CHAIRMAN REED E. HUNDT
                FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
                 CHICAGO MUSEUM OF BROADCASTERS
                         August 18, 1995



As I look around this museum, I am reminded how closely intertwined the
history of broadcast television is with the recent history of our country.  Thanks
to TV, my generation shared election night dramas, tragic assassinations, a
decade of war, and a walk on the moon.

Over the last forty years, TV has also been an integral member of most
American families.  

I know that I grew up with the Cleavers.  I thought Dobie Gillis was a role
model.  While watching St. Elsewhere, I fed a bottle to my first child.  And
when my wife and I hit 40-something we watched Thirty Something -- thinking
it was the Nostalgia Channel.  

Today, the history of broadcast TV may be at a turning point.  The direction it
takes will reflect in part changes in this relationship between the TV and
American families.  

As Will Rogers said, all I know is what I read in the papers.  According to
what I read in the papers, broadcast economics, digital technology, and public
opinion may converge over the next few months to alter television as we know
it.  

First, recent weeks have witnessed tremendous changes in the ownership
structure of the networks.  One content provider has begun the process of
taking over its means of distribution and others may follow.  Mickey Mouse
proposes to buy ABC and Ted Turner may or may not finally gain a network. 
Meanwhile, Westinghouse aspires to acquire Bill Paley's historic creation and
rumors are rife that GE is either buying or selling.

These events are not unrelated to the fact that we are standing at the gate of the
digital age of broadcasting.  Testing is in the final stages on a wonderful new
digital transmission standard that will allow both prettier pictures and more
programming per broadcast "channel."  Broadcasters may be given new
spectrum on which they could use this digital TV.  But at a recent hearing,
witnesses from the political left and right suggested to the Senate Commerce
Committee that this new spectrum should instead be auctioned to the highest
bidder.  In an interview the Speaker of the House hinted that he might agree.

Decisions about allocation of the digital spectrum will be made this fall in
Washington where politicians are simultaneously responding to the public's
increasing frustration with what it sees on TV.  When asked, eighty percent of
Americans say they think TV is harmful to society, and especially to children. 
Even children themselves report that television encourages them to take part in
sexual activity too soon, to show disrespect for their parents, to lie and to
engage in aggressive behavior.  Three-quarters of adolescents and two-thirds of
adults believe that TV encourages illegal drug use among teen-agers.   As a
result of these perceptions, two weeks ago, the House joined the Senate in
passing the V-chip amendment and last week, the Senate Commerce committee
approved a bill to keep violence off the air when children are likely to be
watching.  

In twenty years, broadcasters should look back on the upcoming months as the
time when the industry entered a new digital, golden era in partnership with the
American family.  

But, instead, they may might look back and see only opportunities squandered
as a result of short-sighted resistance to calls for change.

Which one of these will be the case depends on whether broadcasters address
the hostility Americans now have towards "the uninvited guest" -- as the courts
call it -- which brings so much unwanted violence into their homes. 

Today, more than 90 percent of programs during children's prime viewing
hours are violent.  Every year, the average American child watches more than
1,000 rapes, murders, armed robberies and assaults and the average American
teenager views 14,000 sex references on TV.

Is this serious?  Well, more than 1,000 studies, including reports from the
Surgeon General and the National Institutes of Mental Health, show a
"significant link" between "heavy exposure to TV violence and subsequent
aggressive behavior" and lower levels of positive or altruistic behavior.  Some
studies have concluded that TV accounts for an increase in the level of violence
in our society by between 5 and 15 percent.

Meanwhile, the vicious competition for eyeballs in prime time apparently will
take us to new levels this fall.  In USA Today on July 28 I read an article
saying that "the sheer volume of cursing [on primetime] this fall may give
Congress more fodder in its current assault on TV."

In response, a psychiatrist in Flint, Michigan said:  " I wouldn't let people with
that language into my house, but there it is coming into my home on
television."

Broadcasters must address the problems with what is now available but they
must also begin to provide more of the good things that Americans know are
missing from television.  

