Pastore Hearings: Television and Violence

Music The program previously scheduled for this time will not be shown, so we may bring you the following special program. The following program is from NET, the Public Television Network.

In the special network broadcast, NET presents television and violence, the highlights of today's Senate Communication Subcommittee hearings. In our Washington studio, Paul Niven. Just a year ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis. Within hours, riots broke out in a number of American cities, including this capital. Two months later, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Then the Democratic Convention in Chicago was the occasion for massive demonstrations and

police retaliation. Two months ago, Americans scuffled and shouted obscenities as a new president rode to his inauguration. Throughout the year, there have been disturbances of other kinds, among students, ghetto residents, and critics of the war in Vietnam. The sheer volume of variety and variety of violence in this land has inevitably given rise to a search for its causes. Some observers have pointed an accusing finger at television. In particular, they have asked whether the daily dosage of violence and entertainment programs beginning to have an effect on the first generation to be exposed to the new and powerful medium from childhood. That question has never been answered. Among those looking for the answer is Rhode Island's Democratic Senator John Pastore, whose Commerce Communications Subcommittee is concerned with broadcasting. Today, the Subcommittee summoned to a hearing the heads of the commercial networks and of the industry's trade association, the National Association of Broadcasters.

Sorry, reiterated his long-standing concern with television violence, cited the divergence of views among psychologists and sociologists, and said that the evidence was not yet definitive. For all of these reasons, on March 5, I officially requested the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare to direct the Surgeon General to assemble under his supervision a committee comprised of distinguished men and women, from whatever professions and disciplines he deems appropriate, to devise techniques and to conduct a study, using those techniques which will establish scientifically in so far as is possible, what harmful effects, if any, these programs have on children. I hope the report and its conclusions will be available as expeditiously as possible. And it is, we can all sit down together and determine what action if any is necessary to protect the American viewing public.

I'm going to ask the Surgeon General to address himself with respect to the letter that I sent to the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, number one, as to what he thinks of the idea, number two, what he plans to do about it. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a short statement which I will read. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, there's little doubt that television and televised violence have an impact on the viewing public, adults as well as children. Still, an answered question is what kind of impact and how does it influence behavior? More specifically, how does TV violence and crime affect the mental health and the emotion on social development of the nation's children? This is no small area of inquiry. By age 16, the average American child is spent more hours in front of a television set than in the classroom.

We have developed tools to help assess the effects of his classroom hours. We need to develop comparable indicators for his television hours. The task will not be easy. It cannot be accomplished by narrowly focused studies since the violence of child sees on television is randomly interwoven into the total skin of television fare. And just as violence cannot be stripped out and studied alone, the youthful audience cannot be isolated from the world and setting from which it watches television. We need to consider both the child's attitude about television and the role television plays in family life. And we need to relate its impact with various stages in child development. A child of four will have a different perception of a program than a 12-year-old. Both will react differently from the adult viewer. We also need to know how parents influence a child's TV viewing.

We cannot hide from the growing body of reports and studies on the effects of television violence on children. Investigators have shown under certain conditions children become more aggressive after viewing acts of television aggression. Other research suggests that a steady diet of televised violence may act as a social sanction to violent behavior and may increase indifference to violence in real life situations. To examine this influence and to look at it just exactly how behavior is affected, I will appoint within the next few weeks an advisory panel of experts in the behavioral sciences, the mental health disciplines and communications to study the effects of television televised violence. Their task will be to review what is presently known and to design and to recommend the long range research studies will help answer the specific questions now under discussion. Television of course is a new medium for us.

We now have the visual as well as the audio impact and it's different but really the problem isn't so new, is it? And I wondered if there have been studies in the area about the stories on violence that have been told to children for years and years, that is the Wolfwood gobble somebody up for the wicked old witch and carry them off and little children here, these fairy stories. Now I've often wondered if there have been any studies made as to what effect this has on the young mind. I can't cite any off-hands and I'm sure there have been but I just don't know myself. I think one of the important things in my rather amateur understanding of communications is that telling a story is quite a different way of communicating than by television. That television is quite different than radio. The viewer or the participant is participating in quite a different way and we have never

