1961 speech by Newton N. Minow
"
Television and the Public Interest
" was a speech given by
Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) chairman
Newton N. Minow
to the convention of the
National Association of Broadcasters
on May 9, 1961. The speech was Minow's first major speech after he was appointed chairman of the FCC by then President
John F. Kennedy
.
Summary
[
edit
]
In the speech, Minow referred to American commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland" and advocated for programming in the
public interest
. In hindsight, the speech addressed the end of a
Golden Age of Television
that had run through the 1950s, contrasting the highbrow programs of that decade (Minow specifically cited
Westinghouse Studio One
and
Playhouse 90
, both of which had ended in the previous few years, as examples of "the much bemoaned
good old days
"
[1]
) with what had appeared on American television in
1960 and 1961
.
Minow mentioned a handful of praiseworthy shows that were still in production (among them
The Twilight Zone
, variety specials by
Fred Astaire
and
Bing Crosby
, and some documentaries), then warned that such programs were the exception rather than the rule:
[1]
When television is good, nothing?not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers?nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials?many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.
[1]
Minow went on to dismiss the idea that public taste was driving the change in programming, stating his firm belief that if
television choices were expanded
, viewers would gravitate toward higher culture programming. He noted that a large majority of prime time television?59 out of 73 hours?consisted of undesirable television genera:
quiz shows
, movies,
variety shows
,
sitcoms
, and action-adventure series, the last of which included espionage thrillers and the then-ubiquitous
Westerns
. He stated that "most young children today spend as much time watching television as they do in the schoolroom" and that cartoons and violence typical of
children's television
of the era was wholly unacceptable, comparable to feeding a child nothing but "ice cream, school holidays and no
Sunday school
." He also used newspapers as a comparison, noting that although
comic strips
and
advice columns
were newspapers' most popular items, they were not featured on the front pages because (according to Minow) the newspapers were still voluntarily bound to the public interest despite being outside the purview of the FCC, something Minow believed television had abandoned as it had become too beholden to
Nielsen Ratings
.
[1]
Minow conceded that there were numerous barriers to improvement, many of them financial, and expressed his reluctance to use the FCC as a censor, except to enforce rules imposed following
recent scandals in the quiz show genre
. A partial solution Minow proposed was the expansion of
non-commercial educational
television, which was not yet as widespread as the major broadcast networks.
[1]
In his speech Minow also shared advice to his audience:
Television and all who participate in it are jointly accountable to the American public for respect for the special needs of children, for community responsibility, for the advancement of education and culture, for the acceptability of the program materials chosen, for decency and decorum in production, and for propriety in advertising. This responsibility cannot be discharged by any given group of programs, but can be discharged only through the highest standards of respect for the American home, applied to every moment of every program presented by television. Program materials should enlarge the horizons of the viewer, provide him with wholesome entertainment, afford helpful stimulation, and remind him of the responsibilities which the citizen has toward his society.
[2]
Reception
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]
The phrase "vast wasteland" was suggested to Minow by his friend, reporter and freelance writer
John Bartlow Martin
. Martin had recently watched twenty consecutive hours of television as research for a magazine piece, and concluded it was "a vast wasteland of junk". During the editing process, Minow cut the words "of junk".
[3]
Minow often remarked that the two words best remembered from the speech are "vast wasteland", but the two words he wished would be remembered are "public interest".
[4]
According to television historians Castleman and Podrazik (1982), the networks had already purchased their fall 1961 programs and had locked in their
1961?62 schedules
at the time Minow had made his speech, leaving them unable to make the adjustments Minow had hoped. "The best the networks could do was slot a few more public affairs shows, paint rosy pictures for
1962?63
, and prepare to endure the barrage of criticism they felt certain would greet the new season." Castleman and Podrazik noted that there was an attempt to increase documentary programming in the 1962?63 season, but that "their sheer number diluted the audience and stretched resources far too thin to allow quality productions each week," resulting in a schedule that much resembled "business as usual."
[5]
1962 saw an even greater increase in some of the formats Minow detested, with premises becoming more and more surreal: two prime time cartoons (
Beany and Cecil
and
The Jetsons
) and sitcoms with outlandish premises (such as hillbillies becoming rich and moving to
Beverly Hills
in
The Beverly Hillbillies
, or a veterinarian getting mistakenly drafted and sent to Paris in
Don't Call Me Charlie!
) were among the new offerings.
[6]
The speech was not without detractors, as that lambasting of the state of United States television programming prompted
Sherwood Schwartz
to name the boat on his television show
Gilligan's Island
the
S. S.
Minnow
after Newton Minow.
[7]
Game show host
Dennis James
remarked in 1972 that Minow's assertion that viewers naturally gravitated toward
highbrow
programming was proven false, noting that although "the critics will always look down their noses,"
lowbrow
forms of entertainment such as game shows "have a tremendous appeal" to the average American. He indirectly referenced Minow in the interview, quipping "they can talk about the great wasteland and everything else?if you want to read books, read books."
[8]
In a 2011 interview marking the 50th anniversary of the speech, Minow stated that
consumer choice
, fueled by the 1980s
multi-channel transition
, was the most important improvement in television in the decades since his speech; he lamented that this increased choice had eliminated the shared experience of the medium.
[9]
[10]
Writing for
Wired Magazine
, Matthew Lasar pointed out:
[11]
Like so many media reformers, Minow strikes me as reluctant to acknowledge an obvious difference between 1961 and 2011. TV is not a vast wasteland anymore. It's a crazy, weed-filled, wonderful, out-of-control garden.
See also
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References
[
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- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Newton N. Minow, "
Television and the Public Interest
", address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., May 9, 1961.
- ^
"Newton Minow: The 'vast wasteland' of television speech"
. Retrieved
10 June
2016
.
- ^
Fallows, James (11 May 2011).
"Where the Phrase 'Vast Wasteland' Came From"
.
The Atlantic Monthly
. Retrieved
12 May
2011
.
- ^
Johnson, Ted (9 May 2011).
"
"A Vast Wasteland," 50 Years Later"
.
Variety magazine
. Archived from
the original
on 17 May 2011
. Retrieved
12 May
2011
.
- ^
Castleman, Harry; Podrazik, Walter J. (1982).
Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television
. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp.
139?153
.
ISBN
0-07-010269-4
.
- ^
"Television: The Coming Season"
.
Time
. July 27, 1962. Archived from
the original
on February 19, 2011
. Retrieved
2010-11-21
.
The producers of The Flintstones have a new family called The Jetsons, who live in outer space.
- ^
Schwartz, Sherwood (1994).
Inside Gilligan's Island
. pp. xv.
cited in
Jarvis, Robert M. (1998).
"Legal Tales from Gilligan's Island"
.
Santa Clara Law Review
.
39
. Santa Clara University Law School: 185
. Retrieved
2014-04-01
.
- ^
Radical Software interview with Dennis James
, ca. September 1972
- ^
Newton Minow's Vast Wasteland Speech: How It Changed TV|Time
- ^
Does Minow Still Think TV Is a 'Vast Wasteland'?|Ad Age (subscription required)
- ^
How TV's 'Vast Wasteland' Became a Vast Garden|WIRED
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