Sunday Forum; The New Media And Public Communication

There has been renewed attention in the last few weeks to the question of the of the ideological objectivity of television news. In my view it is observably true that over any extended period of reporting time television network news will deal more sympathetically with propositions and personalities on the liberal side of our political spectrum. Then it will deal with propositions and personalities on the conservative side of our political spectrum. Television is primarily a news entertainment and art form. I emphasize the last two words art form when you go into a television studio as all of you in this room know in off the milieu with you are in literally a creative studio. It has been historically true that people whose natural instincts take them into the creative

media creative media whether or not it's a painter or a sculptor or an architect or a designer. Or whether it is an actor or an actress in the performing arts. People whose natural instincts take them into the creative media have tended as a broad generality to be position on what would call we would call the liberal side of the of the political spectrum that is to say they tend to be to the left of the body politic in any society. We in this country are a meritocracy. We hire people on the basis of what they can do and not on what they believe. It is basically irrelevant as to what your personal political and philosophical views are in terms of the business hiring you to perform a job. And let me take you right to the bottom line on what the barrier is. Is it possible. For 10 conservatives sitting together day after day after

day sweating blood trying to be fair to liberal propositions is it possible for 10 liberals sitting together day after day after day sweating blood and working hard and trying to be fair to conservative propositions. I submit it is not. I submit that there are psychological barriers which are almost impossible for human beings to overcome. I submit that probably the only real objectivity comes with the clash of ideas in the marketplace. Leslie I think one could be quite comfortable with any Roundtable or any group of people that consisted for the sake of discussion of six liberals and four conservatives clashing constantly. And out of that mix would come objectivity objectivity in the sense that a diversity of spectrum views would be presented in a very sort of natural form so that the thought that I'm trying to give you is that the clash of various

ideas in the marketplace is really where objectivity is. And it is extremely difficult for the able list and most honest people to present that clash of ideas fully if they themselves are overwhelmingly on one side of the issues involved. Now let me develop this a touch further. When major news stories break in this country they are treated in my view in a very straightforward manner. Let me give you a very obvious illustration. During the last political campaign when McGovern chose Eagleton as his vice president that was handled in a most thoroughgoing fashion because it was a huge story and anyone on the on the conservative side of the spectrum in the United States who looked at that would have to say in the clear is why they brand that story to death. They

covered that eight ways from Sunday. They do the same thing on the other side if the story is very big theyre all over it and they cover it right to the fullest. I think exactly the same thing is being done on Watergate I think that story is being covered in a very straightforward way because its a very big story. That's not really where the problem lies. Where the problem lies is over a one two three four five six seven year proposition where day after day after day after day there are slight decisions made not made by intent but made out of the psychological mix that I have just presented to you which tend to be more favorable. On one side of the spectrum than they are on the other. It is in effect the Chinese water torture. And I think this is enormously serious in our society. Lest you feel that it is merely a result of the horrendous problems and tragedy and human

failings relating to the current Watergate situation let me just take you back for a moment to the most obvious points in history. People were stunned many people were stunned when former then former President Eisenhower in 1064 at the Republican Convention in San Francisco from the rostrum shook his fist shook his fist at the studios which were hanging from the ceiling of the control studios of CBS NBC and ABC and referred to them. Because Eisenhower was a man who was considered to be more up political than most political leaders and people thought my golly he really feels very deeply about it. It was more expected but still with the same intensity of feeling that you got much of that during Goldwater's campaign. In 1964 you had a considerable amount of it when Ronald Reagan

first ran for office in 1066 in California and you certainly have had an extensive amount of it during the most recent years of President Nixon and Vice President Agnew. Now whatever you may think individually of these men you have a very long history in terms of the television medium because 10 years in television is half its lifetime. You have a long history in television of the most serious concern at the highest levels of a philosophy and concern with society in this country being expressed about whether or not television is objective. Now the tragedy of this is and I speak here candidly with some little knowledge. The tragedy of this is that it isn't understood as to why it's occurring. There are many in political life who think that it is occurring because there is a cabal