really had any form of communication quite like television before. There was no agreement on how long the proposed study would take or how much it would cost. The minimum estimates were a year and a million dollars. There was agreement today that however serious the problem of television violence, it should be solved by the industry itself, nobody advocated government censorship. Each network president decided a list of steps he said he had already taken to curtail violence in his program schedule. The first of them was Dr. Frank Stanton of CBS. His policy is to let CBS's own affiliates be the primary judge of acceptability with the national association of broadcasters and its code serving as a kind of backstop. Pastore sharply disagreed. The NAB he said was the industry's own creation controlled by the industry. For the sake of uniformity and to avoid headaches he said all the networks should submit their programs to the NAB code authority in advance.

But here we're discussing the public interest. Now I've always taken the position that the government should not get into this business of censorship. That is my unequivocal position. Because I think that would open up a can of worms and I doubt very much that it would stand up under the First Amendment if it ever got to the Supreme Court. We don't have any right at all to censor, as a matter of fact it's written in the Communications Act. But we must admit at this point that the Communications Act does not apply to the networks. It applies only to the broadcasters. The networks are not under supervision of the FCC only in so far as their ownership of the five stations that they have in the major cities. Now the point is this. The end result is that ultimately this matter can only be resolved by self-regulation. Resolved by self-regulation.

Now how you ever going to resolve this by self-regulation if the industry itself refuses those whom it appoints on this code board to preview these programs. You have no preview at all. This left entirely up to the discretion of the management of the network itself to determine on its own. Of course they've taken the position that sometimes their standards are more stringent. As true as that may be, as true as that may be, you do not have an impartial showing which will promote the public interest. Now that's where you and I have differed for many, many years on this subject. My argument here is today unless someone comes around to the thinking that some baseball had to do it, the moving pictures had to do it. There seems to be, if you people will set up your own organization as you have already done with the code. There's nothing wrong with the code.

If you read the code it's a very excellent instrument. Only trouble is that the procedures that are at hand make the code unenforceable. And you know that was the position of Governor Collins when he was at the head of the NAB? He took that position. He says, how do you expect the broadcasters who have engaged themselves into this code to enforce the code if the networks refuse them to see the production before it goes on the air? Now it's just as simple as all that. Now you take the position that this is sort of a restrained censorship. Well call it by any name you want. It still smells like a rose. And it isn't going to do us any good until the industry makes up its mind that it's going to regulate itself in a very effective way. Now is that asking too much? Not at all. I would take exception to the fact that you said that we had no self-regulation because I think we have the tightest kind of self-regulation.

In that the licensee sees the program and he has to make the judgment. He knows the situation in his own community. He knows the feeling of the public or the audience he serves. He knows the code by which he lives. And it's his neck that has to be put on the line when he broadcasts something it isn't in the public interest. Well the other hand he's affiliated with the network and there's a limitation how far he could go possibly. Oh I would disagree. Well all right but he you should. Maybe I can use that word. Well all right but now you see it's becoming a habit. The facts still remain that if you say and you insist and you're right that you're self-regulating your industry then we're wasting our time here today. We're wasting our time. I mean if the industry has properly regulated itself why are we here? Why is the American public aroused? Why are we having this study that will cost a million dollars?

If you say that you're self-regulated and that your regulation is tight then we're just wasting our time aren't we? I think I'm only speaking for my own organization here. I'm not speaking for the industry. Well I'll get around to them. Sure. I understand that. But let me go one step further because I do want the record to be clear on this. We haven't submitted programs to the NAV code board for preview but they have monitored our programs and they have come back to us on three occasions and asked to see programs we've cooperated with them and if they had come back many times and asked to see programs and found some fault with the programs the chances are very true that we would have turned to them for help in this matter and perhaps changed our policy but the three programs that they asked to see they gave us a clean bill of health on them. Now that's three out of the entire schedule over a period of time. This isn't something that's just a week's performance. Well I realize that nice that I wasn't going to get into the specific programs.

