount the kind of news organization to get comprehensive world coverage. I am sure the talent is available. I don't think

you have the dollars, and I think you should have the dollars. Well, number one, I accept your first contention that the networks do do this well, and I believe this, and I don't believe that this is an area in which we should compete. On the hard news, if you're talking about depth treatment and analysis, we certainly should, we must, and I think that dollars have been used as an excuse too often for a shortage of ideas. Well, ideas and courage. I think that very often we think that commercial television is the only part of the communications media that suffers from inhibition, they're afraid of sponsors. I think educators can very often be afraid of trustees, and can be afraid of boards, and can be afraid of controversy, and it seems to me this is an unfortunate thing because this is the place where educational television can be taking the lead, getting into arguments and stirring up ideas.

That's right. Would, for example, WGBH, this fine educational station here in Boston, would WGBH do a Boston bookie show? I dare say they would. We last year, and Boston would. I would hope so, but I don't believe that that is possible. Well, they carried an interview with Joe Enly that none of the commercial television... He's not as controversial as a Boston bookie show. Could I cut across you just for a moment, because I think, and I don't know if Mrs. Roosevelt agrees with me, but commercial television, don't you think Mrs. Roosevelt is doing an increasingly good job of informing the people by news and discussions? I don't think coincidentally I think that Mr. Minow's blast had something to do with it. However, don't you think that one of the great functions that we haven't really gone into is original creative ideas? That is drama. That is humor. That is satire. I mean, wouldn't you, do you see that on commercial

television as much as you'd like? Not as much as I think we should. I think we could, I think we could do more in developing new talent than using new talent. I also think there is one thing that we miss. I think when you have something extremely good, it could bear repetition sometimes. I sometimes have a feeling that people, for any number of reasons, cannot listen when you show it the first time. It's cost you an enormous amount of money, and a good deal of talent has gone into it, and then it's wiped out. And I have felt over and over again that actually if one could take the comparatively few things that are really interesting for historic reasons or because they are extraordinarily well done, drama or satire, whatever, and do them more than once. If they were successful twice, perhaps you could even do them three times. I have a feeling it would enormously

broaden the knowledge of the public in a great manner. Ms. Rogel, I'm so glad you brought that up because it seems to me this is the heart of one of the toughest problems in television. There's a compulsion to put something different on all the time, even though the only- Because I suppose the trouble is the numbers of people who would watch each time. But I you would have the chance to have a new audience almost each time. Absolutely. Now, on the program, for example, I think when Mrs. Kennedy was on, that was run two more times. And each time it got a very substantial audience again. I don't know whether it was the same people seeing it twice or people who were busy that evening or not at home or whatever it may be. But this seems to me, Irv, is a thing that if I were in television, the thing I would be arguing about is you can't be great 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Why don't you repeat more of the three things you do?

At different hours, yes, why? Were you going to answer that? I was going to say that one must come to some defense of commercial television on this one because this does not only involve management decision and desire. This involves unions, this involves very exorbitant expenses which prevent them from doing this on many occasions. And I think you do need some defense here. I think that the best of the program should certainly be repeated. But I am concerned about a repeat pattern as a regular part of television as a program producer. Because frankly, there are so many things to get on the air and the amount of time on the air is limited that it may very well be that your time is going to be taken away to repeat a program that has been done by another unit or by another group. And this is one of the facts of life of television, which is that it's instantaneous, it's immediate, and part

of the excitement comes in the fact that you'd better watch it or you're going to miss it. The economics are one factor. The other reasons get involved in many other areas. And I would say that we'd be for repeating the best and unfortunately there's a certain percentage we wish didn't get on in the first place. Do you mean the best or do you mean the most popular? Because I think this is one of the big differences between commercial and non-commercial television education because I think our function is to repeat just as many times as we can that which is good. Yes, well I would say that I would not create that dichotomy. Sometimes the best is the most popular and sometimes it is not. And we'd want to repeat either the best or the most popular depending upon how good it is. Of course, this gets me to my point about having more channels and having more stations. Congress this week will act on a bill that will require that new television sets carry all 82 channels, not just 12. As the next decade goes on, we have more channels. It

is a real compulsion to have something new every single minute because we'll have more choices available if you missed it one time. I can envision the day 10 years from now when there may be stations that do nothing but repeat at different times what originally appeared on other stations. Provided, I would assume, Mr. Chairman, provided you do not wreck the economic base upon which television is based at the present time because the consequences of a complete repeat pattern or the consequences of too many channels, as we know in the radio area, is a result of economic distress and lowering of standards, not raising of standards. And the great trouble is how do you find that balance point between freedom of choice and economic self-sufficiency? Isn't this our job really in the future? And I think we're addressing ourselves to the future even more than the present and also sedulously avoiding that extraordinary little round object that's going up in the sky any minute now called a satellite or Telstar.

