thumbnail of A Conversation With...; Dr. Richard R. Gilbert, 1970-03-20
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i mean one always get pleasure out of sharing his friends with other people and this gentleman who is our guest tonight is open conversation with a friend of many years standing i daresay that i cried out more new ideas on him for reaction and dion even perhaps any other to listen that that might be an all around the church is dr richard gilbert i wonder if you're the pilot correctly stated executive director of the united presbyterian division of mass media for the board of a national mission as you will tell i think when you hear and is one thousand home ms georgia to gradually university of georgia has to the grave from princeton seminary the median the th michael collins and turn on and the degree of doctor of the saul is whenever a grass of them zest for individual when i first knew that he was working as an evangelist among
youth and i've seen very few people who could control a congregation of young people and win his way into their hearts the way this man what the church saw his skills as belonging to a larger body and so in recent years his concern has been with mass communication so let me begin by welcoming in the end telling you where we are that if you cross the street the view of my yearning and i'll just say that because of the audience if you're giving me the night the first live audience about looking for fifty years to be merciful to be when we played pingpong the next time he's learning but slowly in my world i don't have to head
back to washington dc just a while ago where he had to ellington and so for a concert and they have a son and it's very close to him and i thought we'd give them a chance to get one modest clothing and before we work him over on a philosophy that ellington was performing on behalf of the national arts foundation for it if you'd dropped again for the arts foundation romney already has because washington dc for strippers and for her it's a young foundation trying to find its way among the giants but we're in the business to commission the creative arts or perhaps we should say the car maker is over against a performing artist needs much more money than is getting america as over against erecting buildings to the arts and i'm certain that more of those anemic but the man who has always left out is musician poet a writer artist the person
actually creates art in the survey taken nearly one and only about taken well last year sometime senator and fifty working artists musicians or painters were world research they found out that the average musician makes only one thousand dollars a year on his composing a low the rest of it is to make up and car washes are and that teaching or whatever and some pundits i was a thing and the artist with the peter makes about two thousand dollars on his playing along now these were among the three syllables artist world someone with with large income so what it averages out to that point you can see that the church has not been a patron of the arts or two three hundred years and we should get back in business like that you mentioned gallant an apollo how many of you have heard the sacred concerts there's one at st john's you know marvelous time but a somewhat startling especially just a presbyterian years and we had
a thousand black time people of right we would like for the whole program it was a fifty dollars ticket affair with a reception the embassy on saturday night and then we had what we called a youth concert on sunday and we'd enjoy the age restrictions and also became a marvelously integrated concert on sunday on saturday night all the people that were seeded they're there they're so called worst of sudden this magnificent new cathedral that in washington i call a national religion church and center an hour one of the art critics down there was among the hardest thing for great wolf was listening in a way that the finest we going and said that the tower was something like seventy feet taller than the episcopalian tower which meant that the ppp not a present years researching hovering above the national cathedral where he said that the only problem was that tyler cowen no utility and expect a dancing girls from las vegas to come kicking out anymore when given that we game duke
ellington and he remembers one part of a concert where album the duke comes out dressed in gray out of the old customs and culture and he laid out was that his congregation and he says baby he said we're going to talk about the great intersection of why he says now when you get to that intersection he says a lot of people who dresses your friends and your relatives of the same out those going streaking a pretty good move diamond or not they're pretty nice he says you should come down there was what the church really swing he's as well talk about is the busiest intersection of the world down at the inn where all aliens and it's also a great beginning and then he goes and has a couple of this crescendo is a company of tolerance so they dance in the aisle and the look of the presenter and faces was a candid that of the first season when i heard the news of the resurrection
and second reply bellamy gilbertson they feel that youre concentrating on and talk a little bit about the mass media okay we hear a lot these days about mass communication because of so much that's going wrong in a good potential for so much of what michael wright and you've been writing very close to this story problem or opportunity i'd like you to tell me whether you feel that the church is really wasn't as far as the mass media go go or we are lagging behind our week using it well or that body whether you're considered feeling about that will delight to consider actually just start talking more about religious television than anybody in the country and that's considerably less than any average eight year old child because they understand with televisions all about the rest of us or are over the hills or her sexually speaking
