Congress limited CPB’s discretion in spending the federal appropriation. The corporation’s authorizing law imposes a budget allocation formula that divides the appropriation as indicated in the chart. Dividing CPB funds between TV and radio had been a repeated struggle until 1981, when Congress imposed a peace-making formula proposed by Rep. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.), chair of the House authorizing subcommittee. The 75-25 percentage split between TV and radio was based on experience, though with public radio’s later growth, it made radio stations more dependent on private-sector fundraising than public TV is. Robben Fleming, then president of CPB, complained that the formula “emasculates” CPB, and his successors periodically have objected to the loss of discretion over spending.
Preface to A Public Trust
In 1977, 10 years after the original Carnegie Commission recomended federal aid to public television, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second blue-ribbon panel to ponder policies on noncommercial broadcasting. See also Carnegie II’s recommendations and membership. Twelve years have elapsed since the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television recommended a strengthened system of television stations, to be called public television. In the intervening years public radio and television have become established as major American institutions. This year larger audiences than ever before, easily three times the size of those a dozen years ago, will tune into a public radio or television station.
Bythe Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting |
In 1977, a decade after the first Carnegie Commission boosted the idea of federal funding for noncommercial broadcasting, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second panel to study noncommercial broadcasting. In 1979, the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting published its report, A Public Trust. Its recommendations for increased federal aid and a Public Telecommunications Trust to replace CPB, had little effect. See also the preface to the report and the list of commission members, below at right. Summary of Findings and Recommendations
The Public Telecommunications Trust | The Endowment | Funding | Television Programs and Services | Public Radio | Technology| Education and Learning | Public Accountability
Members of Carnegie II*
William J. McGill, Chairman
President, Columbia University
Stephen K. Bailey
President, National Academy of Education
Red Burns
Executive Director, Alternate Media Center, School of the Arts
New York University
Henry J. Cauthen
Director, South Carolina Educational Television Network
Peggy Charren
President, Action for Children’s Television
Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr.
Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Virginia B. Duncan
Board Member, Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Eli N. Evans
President
Charles H. Revson Foundation
John W. Gardner
Common Cause
Alex P. Haley, Author
Walter W. Heller Professor, University of Minnesota
Josie R. Johnson
Board Member, National Public Radio
Kenneth Mason
President, Quaker Oats Company
Bill Moyers, WNET/13
Kathleen Nolan
President, Screen Actors Guild
J. Leonard Reinsch Chairman, Cox Broadcasting Corporation
Tomas Rivera
Executive Vice-President, University of Texas at El Paso
*Bill Cosby, actor; Carla Hills, a former secretary of housing and urban development; and Beverly Sills, opera singer; voluntarily resigned from the Commission during the course of this study as their participation became limited by other professional commitments.
Bythe National Telecommunications and Information Administration |
A major part of OTP’s activity in 1971 involved the development of a long-term financing bill for CPB. However, because of disagreements with CPB over details of the draft “Public Telecommunications Financing Act of 1971” and the Administration’s displeasure with public broadcasting’s news and public affairs programming, the Administration did not submit a CPB funding bill to Congress that year. On April 13, Flanigan and Whitehead, now OTP Director, met in Flanigan’s office with CPB Directors Cole and Wrather, both of whom had been appointed to the Corporation Board by President Nixon. The meeting was an outgrowth of Flanigan’s and Whitehead’s correspondence with Cole, dating from November 9, 1970, when Flanigan wrote to Cole complaining about the NET documentary “Banks and the Poor.” On March 15, Flanigan sent Whitehead a memo which said:
Regarding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, we discussed having a meeting of our directors to determine where we go from here with the Corporation.
In 1973, CPB negotiated an agreement with the PBS defining the relationship between the two organizations with respect to program control, operation of the public television interconnection, and support of local stations. When the CPB Board voted to defer action on a draft of the agreement which representatives of the two organizations had worked out, CPB Chairman Curtis resigned, alleging improper White House interference in the negotiations process. Six weeks after Curtis’ resignation, the CPB Board approved the “Partnership Agreement” with PBS. Following Curtis’ resignation and ratification of the Agreement, Whitehead recommended a shift in the Administration’s approach toward public broadcasting. On January 6, four days prior toCPB’s first board meeting of 1973, Whitehead, Goldberg, and Lamb had lunch with CPB General Counsel Tom Gherardi.
Nineteen seventy-four was marked by Richard Nixon’s departure from the White House and Whitehead’s resignation as OTP Director. Shortly before resigning the Presidency, Nixon sent Congress the long-range funding plan for public broadcasting Whitehead had promised the Senate during his confirmation hearing four years earlier. Submission of the plan reportedly came only after Chief-of-Staff Alexander Haig convinced Nixon to reverse an earlier decision not to submit the bill to Congress. On April 2, Whitehead sent a memo to the President recommending submission of a multi-year appropriations bill for CPB to Congress. The proposed legislation mandated a pass-through to the local stations of a substantial portion of CPB’s appropriations.
When Richard Nixon took office in January 1969, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was in its infancy and the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) had yet to be created. Staff responsibilities for public broadcasting rested largely with Peter Flanigan, Assistant to the President, and Clay T. Whitehead, then a White House staff assistant. The new Administration recognized that it would shape the future of public broadcasting in America and reap credit or criticism for its efforts. The first action the new President took was to appoint Albert L. Cole, a Director of Reader’s Digest, to a vacancy on the 15-member Board President Johnson had appointed the previous March. Cole was appointed March 15, 1969.