Don't you think, Mr. Chairman, that it is high time we decided what this little ball is going to bounce off? A hundred years ago, Henry Thoreau wrote that we were in great hurry to construct a magnetic telegraph link between Maine and Texas. But Mr. Thoreau wondered whether Maine would have anything to say to Texas. And this is where we are with the satellite. We're going to send it up. We're going to launch it in a matter of weeks. It's not any bigger than a beach ball. But a signal will go up hundreds of miles and bounce against the satellite and across the ocean. And we'll be seeing, and Irv is working on the first program, we'll be seeing what's happening in England, in France, in Germany, while it's happening, and they'll be seeing what we're doing. And very little thought is being given to what we're going to do with it.

And you're right, it's about time. Mrs. Roosevelt. Your committee is working on that. Yes, there is a three network committee that has the enviable job of programming the first international broadcast to bounce off the Telstar when it gets up. I'm not deliberately not saying if it gets up, when it gets up, the latter part of June. And I must say, if we think the complexities of putting together a domestic television program are great in the international field, they're really monumental. The first problem, of course, is getting three networks to agree. And by definition, three networks do not agree, you see. The committee is having a very good time of it, but our problem is perhaps not as serious as the European, the EBU, European Broadcasting Union, because there are at least 13 nations sitting in committee and met two weeks ago to determine a program. And we already have some reactions, and we know, looking at our own program, that the problems are going to be very great. And one of the greatest problems will be,

how are we going to avoid making that ball in the sky a public relations tool for the points of views of nations or the points of views of any particular groups and to get the truth across? That will be the question. How are we going to avoid, I'm sorry, making it a selling medium again? You speak, I'm very interested. You talk about this committee, which is composed of the networks. Are you blithely assuming that this is going to be a network operation for America? I would assume that the signals that are going to be bounced off the future satellites will be determined by the FCC and by international agreement. Certainly, there are going to be more than television. There are radio signals. There are going to be telephone, telephone television. And I don't think anyone knows. I'd like to ask Mr. Minow what, in fact, and who will program the satellite system when it is, in fact, permanently in place?

Well, as they say on television, that's a $64,000 question. The networks are cooperating at the government's request. The networks are cooperating at the government's request in this first program. I would hope myself that channels will be set aside for the United Nations. I'd hope that someday, Mrs. Roosevelt, that when a great issue is debated at the UN, that it might be seen all over the world. This would be one of the, it seems to me, one of the greatest avenues toward peace and human understanding that would be possible. I'd hope that the USIA would have some use in it, but all these judgments are going to have to be made. I think it's time the nation started thinking about this, thinking what we want to do. We constantly have technology and science exploding faster than our capacity to think about what we want to do with it humanly. Mrs. Roosevelt, what do you, what do you envisage, really, that this little satellite should do? I know that you have an abhorrence, which I think we share, of the word image of America.

Would you like to comment on that as far as that? Well, I hope we will stop trying to create an image of America, because America is many images. I don't think you can create an image of America, but I think you can show different aspects of America and American life and thought, and that I would hope this little satellite would do. And I don't mean by that that it has to be all the good things and none of the bad things, because I think that's one of the sad things that we have done that sometimes people think that we only want to tell them where our successes are and never where our failures are. And in a democracy, I think we know that we haven't a perfect democracy and therefore that we have to have some failures. But I would hope very much that it would not be, as you said, there was fear that it might be just used as a propaganda medium for one nation or another nation, but that it would show