but you know i'm a critic of the of the field why i like a lot of television i sleep for a lot of television and enchanted by some television and on monday and the defender and advocate of those you have no advertising they make commercials wiesel despise the attention so much and therefore they're the objects of every cheap shot from any intellectual work and saw that there's such a convenient target these people that we're dealing with were dealing with commercial we were dealing with communicators who are basically entertainers at the networks and i had a slightly different perspective from the preacher from the minister from the businessman out the bees are very unique people their combination of wall street in hollywood and file in greenwich village and an wall street because it of all of these things and broadway of course running through their veins
and therefore when they look at religion they're looking at it in terms of arguments are not looking at it in terms of uplift and for this reason i think the church has made a terrible mistake to yours to try to put the church of the error on television that is to try make television conform to the church's patterns of war robin in some way of backing the church the television and as a result we the last fifteen years of television it's it's it's it's almost like i call it that the state in the eighties and i'm the wrong move or foul say television is like a road mover it's a massive instrument you want to use planes say and this is just this is just not appropriate for example we want the things on the air that will appeal to a few hundred thousand people and they must retain of audience of twenty five million people on tv primetime show in order to exist in order to survive so i don't think it's a caricature to demand that the uk television people go out of business on behalf of the
church now and i'm terribly concerned by the way television uses and misuses religion for my money it's far more it it's far more definitive that let that means if i can back give away all that silence it's far more significant what happens on the fly ahmad squad when they're using a picture of a monster but put the image the betrayal minister this is far more significant for religion and what happens all during sunday morning on every network sunday morning show because that's the ghetto that two million people one percent of our audience and sunday morning but when i'm driving that puts our priest and as they always do he's sexless he is pious that he's always right he's always good
looking and therefore the image is always wrong and you can say that i mean that when the pious of relief because of the work of you that i'm familiar with a lot of years apart the usual hang up is to concede your point that if we don't go television group we're not going to get the audience my question is how what we know them and not really get across what we want other words how much how much of what we believe is of the essence of the play family trouble simply you know for the return of a decent audience on their terms of business what you find all this is this is the this is the question of where and all the time and i try to think about the facts that jesus was capable of communicating the masses and he was also capable of communicating with the
intelligentsia but that his audience was the so called tom hearts that is just ordinary common for it people at people no account like shepherd's and carpenters and folks like that and in order to communicate with these people his mass audience in those days than five thousand pregnant mass audience especially for a man you didn't have the lungs of a revival as i don't really think jesus was a revival is really to be about five thousand that's pretty good and he told parts oh it's often forgotten that jesus is what drew artists of our time because not one man in history has ever conceived more than four or five good parables and jesus came out of fifty five are now a parable oh is very seldom longer than one minute it makes him one salient point and it demands a response now that's what we tried to do when we changed over from the church of the air what we call public service spots we tried to say in one minute of commercial
time precisely what we thought the nature of god was a teenager the church was in the nature of the racial crisis is and we try to get a response from the audience now this is very difficult to do a latte in both the producers and writers and religious television today can't think in terms of longer than one minute now you're so conditioned to say wait as a madison avenue they don't i think in ten seconds got your truck so i'm sorry what what about the tension that we feel that when madison avenue approach to communication that which i think however you slice of manipulation of non exploitation and the communication of faith by the church which ought to disavow i would find any trace of manipulation when you talk to
yes quite quite often on the other hand has a tremendous appeal would say that you know no one really escalated to use his expertise to the church uses great hunger to serve well not quite like that last minute idea with an advertising our harbor businessman up but they are they do have a syria to talk about things that count and i take this attitude that the church taught them how a huckster because it was the revivalist who is the spiritual godfather of the madison avenue next year the revivalist is the one who learned early in the game how to use every every year i mean every walk in his audience that the revival was as the only creature in history who his audience centered around the massive center rick perry says all he wants you to do is to respond to what he does that is to use these were the first people to discover perceptual communication which is just always an
emotional of artistic vision he communicate experience and feeling and islam online leaves the rest of god that's probably don't leave the rest to god i've never seen a revival as yet who is content to let online and so you know and a very fact the revival as well in junior consent they insist that this is the basis of medicine and it seems to me the engineering of consent there's a great many just her one little revive the story and get out my the evangelical i ask what was my favorite invention as it was such a terrible man and so many ways was sam jones other thing was georgian revival hymns and sam jones was famous for his fifteen thousand audience tabernacle to always have the tabernacle built when he came to town and then he would make a deal with the local merchant to turn it into a n korea more into a stadium or something like that the lab so he did very well financially and not affect the