You may be right about the three programs. I'm talking about the overall situation. I'm talking about the overall situation. Well you give me that monetary. A few weeks ago we took the time to monitor TV programs on the three major networks and the local independent stations and we found scarcely a show in which the most blatant cruelty and obscene sadism were not an integral part of plot and production. In the course of an eight hour exposure ABC CBS and NBC as well as half of a dozen local outlets were marked down 93 specific incidents involving sadistic brutality, murder, cold blooded killing, sexual cruelty and related sadism so much in the vogue of mass media nowadays in the course of this eight hour vista. We encountered seven different kinds of pistols and revolvers three varieties of rifle three distinct brands of shotgun half a dozen of sort of daggers and stilettos two types of

mockettes I don't know what that is one butchers cleaver a broad axe rapiers galore an ancient broadsword a posse of sabers an electric product a guillotine men and women and even children were shot by gunpowder burned at the state talked it over live coals trust and beaten in relays dropped in the molten sugar cut to ribbons in color repeatedly need in the groin beaten while being held defenseless by other hoodlums forcibly drowned whipped it with a lather belt and dealt with in many other ways before our very eyes and you tell me there's no violence my only criticism serve that listing is that I don't think you can treat with the subject of violence by counting individual incidents let me just reduce something as long as you've read me something all right and it involves a competitor so I can but it's a program that we've carried ourselves from the time to time in the past this is a review it came over the wires from UPI hollywood and it was a review by Rick

Dubrow watching NBC TV Sunday night rerun of the classic movie the Wizard of Oz one could see clearly that there is no simple solution to the problem television violence just about everyone agrees that the Wizard of Oz is one of the finest works for children ever turned out by the film medium yet a person who is arbitrary about the issue of violence could argue that the scenes of the bad witch and her scary henchmen are full of latent physical unpleasantness and certainly fear but the question overall is not really whether there should be violence on television for surely any one of sense must agree that a certain amount of violence is bound to show up in drama over a long period the question is simply one of taste and judgment limiting violence to the times when it is justified dramatically and presenting it artfully you see if you took some of those some of those

weapons that you described are listed I could make a case perhaps I don't know the schedule that was in the eight hours but I could make this this the argument that some of those might have shown up on an educational program in which weaponry was the subject that's how I think it's unwise to count individual I think you've got it you can't lift it out of context and I'm not here to say that there is no violence on television but I'm simply saying I think you can you can go overboard in the way you try to quantify it and I agree with what the surgeon general said about the context that you've got to examine this in he's got a tough job you gave him and I think if he's made a mistake in his estimate you gentlemen is that it's going to cost a lot more and it's going to take a lot longer time before he comes to something that you will accept as a as a conclusion well I'm delighted I'm delighted that you've turned to that expertise because he can marshal more forces than any individual broadcaster to marshal and we'll cooperate the commercial networks are cooperating already with another study group the national commission on the causes and prevention of violence

set up by President Johnson and headed by Dr. Milton Eisenhower in a progress report two months ago that commission said that while most persons will not kill after seeing a single violent television program it is possible that many persons learn some of their attitudes and values about violence from years of exposure to television and that they might be more likely to engage in violence as an indirect result of that learning today Michigan's Democratic Senator Philip Hart cited the report and quoted from it one thing that that report I think includes that is worth the mentioning given all the exposure we have this morning the suggestion always is made and everywhere he understands that television influences all of us young and older like their high percentages of the hours of each day and so

on the various age groups find themselves in front of television but the violence commission notes here that the media habits of teenagers show that they are even even heavier users of television than their parents moreover recent studies have indicated and this I think is the eye opener 40 percent of the poor black children and 30 percent of the poor white children compared to 15 percent of middle class white believe that what they see on television represents an accurate portrayal of what life in America is all about now if that is true the responsibility that these gentlemen have and we is just enormous if 40 percent of the poor black kids and 30 percent of the poor white kids think that what they see

on that tube is the way it ought to be or is you Dr. Stanton said and replied to send her person about died city or Bill Hickock that you didn't represent it as an accurate portrayal of the past but an awful lot of kids apparently regard what they see there is an accurate portrayal of what is and that that's why it is so important senator hard I think we have to be very careful and you said if this is true I think we have to be very careful in taking attitude studies as a substitute for behavior studies it's one thing for someone to say that they think something it's another thing to know whether they actually behave the way that they say they think I don't quarrel with the fact that that report could have been made and that you might have gotten figures like

that but I think that if you ask questions of educated adults you'll get some strange differences between what they say they think their attitudes are and what they actually do you know I made a study many years ago in which I I asked people what they what they wanted on television as against then I knew what they actually had done because we had a record of what programs were turned on and it's difficult many times to match up with what they say they'd like to see and what they do when those things they'd like to see are on the air and they don't turn to them now that's what I mean by the difference between an attitude study and a behavior study when we put documentaries and find music and things that we'd all agree are the better type of program on the air and they turn away from it even though they said that's what they want and go for a Western this is the this is the problem agreed