different nations in their strivings to arrive at something better than they now have. And I think that would be a real advantage if we could really see the strivings of people the world over. And it would help us in many ways to know what to do ourselves. Well, that's it, Mr. Gitlin, is committed against the idea of an elite or in fact anyone laying down any rules. But it seems to me that unless we have a clear philosophy of goals for the satellite, we're going to repeat many of the ghastly mistakes we've made in mass media. Would you care to comment on guidelines and what? Well, I think that the basic principle on which all of us would agree is that if a satellite or any other instrument of communication is to be effective, it must not become owned by anyone, be it government, be it

foundation or individual or corporation. It must, in a sense, represent all of the people. Now, this is going to be a very difficult thing to achieve, and we are going to make some mistakes. But it just seems to me that in the very nature of the satellite, you will avoid some of these things because you're going to have to treat broad areas of culture or hard news, and you're going to have to avoid propaganda or you'll be dead. Someone said that it's just providential that in an age of mass destruction, we also have mass communication, that the one may prevent the other. And it just seems to me to depend upon how wise we are and how open we are in our thinking if we're going to make it serve the cause of communication rather than destruction. The two things are both within man's power.

Mr. Chairman, can you envisage the government not determining what programs go over, but determining a balance exactly to show this diversity, which Mrs. Roosevelt and I think all of you feel is essential, so that every voice in America gets a chance to be heard on this satellite and not just any one group? It seems to me you've articulated a philosophy that the government ought to adopt. If there were a way that we could achieve that, it seems to me, we would then be putting it to its highest and its best use. Do you have any objection to that, Mr. Getland? No, I would be for that. I would say I see some of the problems. I also see some of the opportunities. The fact of the matter is, I think we shall have a much easier time of it than, let us say, some European states who do not have a tradition of freedom and who do not have a tradition of independent groups programming television,

where in fact government policy becomes national communications policy and obviously will become the policy of signal that reaches us. And so that we have a pretty sound system that's based upon diversity. It's based upon division of powers, and it's based upon the idea of striving to the extent possible, particularly in the journalistic side, striving to tell the truth. It's hard to do, but striving to tell the truth. And one other element, which I hope, most importantly, can somehow find a place on this space satellite, which is self-criticism and mutual criticism. The critical element has seemed to have gone out, and even domestically. Exactly. And if there's anything we can do to support self-criticism and mutual criticism, I think we would be in strong support. As we said early in this conversation this afternoon, the user has to be taken into account.

You spoke of government control of European television. You're quite right, and it represents most of Europe. But the fact is that with that government control, in many ways they have greater freedom than you and I have in communications here. And in those few countries where freedom did not come with government support and control, they're not going to use it anyway. Well, it's too late in the program to get into that, but I would just ask how many meat depressors we have on the European continent. Oh, quite a few. Too many, probably. I'm afraid I'm going to have to try and make some rather concise sense, not that there has been unconcise nonsense, but to try and give an idea of what we've been hashing out, and I think it sort of has three different points. One or two have to do with actual happenings to further this diversity we want. One is the fact that UHF, that the receivers, set receivers, will now be able to, or we hope will be able to, receive all bands instead of just the VHF.

The second is this remarkable government grant for the construction of educational television, which is more than just money. It shows faith in a great American need for an alternative system. And I think in the third place, the agreement is unanimous that the satellite, that not only must we have a philosophy of broadcasting for the satellite, but that it must present as many American voices as possible and not be dominated by any one interest, whether that is commercial or whether it is governmental or whether it is educational. Do you think that, more or less? I think that's a very good summing up. I think we have really, perhaps, given the public, which did not know quite so much, perhaps, about the satellite as some of you here do, something new to think about this afternoon.

And I think that's very important. And now I see our time is very nearly running out. And I would like to thank each one of you. You, Mr. Minow, you've come a long way and made a great contribution. You, Mr. White, and you, Ms. Mannes. And I think that it's been very kind of you to be with us. And I hope that next month and all of the audience will again be with us because we will discuss the status of women on prospects of mankind. Newton Minow is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Irving Gitlin is executive producer, creative projects, NBC News. John White is president of the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Maria Mannes is television critic for The Reporter magazine. This program was produced in cooperation with the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council. Next month, President Kennedy will introduce Mrs. Roosevelt's program on the status of women. Guests will include Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg, Mrs. Agda Rossell, Swedish ambassador to the United Nations, and Thomas Mendenhall, president of Smith College. This is Bob Jones speaking. This is NET, National Educational Television.