because there's a group of left people who are trying to twist things because of deliberate distortion because of people who are not trying to be fair and that is absolute nonsense. Anyone who has worked in television knows that these people in the news department sweat blood to try to tell it straight. Now they don't tell it straight and they are convinced that they do. And thus when a public figure attacks them for not telling it straight and they believe genuinely that they are and they know how hard they're trying they're furious and tempers get very very high and short. But it's important to know why what is happening is happening because unless you know why something is happening you can't deal with the problem in an attempt to ameliorate it or fix it. So I leave you

with that set of propositions. But I give you as a specific instance if you will one situation. CBS decided recently that it would attempt to change the anchor people on its morning news program 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time which competes with the Today Show on NBC. The reason they decided to change it is obvious and that is that today is clobbering them in the ratings. So the question is what can we do to the personalities involved in order to create more excitement and more interest in CBS News and do better in the ratings. Now you've got a standard management problem. What do you do. CBS News I say this is an outsider I want to make clear that I've been out of CBS for five years and I'm as much an observer as what they do as you are. They decided that they would change the basic

personalities and so they dropped the people that they had and they took Hughes Rudd who is a long time experienced witty charming newsman with sort of a light Harry Reasoner type touch and they used him as the one of the two anchor people and then they hired someone a girl. Why did they do that. Well I think they felt that with women's lives the new interest in the new stature of women and our changing society was very important to do that and also query is Barbara Walters one of the big reasons for the success of The Today Show. I don't know but obviously they must have thought about that. So they went out and hired a news lady and made her a co-anchor person. And her name is Sally Quinn now who is Sally Quinn. I have never met Sally Quinn. I'm talking only from what I know in the public press. Sally Quinn's experience is that she took a leave of absence from her then position to work for in the political campaign of Eugene McCarthy.

She took a leave of absence later to work in the political campaign about a Kennedy. She is a star reporter for The Washington Post which is considered to be one of the strongest enable this but the most liberal among the major liberally oriented papers in the United States. And as Time magazine delicately phrased it she is at the present time in New York City sharing an apartment with the city editor of The New York Post which is believed to be the most liberal of the major newspapers in the United States. Now let me give you a proposition. We have another person who has all the physical and intellectual attributes of Sally Quinn. Whatever those may be in terms of professional ability and qualifications these people are down to go except this Sally Quinn took a leave of absence in 1064 to work

in Goldwater's campaign. And then she took a leave of absence in 1066 to work in Ronald Reagan's campaign. And then she became the star reporter in the Washington news bureau of The Chicago Tribune. And people presently say that she is playing house with William F. Buckley Jr.. Now. In terms of this second personality whose professional qualifications and experience are very similar to the first Miss Sally Quinn what would be her chances of being hired by CBS News as an anchor person in their major Morning News effort. Well I will give you my own view. They would be the chance of the snowball on its memorable journey through hell. And that is not because anybody is trying to distort anything. And it's not because there's a Caballo and it's not because people are not playing to straight

not trying to play it straight. It's because it's the way it is. There is a sympatric out among people of certain persuasions they're a peer group pressures there's sort of an instinctive unsaid understanding of what is right and what is wrong. There is a commonly accepted view of what is the correct way to participate in the broad thrust of our society. And it is all those unspoken atmospheric things that create climates and climates impact all of us because we're all human. Right so now I've said something which I'm sure many of you will disagree with which I believe very firmly. Television Network news is more sympathetic on one side of the spectrum philosophically in this country than the other. Having said that and you come to a very tough question What should you do about it. Now let's address the question of what should be done about it. Firstly you could turn to government and you could say this thing is a crying outrage