Thank you Chairman Dr. Stanton isn't a isn't one of the problems here something that it's hard to deal with but it seems to me one of the problems is the competitive situation between the networks and the and the broadcast broadcasters themselves and it seemed to me this was revealed in your reply to one of the questions over here that when you put on cultural matters they turned it off and went to a Western somewhere else and of course you're really saying that if a competitor had a Western on he would get the viewers now the reason I say this is a difficult thing to deal with is that I'm convinced and I'm sure everybody most everybody is convinced that this is contributed to degrees of excellence in the broadcasting industry to have a competitive situation and that's the way we proceed in

our country and we've always been very proud of that but perhaps in part that's the reason it's hard to eliminate things that you say people want to turn to in this competitive market that we have in broadcasting well Senator Moss I agree with you that we can't deny that the competitive forces operate they may operate to the extent of getting something into the schedule as far as a type of broadcast is concerned but in the final analysis I don't think anyone among us at this table tries to compete in the number of violent acts that we introduce into a program I'm sure that they'll tell you the same thing I told you gentlemen this morning and that is that we don't put violence in for its own say in other words we're not trying to compete and be bloodier than ABC and NBC and this goes

for news as well as entertainment but let me come back to one other question you said maybe it's the competitive forces here that have created some of this problem perhaps there is you know something to that but what happened in England when there wasn't any competition before the commercial broadcast began over there they had violence in their schedule when there was only one schedule on the air where there was no competition it's a part of our life that it's a part of the world in which we live it's a part of our literature it's a part of our history and I think that we would be if we sanitized our schedules to the point where there was absolutely no violence you'd have no drama you'd have no conflict in your storytelling at all now the real question here is a matter of taste and judgment how far you go and we'll make mistakes if we don't make mistakes then we're not we're not really creating or experimenting we you know we're going to make them but we hope

that we're wise enough having made it not to have that happen again. They're followed a discussion of television coverage of violent news events and whether such coverage helps solve the problems that caused the violence in the first place or instead caused more violence but most of the discussion centered on entertainment programs and how the industry itself could best regulate those programs Republican Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan returned to Senator Pastore's theme why didn't all in that work simply agreed to submit their programs to the code authority of their own trade association the national association of broadcasters I came in in the middle of a discussion that Dr. Stanton was having with the chairman concerning the fact that the code board did not preview programming and I got very emphatically that there was a difference of opinion but I didn't get I didn't understand Dr. Stanton what is the reason that the networks did not submit programs

for previewing to the code board why don't they well first I should make it clear on the record that some networks do we do not I see now I will try to answer why we do not it seems to to us and it has seemed and I suppose I should say it has seemed to me because the argument we had in 1962 was pretty well between Senator Pastore and the witness it has seemed to me that in a pluralistic society it was better to have a diversity of review than it was to have a single man or four men or five men if you will pass judgment on something in the final analysis the code board is the representative of the licensee or the broadcaster as Senator Pastore indicated so that there they are in a way delegating a very important responsibility to someone else centrally to look at it I have tried to

take the responsibility back to the licensee to the greatest extent possible so that instead of having four men or one man on the code board we have 204 affiliates who make the judgment as they watch the program on its preview that is the difference that is a different kind of regulation than Senator Pastore would have us participate in now we haven't denied the code board the privilege of looking over our shoulder and indeed as I indicated perhaps before you came in that they do monitor what we put on the air but not before it goes on the air after as it's on the air and on occasion they have asked us questions about things and if they had asked questions and they were found to be valid and that we were in the wrong I think maybe our attitude will be a little different about the code board today but so far we've been wise enough and lucky enough not to have fallen into a trap that would violate the code as the code board would have exercised it so they're looking