grand ole opry building was one of the tabernacle is that sam jones building still stands today on one occasion i was in charlotte north carolina sen jones was talking to an audience and you get whatever revive his desk in a normal period you know to you know i'm in the right mood and so what he was talking about his relatives love to talk about himself about his relatives at journalists packed audience of fifteen thousand to gratefully and rick turtleneck an important like voice which you played for diabetes and to solicit beautiful to watch in action to here i am in the midst of this he turned to just address some people die the front you know almost like an hair that they didn't jump down in the cars people but it cost them with his looks and he says you know he says my mother was a sleeping woman she walked in the way of the lord all away he's a you know my father was a spiritual guy and you know one of the ten commandments be said are my grandmother my grandmother was a wiccan woman she lived and sand she rejoiced insanity dollars an
activity is down in the day at that point some fellow down front have enough already enormous action so he got up and started down a long island this is one thing that no requirements in for mitt romney so about halfway down say and raised up as barriers and just the moment there sir he says if you stay in this building the handler and may come a time when he says if you don't he says you're going right straight to hell right down to the fire and ranching amanda nunez a beat went right back to the door and turned around sam jones says that any message you want to deliver your grandma right this is what we've got to catch up on commercials as joe madison avenue you have any messages you want to deliver and help because these leaves are hell like commercials like the religious effect upon our children is fighting going to manipulate us what's going to be that they're learning to manipulate us like like
advertising people do and that we will stand up against this barbecue tillerson away what we shouldn't do it for transport you know a sunday morning service of song i know you have been responsible for a few creative breakthroughs maybe you'd like to share with our people here deny the regulator or what your idea would be of imaginative communication really the radio television and both the short one minute but i'd supposedly won yes i mentioned the one minute spots are six years ago when charles regular department flew out to california at this was the beginning the religious love affair with the one minutes thirty second spot brian wilson playing out to come down in los angeles and he wandered over to hollywood where he was put in touch with stan freberg ms bhalla have to be apprised of methodist minister a
baptist minister at the bit to get this straight anne freberg volunteered to write the first spot of the presbyterian church and the idea was he would simply communicate something about the nature of god and i want to find out the so called commercial medium could be used for this kind of communication while not be familiar with this but it was a tremendous success in the broadcasting industry because instead of having to for the police insufferable announcements on here or if instead of being accosted by people were putting on their great shows and first great time they were given a commercial slot with a religious message and the broadcasters just absolutely rejoiced and three byrd became the toast of the industry and received all these awards what great was the wrath of the church people and we were bombarding inundated when criticism such things as
you're selling godlike so and how can possibly use a commercial medium such as this and really there isn't any great answer to that except to say that the guard is probably not heck his fastidious as some of his servants are and he's willing to make use of some of these commercial media for it for his own purposes so since that time i must say that we continue to produce box but that some of the greatest box today a tribute but this week at and mostly fine franciscans the st francis our and so forth and you have as a result of your public service bots their magnificent evenly at the american answer sponsor an outgrowth of the silly party type which you finally aired today now think that this will continue until we get a whole new breakthrough that that's one thing the spot and it's cheap and it is it's difficult is that you can't test that of course been camped out really you can't you cannot reserve what you've accomplished on the other side we've done a lot of churches have done
we try to piggyback we go down to the networks and we talk with network produces about their documentaries and we would tell about the delta ministry or we tell him about the head start program that might've happened through one of the christian colleges in the south we have a new unit in which got a canadian news service in which we try to supply other networks and news services with intelligent well articulated news coverage of what's going on the world of religion and then we keep trying but we never have succeeded a charter on international office for a radio television the catholic doctor's as is flying nun well we've never figured out a way to put in by deacons in orbit or are our most of the moon or anything like that and were still trying to get the networks to be intelligent and there their use of the church and its ministry would like to see a great show elaine one who also has a religious
interest in his life and i can tell you that at least for pilots are very close to this kind of fulfillment the mall that therefore shows on on three different networks that would betray the ministers he really has been the church's as it should be first we are a united church of christ with whichever side affiliated to use some refinement in recent months by contesting the renewal of licenses and south korea stations i believe not the prettiest their televisions well or not giving of life there are kind of witness in on the central part of it i think it has stimulated interest in him the united church at
