History of public media

At reunion, early leaders of public broadcasting express pride about past, concern for future

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The man who put New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia on the radio, reading the comics during a newspaper strike — M.S. “Morrie” Novik — talked the other day about his first trip west of Chicago. That excursion to Iowa more than 50 years ago was also the first time the head of New York’s municipal radio station, WNYC, had much contact with the midwesterners who were big in “educational radio.” Novik recognized they were up to the same thing he was, and he joined a fellowship that continues today. He was among his fellows again Oct. 8-9 [1993], during a Public Broadcasting Reunion, where a big roomful of admitted idealists reminisced, ribbed each other, tut-tutted about things these days, and unabashedly proclaimed their values.

Public Media Policybase

Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Public Broadcasting

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These are the recommendations of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Public Television, released in the July 1993 report Quality Time? The complete 188-page paperback, including a background paper by Richard Somerset-Ward, published by the Twentieth Century Fund Press, has been available for $9.95 through the Brookings Institution (1-800-275-1447). See also [Current coverage, Aug. 9, 1993.]
On mission

The mission of public television should be the enrichment and strengthening of American society and culture through high-quality programming that reflects and advances our basic values. In order to fulfill its mission, America’s system of public television needs fundamental structural change.

Public Media Policybase

Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Public Broadcasting

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These are the recommendations of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Public Television, released in the July 1993 report Quality Time? The complete 188-page paperback, including a background paper by Richard Somerset-Ward, published by the Twentieth Century Fund Press, is available for $9.95 through the Brookings Institution (1-800-275-1447). See also [Current coverage and list of task force members, Aug. 9, 1993. On mission

The mission of public television should be the enrichment and strengthening of American society and culture through high-quality programming that reflects and advances our basic values.

Why public media?

To bring exuberant life to the country’s most important public space

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When President Clinton had just taken office in 1993, Current asked an assortment of outside-the-Beltway people connected with public broadcasting to write open letters to him about the field’s public-service potential. One was Jill Godmilow, an independent filmmaker then in residence at the University of Notre Dame. Her films have included “Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman” and “Waiting for the Moon” (for American Playhouse). President Clinton:

I’ll start with a quote from the German filmmaker and television producer Alexander Kluge: “If I look through the window — a television window is something like an artificial window — then it represents what’s going on in the world. In former times, people looked onto the marketplace.

Programs/Content

To empower active citizens with knowledge, locally as well as nationally

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When President Clinton had just taken office in 1993, Current asked an assortment of outside-the-Beltway people connected with public broadcasting to write open letters to him about the field’s public-service potential. One was Bill Kling, president of Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul and founder of American Public Radio. Dear President Clinton:

I know that as a listener to public radio around the country, you know its national programming well. At a time when the spirit of a new national agenda is high, the mission of public radio fits well into the public understanding and assimilation of that agenda just as it has for every administration since Lyndon Johnson’s.

Programs/Content

To serve as a catalyst in making our cities work

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When President Clinton had just taken office in 1993, Current asked an assortment of outside-the-Beltway people connected with public broadcasting to write open letters to him about the field’s public-service potential. One was Bob Larson, then president of Detroit’s public TV station, WTVS, and originator of the local City for Youth outreach project and the national Nitty Gritty City Group. Mr. President:

Your messages to the American people have reflected a fundamental commitment to reconciliation — bridge-building that both creates understanding and celebrates diversity. Please consider the potential of public broadcasting as a means of renewing community in our land. Already, at the beginning of your administration, the treasures of public television were evident in the Washington ceremonies: in the inaugural parade, characters from programs that have so passionately nurtured the minds and spirits of our children; and the magnificent presence of Maya Angelou, who recently graced the national PBS schedule (in “Maya Angelou: Rainbow in the Clouds”) to tell a story of healing in the city.

Why public media?

Local programs: our niche, and it’s a mile wide

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In the spring of 1991, a management consulting firm advised public TV to shift its spending from local to national programs. Current asked Jack Willis, president and c.e.o. of KTCA, Minneapolis/St. Paul, to revisit that suggestion. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study was meant to be provocative, and there is much in it that I find worthwhile — the challenge to the status quo, the need for a qualitative rating service, a reexamination of resource allocation and the call for joint ventures. But I believe the report’s most fundamental and controversial premise was wrong — the notion that local production, with few exceptions, is not valued by our viewers and should therefore be sacrificed for the national schedule. This premise is not supported by BCG’s own data, which measure value by ratings and pledge donations.

Why public media?

‘The only place where you have a measure of creative control’

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Documentary-maker Ken Burns told why he’s continuing to work with public broadcasting at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles in January [1992]. During a question-and-answer session, a writer asked him: “Ken, for this project, as well as your others, you’ve found a very appreciative home at PBS. But now, with all your success, have the commercial networks tried to lure you away? Have they made offers to you?”

There have been a lot of very, very generous offers and ideas. But the fundamental reason why I don’t intend to move is that this is not only my home — and being a historian, one kind of honors the past and where you’ve been — but this is the only place on the dial where you can be free of commercials, where you can have a measure of creative control over your project, a lack of interference; where you can have a strong relationship with an underwriter that develops over time, in the case of [General Motors], where you can really forge these kinds of relationships; where we can go and we can say we’re thinking about doing this, and you can actually accomplish it.