It is deeply upsetting to the American people to see how few educational
television programs are scheduled by the major networks.  This spring, ABC
canceled "Cro," one of two educational children's programs on its Saturday
morning schedule, and replaced it with a cartoon version of the hit movie
"Dumb and Dumber." This is beyond irony:  Dumb and Dumber is a
description of this decision not just a title.

The public has every right to act on its disappointment with TV.  Broadcasters
now operate on spectrum leased to them temporarily by the American public in
order to benefit the public interest.  

The law requires that broadcasters uphold public interest standards regardless of
the share of 18 to 49-year-olds that they capture for advertisers to sell to.
Broadcasters have to live up to that deal as long as they operate on that
spectrum. 

Now some people say that educational broadcasting can't be required.  In his
recent review of Newt Minow's new book, University of Chicago law school
professor Cass Sunstein told us that this was flat wrong. 

And here's what one Chairman of the FCC said: ". . . if the First Amendment
conflicts with outrageous programs that can be justifiably charged with
violating the public interest, then the public interest must prevail." 

That was not Newt Minow.  That was not me.  It was Jim Quello in a 1993
speech, when he was the FCC Chairman.

Respected legal commentators, FCC chairmen, Congress and the American
people all agree.  Just as public land can be used for public purposes, so our
rules can require that the public airwaves be used for specific, concrete, and
real public interest purposes.

So the First Amendment claim is the proverbial red herring that should not lure
broadcasters off the path of change.

Now FCC chairmen have given these kinds of warnings before.  It seems that
part of the job is to make predictions and not be believed.

In 1993 Chairman Quello warned the industry that if it did not address the
issue of violence voluntarily, Congress would act in a way that they did not
like.

Predictions of this sort have also come from the social science community.  Dr.
Leonard Eron of the University of Illinois at Chicago made this statement in
1987:

     Network executives claim that viewers prefer programs with
     heavy doses of violence; erroneously equating violence with
     action, for which a preference does exist.  Thus, it is highly
     unlikely that they will voluntarily reduce the heavy violence
     content of daily television fare.

And he went on, further acting out the role of Cassandra:

     . . . the situation has now assumed the proportions of a massive
     public health problem.  If the networks do not voluntarily
     impose some controls on the producers of their programs, the
     public ultimately will demand that the government intervene.

With all these prophets clearly gaining the right to say "I told you so" maybe
it's time for broadcasters to start listening.  

I hope everyone involved in the key decisions about the future of broadcasting
will think about the story of another great American industry that faced a
similar crisis of direction three decades ago.

This industry was great and powerful.   Like the information, entertainment,
and communication industries today, it employed hundreds of thousands of
workers.  It faced no significant foreign competition and it exported its
products all around the world. Its CEO's were honored as Time's Man of the
Year, were chosen as Cabinet Secretaries.  It was, like broadcasting, crucial to
our economic success, and, like broadcasting, it helped define our culture.

But this industry had a problem.  The products sold by this industry were
involved in the death of over 50,000 Americans a year.

The industry was of course the automobile industry.  The time was the 1950s
and 1960s.

Detroit had always denied studies that car design caused injuries and deaths in
accidents. 

But then Ralph Nader published a book called "Unsafe at  Any Speed."  Public
opinion was mobilized.  In 1966 Congress unanimously passed the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and regulation began.

Yet the industry continued to oppose passive restraints, air bags, and other
safety measures.  It claimed the public didn't want safe cars.   Then, it spent
millions of dollars on public relation firms, lawyers and lobbyists in countless
legal battles over safety regulations and recalls.  

Meanwhile, foreign competition arrived.  Detroit missed out on the quality
revolution.  Americans fell out of love with the cars of my youth.  Detroit lost
its public trust and market share. 

But the story has at last had a happy end. Detroit is well into a turn around,
dramatized in the 1980s by the invention of a brand new product fit for the
whole family, the van.  Detroit has made a commitment to quality and is
regaining public confidence.  As the New York Times reported on its front
page, "The auto industry is working to sell more cars by selling safety."  