that point i know that you're tired and someone with if you're so when the lawyer was following up on litigation that the vote comes just ridiculous line yes a doctor every parker is the man who's off want to reveal a lot about the church against the industry an everett has been very active and in pursuing these cases through court was of what what happened take the case of a lot of the bus station in hattiesburg mississippi their programming was so discriminatory but they never recorded any news of what was going on the black section of town and they were even very slack in the reporting of news anyway we just one great soap opera and one great rerun of movie after another so every parker when i am with a group of young lawyers and young militants and so forth and when the federal communications commission re examine the license of this mississippi station mr parker and company contends that license and said
no in this three year period this station should not receive a new license because it does not serve the public interest necessity in vain souls the words are used by tsa seine and in the charter communications well the fcc commissioner on the scene would not even listen to power and through an hour so parker went to court and it's interesting that he won his case in washington and the man who wrote that case became the chief justice the supreme court but to back up a step what dr parker one was the right of any citizen's group to appear in a licensing hearing and contest that license on the basis of whether or not that station was really serving the interest of the community you can see how this opens up the whole business of public airways we have an office in washington with young lady bunny janie goodman well obviously see in other places and she tried to follow up on on
these cases she goes around the camp country are following up on some the things that everything's done and then she goes back to washington to try to get the government to take action for action because one thing i was interested in that we try to do a while and goes to get some songs with christian content on the various boxes of attempted i memorized that michael mann that you brought to one of our donors who right right and i was rather excited about this because i think most young people are moving from listening to an overtly religious song but it might slip a diamond would you walk somewhere near something that but have the message coming intones that they would appreciate how can you coming whether we run it where a person's of voting up or worms expire well we we yeah we went blundering into the record business
where even broadway angels are fearful that tray ad and we got a black high for what happened we commissioned two records rock records and that they really were pretty good but they just didn't say i'd sell and while they're commissioning these records and producing and so forth i'd been publicizing a simon and garfunkel a lot of people were writing some magnificent theology and into their records so we we yeah we were happy that that the artist is willy nilly creating a religious excitement and records were young people what we did feel that the church should not be capable of getting into the act and that we could perhaps reduce our own group and commission a few more orders to address himself to the subject i still think is a great deal into that i've learned a lot about how you can lose money in the record market if we lose very much but we we will have a budget and therefore this was a catastrophe for for us but we do have about five thousand the best ole
rock records if you've ever seen the plan to auction off a fifty cent piece martin thought recently about the future the cassettes might have in the light of the congregation's i like this where people who were going away for long weekend some wonderful productive ones would be able to slide a cassette into enormous shame is there anybody working this out from the church's point of view of an anomaly yes and we try to get together on this well you know everybody is forced into his own guitar a preacher's end up not praying doctors and slicing each other in an ant communicators and that not communicate well the problems and him and the protestant churches or catholic jewish so forth is that the community don't communicate with each other and as a result we have church is going in these vast buying problems getting the
hardware communication cassettes and videotape and all the rest but there's no interchange ability between these and this is where the problem is so are getting together around in some kind of a giant conference an arm and youre welcome to them one thing he's a genius of electronics is trying to devise along with methodist draft vote it's their communication janet this or other churches a standardization program so that we can recommend what we know what super eight film projectors and cameras you people should be buying oh what kind of cassettes or what purposes whether one exchange and the sony or an axe or whether half inch is going to be the place where our most churches will do their best to teaching programs of the future were trying to come up with a communications center idea that will be cheap but be much cheaper than the number of hours are spent plus the billions of dollars that go into printing all these things that children never read an hour week we think that in another three to five years that the
every church will have a fully electronic a sunday school program and i could've predicted this even six months ago but is getting so cheap now so does a little cbs gets comeback come out of the back of a television set with albee and businesses forrest church whose concern was will no longer have to come up with expensive films were by cycling it'll also what we think that we would be in pretty good shape order to work well andy help me i never can remember the but the letters for ivy r e v e r thank you are electronic video recorders are right and cbs along with cbs just a first come out but in fact they're putting a gadget on the back of your television set that will permit you could turn on your set and get one hour of the program the suture fancy the alliance supermarkets
perhaps not only wouldn't be able to buy the film or a sports event or an entertainment show that way you'll also be able to buy information because the beauty of this particular committee as that dickens could be stopped one frame at a time and one hour you can put all the information and the encyclopaedia britannica or one of the evening our cartridges surrogacy that you can develop your own information center at home if your mind or on the other hand if you come up with great really really great teaching programs in your church you can simply send these out to the homes and we'll have once again returned the home to the center of christian education if i make him home here can borrow the pictures and what clicked month teachers are never going to have a few people switching they won't run out that this has the support of white right now marshall mcluhan sally