and the government ought to do something about it and the government can do something about it because the government has the power of licensing over the five key owned stations of the television networks which is a core of their financial stability and profitability. And you through the FCC could probably march down that licensing road and say look here we want things done differently. So I suppose that the government if it was determined to do so could probably be much rougher legally with television than it could be with the press because there's some printed press because there is some question as to the degree of the applicability of the First Amendment to television whereas there is none thank god whatsoever for the printed press. When I finished these remarks I will tell you really why I think it is unthinkable to be avoided at all costs and would be a tragedy for the country

for the government at any time to seek to interfere with television programming or TV's news regardless of the substantive comment substantive input of what goes on the tube. Now what else can be done. If you say that for the good of the democracy and the security of the country people in our system we must not permit any interference by the government in television programming. Proposition I firmly adhere to another any other alternative courses of action. Well there is the possibility of public pressure now by public pressure the way you being bring public pressure to bear in a democracy is to have knowledgeable people and people who are newsmakers who will be reported if they speak out speak out. Now I submit to you that this is beginning to happen in a crescendo. Unfortunately many of the people who spoke out

turned out to be less than the best spokesman. I think that much of what Agnew said on this subject was right on the mark. But Mr. Agnew is a discredited man and should be because he was taking money in a little white envelope and he was in effect dismissed from office and that was quite proper. But the problem is that that tends to tar the validity of what he said on the very important subject of media in this country if important people speak out and say what they think in a knowledgeable and dispassionate and trying to be objective way. I think that the network people are serious people. And if there's enough people speaking out it will cause them to think and it will cause them internally to be ever more careful that's very useful. It's already having some results illustratively. It was not more than seven or eight years ago that when you spoke out and said that

commentators on TV news really couldn't be objective because no man who cares deeply can be objective. No man can and that you should deliberately seek out clashing views in your commentators and get objectivity by the clash of the views without telling one man to be God and be fair. You'd be better off. Those were the days when it was just Eric Sevareid and that was the only comment that was on CBS. Now they have something called CBS spectrum. What is spectrum where you are perhaps more familiar with it than I am. It really means a management decision that they will seek out commentators from three philosophic vantage points roughly describe the left the right in the middle. Now you know you can't be sure of who's left right and middle but speaking for the left they have someone who in my judgment deserves to be there and that's Gloria Steinem speaking for the right. They would have perhaps Stewart Allsop speaking for the center. I don't know who they would have in the center but in any event they make those judgments and they do not tell you

try to be objective. They say say what you believe say what you think is right comment in any way that you think is valid in terms of what's happening in this country and in the world. Now in that way you get a clash of ideas. Secondly and to take an entirely different medium. The New York Times have their op ed page and the op ed page puts on it a Pat Buchanan or a William Buckley or an Irving Kristol or or John Chamberlain or any of the spokesmen that might be self-identified as being one way rather than the other way. That's a very very useful thing. So I think that the deliberate insertion of many clashing ideas among the commentators on television and on radio has a very useful step. And lastly I would encourage young people people at this university from all parts of the spectrum. If you really want to spend your life in communications it's the most exciting life you can have and get into it. And if

young conservative people as well as young liberal people will think of communications as a career and don't think that would you want to be as president of General Motors or the executive vice president of some big powerful company and you'll make a whopping amount of money and you'll run factories and that sort of thing is something that can be even more exciting and even more important to your country. And that is how ideas are presented. The question of informing being involved in media so that so that if if my premise is correct the people who tend into the arts tend to be on more on one side of the spectrum than the other. It's very important for young people who philosophically are on the other side of the spectrum to think not alone of business as a career but the communication arts. I close with. Well in summary therefore the only way that you can correct this is by inserting clashes of ideas deliberately in your

programming and secondly by the natural process of selection. Hopefully the mix will change in the newsroom itself. That can only be done however in a meritocracy basis and not on the basis of knowing privately what you think. I now I go to it to a summary point. And that is a much broader question how should we think of television in our society. For those of you who have not traveled abroad or who have not had the opportunity to study television you may think that what we do with television in the United States is typical of the free world well it isn't the free world by and large has chosen a selected National Instrument funded directly or indirectly from the public purse as their primary television medium illustratively BBC in England RAII in Italy or TFN France NHK in Japan all of those are really funded directly or indirectly essentially from the public purse. They're not