over our shoulder it's just that we don't go through that umbilical cord of saying we're going to submit it to the code board I get very nervous when a medium that has the power on the in the reach and the impact that television has I get very nervous when I see it passing through one or two or three men to make a judgment on it I want diversity I want the affiliates to be a participant in this business and they are participants and I would rather spread that responsibility and fix it at the local level rather than having it controlled centrally now you can say well you know you make the first judgment when you present it to them because you pre-selected when you selected a series or a particular episode true enough somebody has to start the ball rolling but they see the schedule four months in advance of the schedule going on the air they see the they see a finished full-length episode we call the pilot of everything that we're going to put on in the in the spring of the year for the next fall if there are questions we're responsive to it because it's our economic life at

state we're furnishing them a service and we don't come out well if they don't take the service from us so that we just got a difference in philosophy in the way we approach this thing Mr. I know you Dr. Stanton for the past year I've spent some time at least once a week scanning through the movie section I have a son who is five years old now here will be five in July looking for movies fit for him and I must tell you that they're not too many movies for nursery school type kids and I should commend the industry for spending time for children but in my study of the movie section I have noticed that a lot of these movies have symbols a a m y and you have the super duper x the x is for adult eyes only and no children would be permitted I have a television set at home I I hope to get a new one because this one

is a very old one we have no ultra high frequencies so I don't get the other stations which seem to show movies that have been given these adult type or x type ratings now why can't the television industry also rate their programs in this fashion and if the movie industry is trying to control at least attendance of these shows by prohibiting youngsters below the age of 16 from going in why does the industry show these movies well I find it difficult to answer for a practice that we don't indulge in and I'm not trying to be holier than thou but I really can't answer that question because we are not scheduling that type of movie on the network or on the stations which we own as to your question why don't

we have a classification system I frankly don't think it would work I think it works partially for the exhibitors of motion picture films I don't think it's wholly successful there but stepping back from that for the moment we are committed by our self-imposed obligation and responsibility and to a considerable extent by the act itself to serve the entire public so that I think as long as you have the number of stations you have today it would be difficult for me to see one of them going in the direction of a very specialized kind of program fair but whereas you can stop a youngster from going into an exhibition hall or a movie theater if it isn't classified properly I don't know how you're keeping from turning on the set and moreover I would submit that I think if you put the designation on that it was forbidden

you would have ratings like of which you know we don't get normally this is the nature of the viewer I fully understand that so I'm leading up to this question would you suggest that that type of shows be taken off there I have here only by only by public ad or this must be a very expensive ad it says La Dolce Vita adults only now if this were shown at two o'clock in the morning I can understand that because some young kid won't be able to stay up that late I hope not but it's at eight thirty prime time first time on Washington TV adults only now what I want to know is should this type of show be controlled I'm going to give you an unpopular answer I'd say no Dr. Stanton's testimony and answers to questions

continued to the end of the morning session there were several light hearted digressions including one about a shaving cream commercial featuring a lady who exhorts male viewers to take it all off chairman pastory was shocked by that commercial but senator heart confided that he rather enjoyed it senator heart his pastory pointed out is a younger man in the afternoon the heads of NBC and ABC appeared NBC president Julian Goodman outlined his networks efforts to curb violence in both adult and children's programming he was followed by Stanton health director of the television code of the NAB television network has also given special consideration to the young audience into children's programming by restructuring its Saturday morning schedule for next season our program people have drastically revised the Saturday morning schedule by adding newly developed programs we believe will provide more rewarding and informative experience for young children now what led to that well one

of the things that led to it was my own concern about the senator even before it was fashionable I am fortunate enough to be the father of a six year old boy and he serves as consultant on this and I was concerned about what we have on Saturday morning I asked that some changes be made and with the full cooperation of the executives of the television network these changes have been made in a series of progressive steps of which this is the third or fourth now I'm reading from the code title responsibility torch children the education of children involves giving them a sense of the world at large it is not enough that only those programs which are intended for viewing by children shall be suitable to the young and immature in addition those programs which might be reasonably expected to hold the attention of children and which are broadcast during times of the day when children may be normally expected to constitute a substantial part of the audience should be presented with due regard for their effect