hasn't if you look at all of the surveys of television and they're fact own show when you find out that they say television still defies than that the child and what's more television read less and so forth well father john coltrane perform says that that's like analyzing scarlet fever by counting the number of spots you simply can't go at it that way the way to go and it is this why is it that on television but surely learning about life all at once but when they go to school they get a little desks they are riveted to the floor and right away they got the wrong attitude about why life is is change like this is set alight as an artistic life is not creating why does not demand dynamic or a marshall mcluhan would say that the teachers the scholastic to the ministers at the teams that had the world on the flow of water years we're saying that life is linear what's not
and television is the one thing that's gonna smash this whole conspiracy against the minds of our job now the same time we don't know what happened you conspiracies that have come up the crowd as they got their own movie do my values as well but thank god the television has brought back the senses mommy paper toward the end of what you would do if you had a radio station in new york city but seven fm stations you have a license and you have the financial underwriting a new aspiring they know and this is not the judge and the operation that you know of the many foreign country if you find a noble and re concern for a city that needed the love of god had this might never sent possibility how would you structure what would be like the taliban fire
i i that that's such a loaded question and i'm gonna try to carefully consider my remarks especially like the fact that some of those might even go out of the public airwaves obviously if one were starting institutional radio station that he would have to consider all the variables of communication and this is this is a job for experts this is this is not a job one expert even its it's a job for a garden variety of experts for example the mormons have an fm station in this town but mormons of the greatest businessmen and religion and the mormons are losing money on their fm station but that the warranty nbc has been in the broadcast and feel for a long time and yet deadly nbc faa home except not one land of advertising they're subsidizing that stage they may have different aims different purposes and last year mormons are going one way they're willing to lose
money for what they actually so is nbc what if i were in the business i would be in the business any as it would have to be self sustaining or i wouldn't i would i know i think we're living in tattered they were we can't afford to just give away money unless we're exercising a ministry so unique but if we were not to do it no one else would the bill where someone else when no one else would now the first thing i think i would do is simply get out the fcc standards and there they have about twelve categories by which you study your community his study racial characteristics a religious characteristics the matter thing in their call agriculture many people exercise and plows around here that maybe or consider that your audience but you do you go from half a filmmaker along to ascertain the community means that is find out what kind of people be what kinds of information and then i think i would bring that back tomorrow overall goal
as a christian community cup put the two together can we say something that will help people in their daily lives their information radio information what the same time getting at some kind of christian coalition some kind of christian perspective it's about ethical some some kind of ethical twist and fire were able to figure out a way to marry those two what it is to be a christian church what it is to be a communicator of necessary information but i think i'll have a clue on what to do with a local fm station about one in particular station you you would shy away by iran's from what might be called me the outcry over religious christian tradition but we never try to get decisions or are evangelize anybody on the radio like that's a misuse of radio it is contrary to the way i feel
theologically and i'm not blaming anybody else for doing that would it makes me sick and so there are personally i just wouldn't do it but on the other hand i think that there was things that you can do it for example teaching i think that you could for what a service hear certain times that they presented sunday morning in opera get much of an audience the people she won't reach the centers were all hung over and the city's roman church but the problem in the sciences and they're going to go church so i think i would be in the business of packaging master teaching programs for the air and for tapes i would do that the host at a fire station and tried to i'm trying to make a difference with what we call standard bramlage i don't think i'd go to the left over time become a revolutionary up unless i wanted a less the church were revolutionary another got the right to come in a revival was less than three the temperature of your church and be what i am what we call the left or
the right way the gospel left leg is social action and the right way is a christian prayer communion at oneness with god call it what you will and those two things have to be married in any city in any program it would be a mistake not unless the audience were interested in now i think that there is in the harlem community you may find for example the tremendous audience for spiritual is so we're just out there were less a conventional religion i'm thinking well what if you discover that you can work back from i think what you find out is that you could perform a tremendous service at the point of referrals you know for for such lines as jobs where you call when you see what you do i think you can have a certain musical program that would not be classical music and when the classical jazz