private enterprise. And although they may have a public or quasi public corporation they're not really shielded from the government to the extent that we are. So the great democracies of the Western world as we might umbrella could have chosen to go in a different direction than United States television that's an important point. How have we chosen to go. We have chosen to go the private entrepreneurial not that CBS NBC ABC stockholders privately manage separate government. And that's the dominant television. Yes there will be educational television but it will not be funded in order to be competitive with CBS NBC ABC but to be additive. And that's a big distinction. So we are almost unique among the free countries of the world in the way we've chosen to run it is that a good thing. Go back for a moment to the founding fathers when they put together this country 200 years ago. They came from Europe where traditionally the power of the press

had been used by the government in linkage with the government as an arm by which to bring the people into submission. And so they said in the First Amendment to the Constitution and applying that unique genius principle on which this country is created the separation of powers. They said that the power of the press in this new democracy will be forever separate from the power of the government. Now why did they do that. They didn't do that because it would make newspapers better or that it would make them worse. It had nothing whatever to do with the quality of what was printed. It had to do with power and the separation of powers. And in order to secure the democracy they forever separated the power of the press and the power of the government. Now 200 years go by and the fertile mind of man creates a way to fly information through the air. And that is so dramatic and it has such

impact that it fundamentally alters the way most of the people most of the time get most of their information that is now television. Now if it were true philosophically 200 years ago that the power of the press had to be separated from the power of the government to secure the democracy. How much greater Is it true today that the power of television must be kept separate from the power of the government in order to secure the democracy. Now you're going to wrestle with a lot of very tough questions you're faced immediately with a dilemma. Any one of you who has a million dollars or a marries a man who has a million dollars or who makes it out of business can go and buy a newspaper or he can start a printing plant and he can print a newspaper as long as he has the money and nothing will stop him. But you can't do that with television and television the government has to decide because of the limited spectrum that you and you and you can run a television station but you and you and you can't. Now the government has to

decide that on the basis of the technical spectrum what yardsticks to they use yardsticks like character and performance. But what is character and performance mean if I can't get into programming. Very tough question. Now how are you going to answer that as a people. The only way you're going to answer it as a people and be safe is to say that we will make. All of our prejudices on the side of keeping television too free rather than too controlled. In other words they key philosophical principle in the relationship of government to television in the United States would be does this tend to make television more or less under the control of the government. How does that sound you say well that's easy. That's not so easy give you one illustration which I think you will agree makes it not so easy.

I happen to think as a private citizen that cigarettes should no longer be advertised in the United States. Forget whether or not that's a good position or a bad position. The Congress debated it because the surgeon general said cigarette will kill you. So the Congress decided they would do something about what to do something about it mean we won't let it be advertised. But you can't do that in press because of the First Amendment if you told Punch Sulzberger at the New York Times. I think he stopped on his own but if you told punch Solberg of the New York Times that the government was ordering him not to advertise cigarettes he would tell you to kindly leave the room and he'd be right. So knowing that they couldn't do that and knowing television is a more powerful impact a propaganda medium they said television won't advertise cigarettes. Now when you do that you start to accustom a legislator to thinking of television differently than the press. Television is something that is responsive to his desires whereas newspapers are on a take it or leave it

basis. We have talked about whether or not we should how we should fund campaigning in this country because of the scandals and pressures involved in big money campaigning. We should do something about that query the legislators are saying well television is the people's air and television is something that we have license control so lets just tell television it must donate certain amounts of time to politicians who are running for office. But we couldnt think of doing that with newspapers saying look give so much linage to political people because you cant do it. Now you you might be and I decided that you might say thats a good thing to do but go back to your philosophical principle. Arent you encouraging legislators to think of a cause and effect relationship between their desires and the broadcasters programming. And if you do that. Aren't you taking this country down the wrong