on children now who decides whether or not that is the case you do don't you in them I have a responsibility in that area all right mr chairman yes such subjects as violence insects shall be presented without undue emphasis and only is required by plot development or character delineation crime should not be presented as attractive or as a solution to human problems and the inevitable retribution should be made clear I don't you determine that we endeavor very conscientiously to live up to the intent of that language now how you're going to do that unless you see it I can see it if there is a likelihood of a problem if I don't anticipate a likely problem I am able through our monitoring activity to determine that an action or a decision was made which has a question in it and I then immediately call upon the network to discuss that question with me to avoid repetition as Dr. Stanton said this morning we do conceivably make mistakes but we do believe we learn by those mistakes

we have a constant dialogue back and forth between the individual network and the code authority well I know where we're juggling words but your answer is not satisfactory to me all you're saying to me in essence is this that all we do is make sure that it doesn't happen again now that's what it amounts to that is part and all I want it I all I want is some kind of a system and I think that's what the public wants where it won't happen in the first place and I don't think that's asking too much you have a beautiful code here if you read this code I'm telling you it reads like the ten commandments it reads like the ten commandments no one can question it the only trouble is that in the enforcement of the code is when we run into trouble yes and there's been a reluctance on the part of the networks to make these programs available to the to the code authorities to make sure that in the first place nothing damaging is done to the youth of the country now I know that they are I know that they are responsible people and I know that they're good

law abiding people and God fearing people but the fact still remains that much of the public is disturbed about some of these things that have happened and even Mr. Goodman had to go so far as to change these children programs because he didn't think they were satisfactory and they should have been polished up and he did it on his own now I think that's the code responsibility and the coach had been in there in the first place and all you've done you've hood winked the public by writing a beautiful beautiful code of rules and at the same time you have a subterfuge in enforcing these rules and that's all it amounts to I think that these men are responsible enough to stand up and say from now on in from now on in in order to make the public feel more comfortable we will not allow the code authorities to preview these before they go on the air and I don't see any great harm being done to any network or any program by using that procedure. Senator if I may make a comment here this is a good code as we agreed this morning we

are members of this code we feel as our responsibility as broadcasters to live up to it and while we recognize there may be a difference of opinion about how well we have done it we think we have done it with all sincerity we can command and we believe it is more our responsibility to live up to this code that it is the responsibility of the National Association of Broadcasters or any arm of it we feel as we said as I said earlier in my statement that this is not a self-executing policy that it depends on the judgment of human beings to make it effective but we intend to make it as effective as we can but we intend to do it hopefully on our own. If Julian Goodman was a father as well as President of NBC several of his questionnaires were fathers as well as United States senators and they seemed less confident than the network men in the efficacy of current plans and proposals to curb television violence. The senators had no panaceas of their own to offer and we are not always in agreement

with one another but three of them in a row expressed deep concern. Democrat Vance Hartke of Indiana wondered if studies financed by the networks and carried out by network employees would be generally accepted as objective. Trying to condemn anyone we are not asking you to come on in and enter a guilty plea. What we are asking is for someone to come on in and try to figure out something before we have fifteen of twenty years of experience which maybe we can never undo. We are not proposing that. My children for example never knew the day when the television hardly turned off. I never knew when I was their age television. I mean so you are a whole new generation and I don't want to wait fifteen to twenty years to find out what is done to seven of my children. We are not proposing that at all. We will of course as I say in my statement we would be glad to have our people talk with those the surgeon general has will have in his study but I think that the facts that you want to bring out are those that the surgeon general aims for in his own study and will be glad to cooperate in any way we can.

I don't think that should however keep us from doing from bringing to ourselves what we believe would be a tool of managing what helps us do our job better. Well I hope that the surgeon general would do it. I was not much impressed with enthusiasm this morning I will tell you the moment which that study is going to be pursued and I think that right here in this let me say to you I quite agree with what you say. The public's concerns are our concerns we will always try diligently to instill in our operation qualities that are responsive to what the public expects of us. The violence of the past year has understandably brought Americans to wonder about the causes and the solution to the conflicts around us and to look at what role television might play in both. And these deals with conflicts and two separate dimensions in reporting the news and in providing entertainment. All I can tell you is that so much better said than what I have been thinking about. I agree with what you say but I want to get to it. That's what I'm saying. I think you're exactly on target on that first page.