Nineteen seventy-two saw President Richard Nixon veto funding for public broadcasting. In the wake of Nixon’s veto, Frank Pace Jr. and John Macy resigned as chairman and president, respectively, of CPB. Pace was replaced by Thomas Curtis, a former Congressman from Missouri; Macy, by Henry Loomis, a career civil servant, then the Deputy Director of USIA. In addition to Curtis, Nixon appointed six other directors in 1972. On Jan.
The Nixon Administration continued to develop its position on public broadcasting in 1970. While doing so, it proposed a new three-year authorization for CPB. In 1970, the President also appointed five CPB Directors. On February 6, Whitehead wrote to Flanigan, Garment, Ranks, Shakespeare and McWhorter, asking them for suggestions for the five CPB Board seats opening up in March. “I think it would be useful if we could come up with a list of five outstanding individuals,” Whitehead wrote.
Bythe National Association of Educational Broadcasters |
These memos from the Nixon Administration cover a period of peak conflict between the White House and public broadcasting. The documents were released by the government five years later in response to a Freedom of Information Act request in 1978 by the second Carnegie Commission. These summaries were prepared and released during the Carter Administration by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the successor agency of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, a central player in the 1969–74 conflict. The summaries were published as The Nixon Administration Public Broadcasting Papers 1969–1974 by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. Introduction and Foreword to NAEB printing and NTIA letters of transmittal are shown below.
In 1977, 10 years after the original Carnegie Commission recommended federal aid to public television, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second blue-ribbon panel to ponder policies on noncommercial broadcasting. Its report was released in January 1979. See also the Carnegie II report’s recommendations and membership. Twelve years have elapsed since the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television recommended a strengthened system of television stations, to be called public television. In the intervening years public radio and television have become established as major American institutions.
In 1977, a decade after the first Carnegie Commission endorsed federal aid to noncommercial TV, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created a second panel to study noncommercial TV and radio. Its recommendations were published in 1979 …
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 77-528. Argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, April 18-19, 1978, and decided, July 3, 1978. See full text and citations on FindLaw.
This detailed paper was published in the October 1972 issue of Educational Broadcasting Review, the journal of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. The paper — by Hartford Gunn, the first president of PBS — led to PBS’s creation of an annual program market called the Station Program Cooperative, which became, for nearly two decades, PBS’s main method of aggregating station funds to produce ongoing series. Introductory note by Avon Edward Foote, editor of Educational Broadcasting Review
One of the important functions of EBR is to circulate documents which embody important new concepts, proposals, and suggestions. The values are two-fold: full publication makes it possible to study the actual details of a proposal rather than rumors or speculations about it, and distribution through the EBR engages the entire profession in the process of analysis and deliberation. The article that follows is one of those documents.
Statement of Dean Burch, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, before the Subcommittee on Communications of the Senate Committee on Commerce on S.3558, April 1, 1970. A prominent progressive FCC member, Nicholas Johnson, also endorsed the bill. Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to give you the Commission’s views on S.3558, the “Public Broadcasting Financing Act of 1970”. This bill is designed to carry out the President’s recommendation, as set forth in his Message on Education Reform, to extend Federal support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. S.3558 would authorize annual appropriations for the Corporation through fiscal year 1973.
ByJohn P. Witherspoon, Richard D. Estell, Bernard D. Mayes and Ralph W. Nicholson |
These articles were attached to National Public Radio’s certificate of incorporation filed with the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds, Feb. 26, 1970. ARTICLES OF INCORPORATION
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, INC.
We, the undersigned, natural persons of the age of twenty-one (21) years or more, and citizens of the United States, desiring to form a nonprofit corporation pursuant to the District of Columbia Non-Profit Corporations Act (23 D.C. Code Chapter 10), adopt the following Articles of Incorporation for such Corporation:
ARTICLE I.
The name of the Corporation is: NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, INC.
ARTICLE II. The period of duration of the Corporation is perpetual. ARTICLE III.
On Nov. 11, 1969, eight days after a quartet of public broadcasters signed PBS’s Articles of Incorporation, they adopted these initial bylaws. See also the network’s amended bylaws as of 2000. The initial By-Laws of the Public Broadcasting Service have been preliminarily adopted by the Incorporators to permit Public Broadcasting Service to begin to function under the laws of the District of Columbia. They are subject to ratification or modification by the Public Broadcasting Service Board of Directors upon its election.
On Nov. 3, 1969, four public broadcasters, including the presidents of CPB and National Educational Television (NET), incorporated a new nonprofit organization to interconnect the public television stations, taking on those functions of NET. See also the PBS bylaws, adopted eight days later. We, the undersigned, natural persons of the age of twenty-one (21) years or more, and citizens of the United States, desiring to form a nonprofit corporation pursuant to the District of Columbia Non-Profit Corporations Act (28 D.C. Code Chapter 10), adopt the following Articles of Incorporation for such Corporation:
ARTICLE I.
The name of the Corporation is: PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE. ARTICLE II.
Probably the most famous congressional testimony delivered on behalf of CPB appropriations came from Fred Rogers on May 2, 1969. The young writer/producer/host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood made common cause with Sen. John Pastore (D-R.I.), who chaired the Senate Commerce Committee’s communications subcommittee. Public broadcasting was seeking an appropriation of $20 million, and the Nixon White House was proposing half as much. Margaret Mary Kimmel and Mark Collins narrate the scene in their book, The Wonder of It All: Fred Rogers and the Story of an Icon (PDF, scroll to page 20). “It’s a strange moment in the hallowed halls of the Senate,” Kimmel and Collins write — “a grown man reciting a child’s song to other grown men, but by now they feel as if they, too, are complicit in Rogers’ mission.”