road. So I submit to you that in your discussions here and as you spend your lives in communication keep the bedrock principle in this country. The media print and broadcast must be free. Thank you very much to. Me. We have a guest speaker well qualified to discuss the need for better communications and our expanding society. Think back to the great innovations that have comprised the communications explosion of the past century. Of victory the past generation. At the top of that list. We certainly would have to include color television. The 33 and a third are long playing record. And most recently the videocassette. These are among the 160 patents in sight and sound technology

held by Dr. Peter seed of mine. Thought to go now completed his doctorate in physics at the University of Vienna emigrated first to England and later the United States to join the pioneering research in the television medium. He retired as head of CBS knobby tires in December of 1971. And five days later announced the following formation of the gold Mark Communications Corporation. This evening Dr. Gahl not to discuss the chief product and the police chief project of his new enterprise. A study of the new rural society undertaken discover ways to make rural America more livable using modern communications technology. Doctor of mine. Perhaps. Ladies and gentleman. I would like to share with you tonight.

My concerns for our future. My hopes for the future. And. The critical a very critical. State of the world around us and this time the world around us I would like to define as the people around us. The. Environment. The ecology. And our resources. Two years ago. We probably would have reversed. The. Sequence. We soon found out that our problems are really people problems. And not technology. The. Problems of the future. Are very serious very critical. You may be familiar with.

The. Saying of Huxley who said. That. As I peek into the future. It doesn't work. Well let's try to make it work. To begin with. Perhaps. It would be useful to. Review. History of the last 10000 years. I promise it will be very short. Ten thousand years ago or. There were 10 million people on earth. The same number of people there are in New York City today. But. There were too few for the earth. And there are too many from New York today. During the succeeding. Fourteen hundred plus eight nine thousand four hundred years. There are practically no changes.

But this curve yours. As you would see more as we go along is one of the most important. Ingredients of our lives lately. And one of the greatest resistance says which people have namely. The. Rate of change. For. Just very shortly. Up to about 150 years ago 200 years ago. The rate of change was. Almost imperceptible at a time America was discovered. There were only 50 million more people on earth and we have today. The. Population doubled up to that time every 2000 years. Today the population doubles. Approximately every thirty five years. The.

Number of people today are three billion and the rate. At which they increased from. 10 million. Is included in that. If we try to show the life expectancy. I'm sure the hangup people will appreciate this. The rapid growth from 30 years average life expectancy to 72. Is in that curve. I for one hope it keeps on climbing rapidly. Maybe some others around. If we look at how fast we have been able to move on earth. Namely from. 25 miles an hour on horseback. Which covers practically all of this 10000 you history to 25000 miles an hour to the moon. That is in that.

What about our explosives we had gunpowder. Somewhere beginning to 1900. So it's Italian and the Chinese claim they have it for us. And. If we compare that with. TNT. Dynamite. And then in 1945. With the first nuclear bomb we exploded them with hydrogen bombs. They are on top of that curve. Look comes a most interesting one and probably. The cause of this because. We have to ask the question why is it that we human beings who ten thousand years ago I had the same brain capacity as we have today namely one and a half letters. Which is about the size of a box wagon engine. That we should in this generation and only a few generation before us. Undergo such unbelievable

changes. The curfew here includes many many other indices and they just happen to fall on a scale shown here on top of each other. So. How did this come about. Included in here is one. Which is hard to show in detail but. Goes back to the fourteen hundred fifty five. That's a time when Goodman Berkeley invented probably the most important invention in human history and certainly the most important invention in communication namely the movable type printing press. What happened. People. With scientific interests invent orse. Explorer has existed all through these ages. They weren't always caught at. The record quack's. Record

sorceress. And so the Nobel Prizes were burned. But here there were. No way to communicate what they have found or what I discovered was somebody else. After fourteen hundred fifty five there was a very gradual use made of the book. Which was a good real invention. And only 150 years ago. The publication use of the book as a communication medium for. Teaching. And then for learning. Became widely used. You may be interested that the cumulative number of book titles published sense could get about 50 million today. We're sure not all of them have been read. But the increase in book titles is tremendous. With this two hour communication tour it was possible suddenly suddenly in terms of the scale for