That's where I'd like to stay but I don't want to be in a position in which we are going to be arguing that you are so much protecting this tremendous financial investment and this financial bonanza that you have to the extent that you cannot be critical of yourself. Self-criticism is a rare trait in humanity you know. It's one I've been able to exercise frequently. I don't think I have any questions but I have a little speech welling up in me. A couple of weeks ago I gave a speech out in Milwaukee and said that I didn't think the Congress would have to pass legislation to restrict advertising of cigarettes because I thought the broadcast industry would police itself and would recognize that the public

is very much concerned about this situation and that hopefully the Congress wouldn't have to take the action. But Senator Hartke I'm not too encouraged by the presentation here today. I agree that in the area of news program content and so far that nobody wants censorship or anything but when it comes to violence, sex and extent to which moral standards I don't think we want competition in those areas. We want standards and we would like to see the industry police itself. I'm not so sure that you can count on this Supreme Court to say that legislation passed by the Congress getting into these areas would necessarily be unconstitutional.

I don't know what they would say but I'm a little disappointed. I think that the industry ought to show us a little bit more interest in policing itself or you're just going to be driving Congress to pass some of the bills that we shouldn't be passing in my opinion. That's my speech. Senator, perhaps we've done a poor job of convincing you that we have made progress in this field. Well, look, I can't even, when laughing comes on, I don't know whether to let my kids watch it or not and that's true of a number of other programs and everybody I talk to says they're getting worse all the time. Senator? Senator? Senator Hot. Mr. Chairman, I've spent many hours on that violence commission plowing this ground and the more I plow, the more hesitant I am to say anything.

I'm very complex. I can't even agree with my colleague from Michigan that there aren't a lot of people who don't want censorship of news programs too unhappily. It's just an awful lot of people. Want reserves on Venus and all that stuff, you know, we're just, I don't know who fixes the, who's going to decide what is the acceptable level of violence? How do we learn as individuals that violence is acceptable? Is not acceptable? It's acceptable in many situations, unacceptable in others. I always thought I'd like to own a television station on a newspaper. Certainly I think it's even being in the Senate isn't as bad as either of those things. I'll tell you one thing, it makes more money the other way.

Mr. Cannon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's a good one. Do you think that the net works are doing a satisfactory job now facing the head on this problem? I think it's Dr. Stanton said this morning, and I agree with him, and I'm saying it's consolidated. My people, we can improve. We can improve in all areas. I think we have done a vastly improved job. And I think what we now have on the air is respectable, and I'm happy to defend it. Well, I've been quite asking my question, well, I'm glad to hear you say that you think you can improve, but do you think you've done a satisfactory job so far? Not quite satisfactory, does it? Chairman Pastore frequently interrupted the questioning with small homilies. He urged the network executives to work together voluntarily to improve their media. He paid tribute to the high achievements of television at its best.

It could send pictures of space shots around the world, he said, but it could also degrade as well as uplift. Two officials appeared for the American broadcasting company, President Leonard Goldenson of the Parent Corporation, and President Elton Rule of the ABC Television Network. Rule was asked about a specific programming decision, the decision to drop a program called Turn On After One Showing. Beautiful. If we could get an explanation of why in your judgment, Turn On should have been turned off. I didn't see it. What was the basis for the judgment? Well I believe that a one word description has been already mentioned today in imitation. One of the most successful programs on television to be initiated in the last several years has also been mentioned several times.

The producers of that program came to us with the concept of a program which was not imitative in our minds, nor theirs, but was an extension of what they had developed in this one idea. We, I think, missed and they missed for one reason, and we have done a great deal of soul searching, as you might well understand since that moment in time. There was no catalyst, there was no person to hold it all together. It was a computer, was the main stay around which the entire theme of the program, which was very fast paced, almost so fast as to be subliminal. We felt quite frankly that in the beginning, when we had seen the concept studies, before

we had seen any film on it, that this program had quite a chance. It had the chance of being an extreme success or an extreme bomb. The latter proved to be what happened. Well, I still don't understand in the setting of this hearing, was it a commercial bomb, or was it offensive to what you judged to be? It obviously was offensive, sir, to a number of people. It did pass the scrutiny of our standards and practices. It did nothing more than is on the air every weekend and week out at this moment. There was not material in that particular program that is not seen on television every week, possibly with comment, but is seen and successfully.