not for this audience very i don't think i am you have exactly the truth i don't listen you're station model for what what's all the government in princeton new jersey where we have our own problems but theological alive no no no i think erdogan is now to some questions from these good folks north from this year is a little shorter than we normally my one of the programs in the series because we have to act to follow i think the official meeting of the congregation and every file report on a trip to the delta ministry leslie manager got any overt presence
here to raise the question if you have a family like to how you have him about the question is how we evaluate the effectiveness of the spots that we produced for radio and television and the one i answer is we dont week we ran research and three cities on free bird spots this causes ten thousand dollars and wheat we learned some interesting things week we learned that what we thought when we we thought we were aiming at us and we were getting everyone proportionately our we had about eighty five percent acceptance figure we we got ten thousand dollars worth of information every advertising man loving the reports and the laws and so forth which an auditory the truth we don't learn anything that we don't already know and what we could not test was the degree of the experience the
quality of the experience now i'm not offering advertising and tell me they say what your work is only one way that we measured down on the street not bob decimal points we count we tell who wins and who loses by the lockout yeah so you interviewed tell us to what is possible here there's no correlation between that and people come in the church are increasing their giving them you're not really in the communications business because to rule communicator communication is changing people either to your point of view or to a point of view that you're institutions in favor of its changing their behavior it's changing their actions is changing their beliefs if you're not doing that then you're not an indication business will i say okay but god wasn't in that business even he said let there be light and it wasn't even any audience we see god was a very a great communicator are and i think there are there good many distinctions between the words i think god was in the business not so much
i'm advocating changes and belief is he was in enriching and narration isn't the local business and i don't think you test the results of the love business really stand down under way outside of a one to one relationship i wonder how many of us have seen or heard any of the stan freberg swaths of that there were just talking about here is a man ok well you say it if they roll television viewers it wouldn't be heard nightly beholder and i work i'm an example it's you know it's six years old and my mind i can get in a sample of the allure of free bird television spots that went something like this a hippie very nice looking at
was sitting in a chair being interviewed off camera by stan freberg it's all you heard was stan freberg voice the hit me was in political limbo say that was just in the in the chair with psychedelic colors going on behind you know like this going around in the lights on lights off so forth and a free bird says to him now that you're what is is on a psychedelic poster expert and three versus you mean you paint posters is a long romance as iranian money you know like it i don't know and rivers or a lockout really does potable where the gases melissa jefferson airplane such and such and such and has made such and such a group and so forth and that kind of reverses she gets very impressive are not everybody can do that sounds of course you didn't like for that religious is no man ny ny and up then freberg hands in another poster he says he read this one before so so she you know
i mean this is like very heavy it's profound anonymous or culprits accept or like this and then you he says you start reading it says i've got so low the world that he gave his look at that he looks at it again and then he says you know he says the man had said that an easily without having those words that this is about what's going on in our generation woodward every person to believe in command said that i lived over two thousand two thousand years ago the gases she enough to really been ahead of his time well john three sixty which brings it in the psychedelic path and we felt like we we got a little bit of the gospel not much with that john kerry sixty you just let it sail powered going to mean short and it was a multi of the hippie movement of two three years ago when a virus so interested and also we think would be a nice thing for long hair because he
was so attractive we think we may save a few easy riders has been questioned i learned you who would like to express what you miss but say in the religious dimension as you listeners you watch here's your chance to find someone who will if iran wind through the character no worries for us we feel that the religious types that you see and in summer programs offend too because they are so why i'm going through their criticism is
yeah with that why do i hate to get into to your business with your radio station since i'm not familiar with it up my point that no network should be in the business of broadcasting church services and furthermore oh i don't go for the syndicated preacher shows that were so big they were great in the great early days of radio and so forth and people were summoned tasters by malin soccer and upbeat this was messed this was a mass audience but the data for the fragmentation of radio by hand you simply don't get this company to get the audience that you already know about if you already have and treasure i don't know what it is i want to hear early campbell an aunt and worship with you and so forth and that's fine
but if it doesn't i get rid of it like that i would do it for sentimental reasons are not here now speaking in such ignorance of your a particular situation ms bhutto right now you're
certified check tots i'm very hard nosed about this is a common a mass medium and i'm simply not in the business of saying those few hundred people if you had a good a visitation for when you could see yourself and bring your asset around to that to me would be cheaper it's a kind of thing that your church to do if you're using a great public broadcasting are licensed to you by the federal government you john welter of music from estonia us and some intelligence i now realized this is rama hard nosed in an unvarying huckster like ante when it simply has something to do with stuart shear it means are you are you not using this particular medium as it should be used for the best possible effect the thing if you're not that don't give me any sob story about shut ins and so forth because i think this is the relevant now if you can reach the show audience in some other method fire if not then i'm certain that that that got in his kingdom says that i'm