people. For creative people scientists explorers inventors. To. Carry on where somebody else left off. One didn't have to spend a lifetime. To rediscover something that already has been found by somebody else. The process of learning through the book. Printed the words made it possible. For many people. To concentrate on phases of science. Of discoveries of exploration. And our new age. Of technology of science and not planned. But a natural process of the outpouring. Of the creativity. That's characteristic of the human brain. So here we are. Today. Where the cause and

effect relationship between this one invention. And today's. Steep rate of change. Places are actually at a precipice because this curve cannot continue shooting upwards no process. On Earth can go on infinitely. Sooner or later it has to reverse. And probably will have done what. Many of you here may be familiar with the MIT studies by middle was. We showed what happens because like this if we don't do something about them. What happens is that as a society we now will simply have to go under. When. According to the MIT studies somewhere. So when after a year 20 100. That's quite some. What can we do. I will speak now about the Western

world and particularly about America. Science unwittingly has caused this rapid change. And I think we have to use science and technology. To reverse the trends. Let's try to characterize. Our major problems. Our major problem is our. Urban problem. Where. More than three quarters of the population lives. In urban or suburban. Places. Many are most of them tightly squeezed together. There's more to this than just. Representing an on Tidy distribution of population we have to go back 30

or 40 years. When this urban population came about as a result of our very massive. Probably the most massive migration in history within. The time span of 30 or 40 years where some 35 to 40 million people left. Rural small towns medium sized towns and headed for the big city. And why did today they were looking for employment. And they were looking for the attractions of the large city. There was no planning involved. A small group of us at the National Academy in Washington were asked by the government to investigate whether it's possible. To look at communications technology as a means of. Providing. A better distribution. Of people. Of all resources. In the United States

at least. We began a study and after one year we come to the conclusion that. There's no such a thing as an urban problem. There are three problems and they are interlinked closely. There's the urban problem that are a problem and that is the energy problem. And we are trying to deal with all three of them the result of the study was a project now called the new door society which is funded. By hard United States. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through Fassel University. And. With my company involved. The objective of the study is very simple. That by the end of this century some 75 to a hundred million Americans have the opportunity to have a free choice. Whether to live and

work. You know. Or in an urban. Place. Just that simple. Because this choice today doesn't exist. Why did people migrate from rural areas. The four major ingredients are. Lack of employment. Inadequate educational opportunities but primarily high education. Inadequate health care. And then lack of. Cultural. Recreational and attainment. Opportunities. Now many more and the. Formula. One inadequate. Live. Adequate level. Is complex. We have dealt with it but I mention these four because

they pretty much embrace the major courses. It is possible. To say now that all four. Can. Be starved to a considerable degree if not completely through most new and imaginative uses of communications and of communications technology. Let's look at employment. We have as part of our study. A massive investigation. How businesses and we're talking primarily service industries such as insurance companies are all banks on a lot of ours as in other words not manufacturing companies. How could service industries. Exist. With their major operations divisions. Held intact and. Move to a rural area

not into suburbs. Where the headquarters has. Suitable telecommunications facilities with these outlying operations. It isn't that simple as that because we are undertaking what we call our business communication audience that serve our companies and it shows that the way companies are constituted today. Was not too much trouble they could. Create. Subdivisions where in a rural area there is a self-contained. Relatively autonomous division headed by a Finn layer of executives. Who would have to. Communicate face to face with their superiors and I had quite a surprise. I'm not trying to make sure that's a face to face communication is not minimized but it's a local. Unit. Does not require for employees to commute. But