The violence, indecency and kidvid issues challenge television in much the
same way that the concerns about safety challenged the car companies in the
1960s.  There was then for the car companies and there is now for television a
fork in the road:  one way is the path of denial and confrontation.  The other
way is the route to opportunity and renewal. 

Yogi Berra explained what to do in this situation:  "When you come to a fork
in the road, take it."  

But notwithstanding Yogi's views, I think that the better way is clear. 
Nonviolent, decent, family friendly and even educational shows can be for
broadcasters what safety now is for the car companies:  broadcasters can take it
as an opportunity to win again the trust of their public.  It can be a chance to
redefine TV programming product so that it more perfectly mirrors the values
of our country.  Just as Chrysler invented a whole new family car, broadcasting
can invent a new kind of family programming.

As I mentioned, there's a great deal of talk in Washington circles about the
huge swatch of spectrum available for digital broadcast.  

Hanging over the debate is the enormous success of our auctions of spectrum
for PCS.  We raised $8 billion in a single auction of 60 megahertz of spectrum. 
Many more megahertz are available for digital broadcast.

Some argue that we should give the spectrum to broadcasters -- once again in
return for serving in the public interest.  Others say that we should auction the
spectrum to the highest bidder. 

Either way, free over the air TV will continue to exist.  We know for sure that
people are willing to pay for broadcast spectrum to get a chance to deliver free
TV.  That's one of the lessons of Disney's $19 billion price for ABC.   
And, either way, whether broadcasters are assigned new spectrum or whether
they have to pay for it, the most important thing about all broadcast -- both
analog and digital -- is whether and how it serves the public interest.  
As a matter of law and as a matter of good policy for the country, broadcasters
cannot be merely commercial exploiters of the airwaves.  They must be
guardians of the public trust, using the public property of both digital and
analog spectrum to improve the country.

Whether broadcasters are transmitting with tomorrow's digital technology or
today's analog technology, they have to meet the three goals Chairman Quello
mentioned in 1993.  Give us programs that meet the educational and
information needs of children; constrain excessive graphic sex; give parents
control over and protection against the violence their children watch.


So, what is to be done?

First, the country and broadcasters need new rules implementing the Children's
TV Act.   The old rules are just an inscription on the tombstone prepared for
the imminent demise of educational programming on commercial TV.  Without
new rules, competition will kill that service.  

The FCC has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking proposing a definition of
educational television; a requirement that broadcasters provide this information
to program guides and others; and methods for assuring that a minimum
amount of educational programming is aired each week.  

Broadcasters' comments on these proposals are due in mid-September. 
Everyone is watching to see if broadcasters will rise to the occasion or sink to
the shopworn disappointing arguments of the past.

Second, just as the President and many Congressmen and Senators have said: 
parents need something to choose, and they also need the power to choose. 
They need information and need computer hardware or software -- like the V-
chip -- to help them select from the avalanche of programs pouring uninvited
over the air into their homes.  Broadcasters should be rushing to meet this
need.

Third, broadcasters in each community should emphasize their local service by
developing a Contract for Kids and Community.  In each market each
broadcaster should state -- at the time of license renewal -- concretely and
specifically how they intend to give parents a choice of high quality, decent,
nonviolent and educational programming, and how they would give parents the
power to choose.

Broadcasters could publicly state what they intend to do for kids and the
community they serve.  At the end of the license period, we at the FCC would
base further renewals on the broadcaster's success or failure at meeting these
promises.  Market by market, the broadcasters' Contracts for Kids and
Community would give real meaning, on a local level, to public interest
obligations.  No more vagueness. No more confusion.  In each market we
would have clear commitments by which to measure whether broadcasters have
met their public interest obligations. 

Fourth, on October 18 comments are due on our digital television proposals. 
This is a fateful chance to lay out the public interest commitment broadcasters
are prepared to make to the communities they propose to serve in the digital
age.

At this historic moment, I urge broadcasters to think about how they would like
to be remembered in this museum in the future.

The choice isn't mine.  It's yours.  The country will be watching broadcast TV
this fall, but it will also be watching broadcasters.





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