sure it certainly counts it differently than we do we learn that i'm alive unfortunately i don't have the numbers yes bibi now as a matter of fact if you consider your audience for this thing is probably less an invasion in that because if you try to reach a mass audience or not to be turning into a church service so the mere fact of a broadcasting that is going to drive away and onions but let's just say that if you're in the business of appealing to microscopic organisms when you keep all of your church services and if you're doing this it may be the threat that the two are ministering in a strange way i know i will not be opposed to this the only thing i would say is that by appealing to the few people who are going to listen to this church service on sunday morning
you are by that parasite open affecting your audience is in the afternoon and evening because all of these things have adjacent seas about now if you're going to become a church religious station then i think you should broadcast religious programs over the democrats and then you would have a regular audience that that might be surprisingly large but if you do a church service in the morning engineers in the afternoon and classical music and not an interview problems at one am the hottest the book that you're gonna build up in a at a constituency here's bishop yes i said that if if you want the widest possible audience from a harvard community you
would not play classical jazz or classical music you are going to hear that you think that this is the most populous nations are not being heard in harlem are not the top forty stations you know about you know what the popular you know what that the people listening to an american in europe a popular shows are us yeah there is
well in general i help people and say that in the new york community that's the biggest lessons to our regular certain time in between the ages eleven and fourteen and i can tell you they're not listening to classical music and not listening to progressive jet that listening to rock you well it they're probably a whopping one hundred and get their classical music by listening in the us are thats another band alex you are so right hand for those people are you know that that five percent who loved classical music that's just great if you're aiming at that the other say forty five to fifty percent he would constitute a mass audience at the music level there's only one thing good enough to go the most popular music courses of course is that your ad won last on it's like this is the critical part of your measuring
quantitatively all the time now so some might argue that he reached twenty five people of london and they in turn or movers and shakers and influencers of others are more strategic from the gospel point of view than that than to play the top forty or weak and get ad out of atlanta sharon wright a hundred people a letter don't use the radios time for this mama tupac your year but if you're going to spend a hundred or two hundred or three hundred thousand dollars a year and you're reaching if you are people that you can reach into my mind you just don't agree i don't think your number so much as it is the intensity of the penetration for crimes that have that it you know my best friend elijah this is very important because it really it really it really comes back to what you think the radio medium of the
television means all about and i sit with us and we can't understand why you'd want to distort this mean into a minority tie communication with their second largest monarchy way to communicate mean you can can communicate with five thousand people first because certainly you could organize five thousand people into and torture job of sorts you can communicate with twenty five thousand people via letter but if you want a complicated with a million people in them now this is not the ritz this is not to say that death communication is bad it's the greatest complication the world i have our relationship you know is the basic relationship that were all after but the radio i'm told that this is in the business of the one to one every radio station on this as far as con special summit on activities with rock n roll so they're going after minority view of saws going after the
classical and then the next rocket below the author of falter cbs says nouvel gaffe when people want to hear news over cbs are a majority of the city dr coddington like to know where to get it when they want it like there is a tremendous hunger for what i would call mainline religious programming i'm going away from the right wing where the professionals are trying out of money i think the service station here is proven that there isn't even a city like this i think every station a sense to want a look at in terms of fairness of stewardship is spawning a majority to concentrate on one arctic i see no reason why church own station and do the same thing while back of an assistant attorneys say the stations are having to broadcast to minority audiences because that's all that's left over at television has completely taken over your your message groups like daniel
are deb you are has about what you were twenty seven of thirty five percent they every other station in town would love to have that slice of audience but nobody can do that particular kind of programming as well as debate was all swear john gambling has in one day do you want some denial anger in my ear from one year and they are nervous to run the church and the truth of it the last great burger with no us her beauty nowhere plains form a norman vincent peale is where i went at here from the square foot fence with a new eleven nylon netting and no recession but i stayed two more because surgeon walmart's getting a lift today was nearly eleven o'clock rock n roll were of the bill say hey yeah no it's okay go ahead
answer women saw it i hope you're courageous enough yes we are yeah i think it gives them obviously whereas i'll well what i what i try to do you recommend three programs that might be for puerto rico well of course i think that your best bet what what what most people forget about television is that it is not necessary to look at that the regular six hours per week so that