make it possible for people to walk a bicycle from where they live to where they were to where they work. The business communication audits are still underway and. Giving in not just the general direction it's impossible to go into too much detail in the area of health. We have examined a portion of Connecticut where the governor of Connecticut turned over to us a planning. Region It's called the Wyndham planning region and it's in the north. Eastern section not far from Massachusetts border. It is a unit composed of 10 townships. And it is not typical of rural America except in one instance name do they have. Where approximately one quote a physician takes care of thousand people. And maybe sounds better one physician of 4000 people. The. Rural Health Care in America is a large problem but

we have created plans systems where with relatively little. That a communications help. It is possible to extend rural general practitioners. Practice his arms his legs. Into outlying areas and multiplied by a considerable factor. Is effectiveness. And at the same time remove considerable burden from his life. In the area of education. We are working with the university. To see whether we cannot. Use electronics. To bring. Education of various sorts of higher education in vocational education continuing education high school education I don't know whether you know that there are tens of millions of people in America who never completed high school. That 20 million people by the way who started college about dropped out and would like to continue.

Well it's possible to bring the education of. A broad spectrum. To the home delivery to electronically but in such a fashion that it is stimulating. It is low cost and people can take it. With a certain amount of choice in time and a wider choice in subject. Many people would like to hold down a job would like to improve their jobs or such education. The plan we are working on would provide college degrees both. Junior College and four year college and even. Graduate degrees. And the other courses I mentioned before. The extension of the university beyond its walls is almost a necessity in America. The cost of education. At university. Becomes higher and higher and more and more people adults and young people. Would like to enjoy

education either where they work or at home. But it must be of the right form. This we think electronics can do. What about entertainment. What about cultural pursuits. It is probably one of the most important ingredients of communities today. Lacking. I would like to mention that when we talk about a redistribution. Or other offer the choice to live in the rural areas we are talking about not new land we are talking about not new cities because a so-called new town. Does not fit this plan but at a very simple calculation shows that if you want to offer 75 100 million Americans within 25 years to live in a new town you would have to complete one every third day between now and the end of the century. But we do have. 60 200 communities. From Twenty five hundred

people to a hundred thousand people. Which would be capable of absorbing. Those number of people that number of people. Without growth exceeding an additional. 2 percent of that average growth today. The key word is planning and. Distributed distribution over communities. All across the country existing communities now. Why should people go back to these communities where they came from whatever their predecessors came from. And this is a key. To the project. Employment and I talked about it has to be brought back that I have got a better education. But the culture are the entertainment recreational parts are those which people sought to find in the big city and they got there they didn't enjoy them because they you know couldn't afford them or they thought it to be too easy to

find. Today the average theater in New York whether it's the opera or Broadway. Has an audience perhaps of two thousand people. We feel we can make this available to 20 million people. And not displaced as 2008 can be a live performance as a matter of fact it should. We find that cable television is probably the most important medium to bring about this transformation and why because. The community is other people in the smaller communities communities away from the large city must have a wide choice. Of programs not only all of the TV stations on the air. In the big cities but say must have access to educational programs we talked about two health programs to community programs. And this entertainment program and how does that get there. We have proposed to the government specifically. Encouraged by Senator Mathias

who is head of the congressional committee of. Financing the bicentennial of the Bicentennial is not being talked about much these days. But there is such a thing coming. And we proposed and we hope this will come to pass that a communication satellite. Which is already scheduled to go up provide on a full time through a full time channel. For each state sufficient ground stations. So that cable systems be able to carry the entertainment events to cultural events of the major cities. And in live fashion makes them available. To every home at the terminal of a cable. By the year 1976 that will be approximately 20 million American homes almost one third. Either on a cable. Or. Near a cable easily connected up. Well. I tried to give you. A very quick

rundown of a very complex project. Engaging many people and. Involving many agencies. Because so many of us here are in the communication. Area of communication business. I want to share with you something we found. That. Our technology. Has made it possible to communicate in so many ways over. The air over while. They're able to communicate through space across space. We can communicate on the water. We can communicate on the records on magnetic tape. But we have to concentrate on improving perfecting this most important communication system namely from man to man. Thank you very much.