History of public media

Congress emphasizes CPB’s ‘objectivity and balance’ obligations, 1992

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CPB from its start had always had responsibility for ensuring “objectivity and balance” in programming that it funded, but on June 2, 1992, the U.S. Senate amended the House bill that included CPB’s reauthorization (H.R. 2977) to add related responsibilities. Amendments were accepted by the House and signed by the President in August. Text below is from the act as signed by the President. Objectivity and Balance Policy, Procedures and Report
SEC. 19.

Public Media Policybase

Bylaws of Independent Television Service Inc.

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Following up on 1988 legislation that they had lobbied for, independent producers and their advocates incorporated ITVS in 1969 [see Articles of Incorporation] and it began operations in 1991. ARTICLE I
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
1. Function and Definitions. The affairs of the corporation shall be managed by the Board of Directors. The use of the word “director” or “directors” herein refers to a member or members of the Board of Directors, and the use of the phrase “full Board” herein refers to the total number of directors which the corporation would have if there were no vacancies on the Board of Directors.

Public Media Policybase

The Voters’ Channel: A Feasibility Study, 1990

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The Markle Foundation, then a major backer of public TV, proposed in 1990 that PBS develop the Voters’ Channel, a project planned to make more useful information available to voters. Here are excerpts from the 132-page feasibility study prepared for Markle by the independent production company Alvin H. Perlmutter Inc. Markle offered $5 million to help PBS undertake the project in time for the 1992 election, but the foundation and PBS could not reach agreement on plans. The project was dropped in June 1991. [Current coverage.]
Preface | Summary of Recommendations | Introduction | Is It Feasible? Preface
American government has become weaker in the age of television.

History of public media

Independent Television Service Inc. Articles of Incorporation, 1989

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ITVS was funded through 1988 legislation requiring the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to establish an independent program service “to expand the diversity and innovativeness of programming available to public broadcasting.” The nonprofit was incorporated Sept. 22, 1989 and after extended negotiations with CPB began operations in 1991. See also ITVS bylaws, 1990. To the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, District of Columbia:

Each of the undersigned, being a natural person of the age of at least eighteen years and acting as an incorporator for the purpose of organizing a corporation pursuant to the provisions of the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act, does hereby adopt the following Articles of Incorporation.

Development

Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing, 1983

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The Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications (TCAF) delivered its recommendations to Congress on Oct. 1, 1983, after extensive research, including an Advertising Demonstration Program at a number of public TV stations. Letter of transmittal | Membership of TCAF | Executive Summary
 

Chairman’s letter of transmittal

To the Congress of the United States:

In accordance with Congress’ direction in the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act of 1981, Public Law Number 97-35, the Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications hereby submits its Final Report. This report describes the Advertising Demonstration Program in which selected public television stations experimented with the carriage of limited advertising. The report includes findings, conclusions, and recommendations to Congress concerning the financing of public broadcasting.

History of public media

Tuning out education, Chapter 5

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Failing to foster lasting Cooperation between commercial broadcasters and educators, but sticking to its rhetoric, NACRE covered up the fatal inertia that plagued U.S. educational broadcasting.

History of public media

Tuning out education, Chapter 4

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The Depression created a demand for sober, public-service uses of radio. Seizing the moment, NACRE launched the most ambitious experiments in national educational broadcasting that had ever been tried in America.

History of public media

Tuning out education, Chapter 3

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Rival lobbies fought for regulators’ nod

“If you educators do not hold radio for yourselves,” Judge Ira Robinson told educational broadcasters in June 1930, “it is going to be so fortified by commercial interests that you will never get it.”[41]

The lone pro-education member of the Federal Radio Commission, Robinson had ample grounds for alarm. Since the mid-’20s, dozens of school-operated stations had been driven from the air by a combination of commercial competition, FRC pressures, and their own lack of resources and resourcefulness. In 1930, the mortality rate seemed to be rising; more than 20 educational stations would fall silent by the end of July. During the previous winter, Commissioner Robinson had been involved in a promising initiative that might have brought the federal government to the rescue. But the Advisory Committee on Education by Radio, appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, had pulled back from recommending measures that would do much good for beleaguered educational broadcasters.

History of public media

Tuning out education, Chapter 2

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Education had no ‘inalienable right to part of the air,’ said the spokesman for broadcaster-educator Cooperation in 1930. It would have to prove itself in the marketplace. The struggle had only begun…

History of public media

Tuning out education

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How did advertising-driven broadcasting establish itself as the dominant user of the airwaves in America? A crucial episode occurred in the 1930s when commercial broadcasters argued successfully that they would put education on the air, and educators should stick to their books. Eugene E. Leach, Ph.D., a professor of history and American studies at Connecticut’s Trinity College, tells the story, originally serialized in Current. Chapters
1. The doctrine of ‘Cooperation’ won early battles of ideas

2.

Public Media Policybase

Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing, 1983

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The Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications (TCAF) delivered its recommendations to Congress on Oct. 1, 1983, after extensive research, including an Advertising Demonstration Program at a number of public TV stations. Letter of transmittal | Membership of TCAF | Executive Summary
Chairman’s letter of transmittal

To the Congress of the United States:

In accordance with Congress’ direction in the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act of 1981, Public Law Number 97-35, the Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications hereby submits its Final Report. This report describes the Advertising Demonstration Program in which selected public television stations experimented with the carriage of limited advertising. The report includes findings, conclusions, and recommendations to Congress concerning the financing of public broadcasting.