When it had been seen, it was first screen, I believe, for the – we didn't receive it until the Friday before the Wednesdays telecast. We had not seen it. It was live tape and the tape had to be flown in from Hollywood. We had no way of seeing it. It was not a film show. And when we first viewed it, it was put on the line for the stations to preview some of them, decided that they – a very few of them decided they would not carry it. In our opinion, we felt that we should let the rest of our affiliates and their viewers exercise their own option. We did that. At the conclusion of the first telecast, it was quite clear to me. Mr. Goldinson was out of the country, and it was in concert with my own immediate associates

that the decision was made immediately to cancel it. Because we felt that the form had failed, not the content that the form had failed. Well, I sense that it's been your judgment not possible by words to explain why in your judgment you had been wrong. Yes, I would be happy to. Well, I mean, you said we dropped it, I was wrong, and I'm saying, well, what was there in that show that in your judgment required that you not carry it thereafter? I think that it was the interpretation of the individual – interpretation of propriety, the things that had been mentioned today – taste. I think that when I… Well, would you say this, it was a little bit on the risqué side.

I believe so, sir. All right. That's the answer. That's the answer. And I mean, they used good judgment and taking it off. I mean, I compliment them for doing it. There again, it proves up that the other show he's talking about is laugh-in. This was in competition with laugh-in, and in order to go on better, naturally because they had to make it a little more risqué. That's what I've been talking about here all day. And it's the competitiveness in the business, and I can see it from this standpoint of stock holders and revenue, but on the other hand, how about the public? That's the size of it. Would it have been a popular show? Evidently not, Senator. Oh. Well, if it had been, would your decision nonetheless have been to take it off? If it had been, if it had been, if it had been, if it had become a popular show? Well, if it clicked when it came on, notwithstanding the overtone of risqué or settled

here, whatever you want to call it, would you have nonetheless taken it off? Suppose it had been proved to be your best seller. That's what I'm trying to find out. Well, I believe that the people would have been vocal to the extent that it was accepted. Well, is that what establishes morality? Or taste? Or quality? No, it is. Or artistry? I think that individual propriety, perhaps. I am sure that we would have heard, had we heard from a number of people, as we did, that this was not to their best interest, that they didn't enjoy seeing this? I think that we probably would have taken another look at it. I don't believe that we would have taken the immediate action that we did. We would undoubtedly have tried to improve it to the extent that it would become acceptable to everyone. I would hope that that would have been the case. And don't you think that if a preview was shown to the co-authority, it might have taken

you off to hook without the embarrassment? It could possibly, Senator. Yeah. I thought so. That's what happened. If you had been on the co-authority, you'd have cleared it. I didn't say that. Well, then what is the difference in the role and responsibility of you as a television broadcaster acting for your investor and you as the vote from that television station on the code? Is there a different responsibility? I think part is in that answer. I think there's a different degree of responsibility. And I want you to remember that last statement. There is a difference in degree of responsibility. The session ended with handshakes all around and informal conversations among senators and network heads.

It had not been a conclusive hearing. Nobody expected that it would be. This gets heat from the public on television violence among other subjects. Today it passed some of that heat along to the industry. The industry has felt the heat before, took note of it, and said an effect that it would try to do better, or at least continue to try to do better. No Senator advocated censorship for taxed any individual executive with any individual murder or mugging that his network had depicted. On the other side, no executive questioned the proprietary of this hearing or the setting up of a study group under the Surgeon General. Nobody on either side denied that television violence constituted a problem, but neither did anybody presume to offer a final answer. You could call this session an example of government by indirection or government by nudging. Politicians who do not want to be in the position of issuing orders, sometimes compromised by offering suggestions, and businessmen who do not want to be in the position of taking orders, sometimes compromised by listening to suggestions.

Good evening. This is NET, the public television network.

Thank you.