six hours a night so that you can select and can turn sign off our and the only way to do that is to pre selected so you get a tv guide our data q magazine a huge new york times you go down the listings and you start out with a special burden would start out of the sports but that's ok you got it the pursuit is an ocean in a so in the last week he would probably picked up a hallmark of business for the generation gap and the time of judea and this would've been an unusual treatment that particular subject you have also perhaps for the just the lamps turn on to see how much to present the white stripes are on the other hand i think that you you for just pleasure and up an understanding of what's going on in schools today to a certain extent you might try to do to because at least and relationships where are our for something to behold and it gives certain teachers a little bit of we have to realize that with things like
that i would put up at the top of my list that the new shows i would hate to miss cronkite and brinkley now now about that now and hopefully this is going that might do different i would turn over to channel thirteen in here again i guess i will contradict own argument and go from the minority languages most of us have an architect's and it just so happens the channel thirteen is turning out against minority programming of any station and the odds may be boston maybe no pittsburgh would argue with you over that the journey of something and tested fire even their son are proper sites outside his bag actually does is it is it is a magnificent soap opera so it's syria when it really gets together while solo i think i would go back and forth from some of the pot boilers it would fall into something really going on thirty mitchell crosses online
selling his news conference is where the prices are less is a ballgame on yes this bill to pass but as billy collins because there's been this boy
has been off balance the poster right well you know
i have i certainly agree with you on that the fact that it's up to the church and stew to maintain the integrity of the message because nobody else will i suppose at the same time and i'd like to continue to press the point of view of a communicator because i know it's so troublesome to you an annoying to you but you've got to think about it it's sure it's easily rejected because it sounds so press but what what the community leaders are trying to do is a little more sophisticated i think then there's that is often that there was that there was often understood for example there's nothing particularly are enduring about the pure elitist point of view either and this is why i for one i'm very happy with marshall mcluhan because he has indicted the sheer intellectuality of the protestant faith and the whole scholastic tradition alive now he's
done it in such an outrageous fashion that that you know he undoubtedly overplays this kind of the medium is the message and so forth and after all this is what the artist has been telling us for generations and susan sontag will tell you our message is nothing for most everything why because the form if it really as artistic form incarnate the message that sends the message gets through without being labeled hey there is a great idea from the elite us poor slobs out here that's an elitist point of view but i think the madison avenue man i'll have avoided because he's interested in selling wares with its a point of view which i think the church has already next two eggs are impoverishment by driving the hardest way who's not be interested in your ideas your audience are manipulated and inside out he's interested in free form his interest in abortion he's interested it an incarnation and this is why i would
say that as long as the message is fused with media in such a way as to cause excitement that you won pretty good theological and communications grounds opt for example are the word is message became flesh it's a medium a man and dwelt among us the truth that's exciting greats so that are if you forget at one of these ingredients you have a pretty bad communication that though the greatness of communication today is that for the first time we're saying how distorted bizarre emphasis upon message below and of course the abstract artist has been trying to tell us is the twenty years that event of the ridiculous extent to which you might go oh he's at least telling us that the message is not precisely what he's interested in is interested in new forms but they of course always have an ornate messages subtle on robin a fire for the city
patients
Series
A Conversation With...
Episode
Dr. Richard R. Gilbert, 1970-03-20
Producing Organization
WRVR (Radio station: New York, N.Y.)
Contributing Organization
The Riverside Church (New York, New York)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-528-4746q1tk61
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip-528-4746q1tk61).
Description
Episode Description
A conversation about mass communication with Dr. Robert R. Gilbert.
Description
Recorded at WRVR.
Broadcast Date
1970-03-20
Created Date
1970-03-13
Asset type
Program
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
Mass media; Communication
Media type
Sound
Duration
01:07:27.696
Embed Code
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Credits
Guest: Dr. Gilbert, Robert R.
Producing Organization: WRVR (Radio station: New York, N.Y.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
The Riverside Church
Identifier: cpb-aacip-e06a26b042a (Filename)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:00:00
The Riverside Church
Identifier: cpb-aacip-b2e5323cb5f (unknown)
Format: audio/mpeg
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 01:07:27.696
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “A Conversation With...; Dr. Richard R. Gilbert, 1970-03-20,” 1970-03-20, The Riverside Church , American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 11, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-528-4746q1tk61.
MLA: “A Conversation With...; Dr. Richard R. Gilbert, 1970-03-20.” 1970-03-20. The Riverside Church , American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 11, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-528-4746q1tk61>.
APA: A Conversation With...; Dr. Richard R. Gilbert, 1970-03-20. Boston, MA: The Riverside Church , American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-528-4746q1tk61