The Rise of Network Broadcasting by Laurence Bergreen L.N.P.L
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The Rise of Network Broadcasting by Laurence Bergreen L.N.P.L. $12.95 LOOK NOW PAY LATER Laurence Bergreen The battle for control of America's radio and television industry began in the commercial and personal rival- ries between two men: the aggressive and ingenious David Sarnoff, com- manding the RCA-NBC monopoly, and the wealthy and ambitious Will- iam Paley, who forged the CBS com- munications empire out of a failing little company. What these two corporate titans set in motion was a relentless, some- times brutal, quest for technological and ratings supremacy that over- whelmed many of the inventors, artists, and executives who helped create the medium. From Marconi, inventor of the wireless, to Vladimir Zworykin, principal developer of TV; from Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre to Fred Silverman, the enfant terrible of broadcasting — Laurence Bergreen brings together the people and the technology responsible for the wealth and power of network broadcasting in America. (continued on back flap) (continued from front flap) Here, too, is the story of the govern- ment's often futile attempts to regu- late broadcasting, the battle for color television, the game-show scandals and McCarthy-inspired terror of the fifties, as well as the saga of broad- casting's hero par excellence, Edward R. Murrow. Author Laurence Bergreen pre- sents a remarkable gallery of corpor- ate and entertainment personalities seen against the backdrop of greed, chicanery, and blatant commercialism that has marked the broadcasting in- dustry from the start. The result is a hard-hitting, behind-the-scenes look at the private and corporate struggles to dominate the American airwaves. PHOTO BY ELIZABETH FREEMAN Laurence Bergreen was Assistant to the President of the Museum of Broadcasting in New York. The author of numerous articles on the broadcasting industry, Mr. Bergreen has written for Newsweek, TV Guide, and American Film, among other publications. He holds an A.B. from Harvard and currently makes his home in New York City. JACKET DESIGN 0 COPYRIGHT 1980 BY LAWRENCE RATZKIN ISBN: 0-385-14465-2 Printed in the U.S.A. "Loox Now, PAY LATER is about auniverse in which the entrepre- neur is king, taking precedence not only over performers but also over inventors. It is about a broadcasting system that has, over the years, shown itself capable of prophecy and betrayal, of years of mediocrity and moments of inspiration. It is about abusiness of overwhelming vanity and brutality, abusiness with absolutely no memory, but one whose every action is dictated by its own, forgotten past. It is about an enterprise that has been both patron and nemesis for inventors and performers and areason for being for advertising agencies. The story of the networks furnishes one more illustration of Gresham's law, that the bad tends to drive out the good, and Balzac's dictum, that behind every great fortune there is a crime. Yet the networks survive, indeed they prosper amid amystical aura; they are a source of boundless scorn and fascination, apublic trust and aprivate enterprise. They are, in the end, asignificant part of the social history of the twentieth century." from LCOK NOW, PAY LATER Laurence Bergreen LOOK NOW, PAY LATER The Rise of Network Broadcasting Laurence Bergreen DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 1980 ISBN: o-385-14465-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 7g-785g Copyright 0 ig8o by Laurence Bergreen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FIRST EDITION PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To my wife and parents Acknowledgments The search for broadcasting history placed me in the debt of many generous people who were willing to share their knowledge and un- derstanding of the industry with me. I would like to place at the head of the list the Museum of Broadcasting in New York, where Iwas amember of the staff before undertaking this project. From Robert Saudelc, president, and Mary Ahern, curator, Igained valuable insights into the industry's past and acquired a way of looking at programming as historical documen- tation. From the museum's painstakingly assembled and catalogued collection of programming, Iwas able to review the history of their output in all its genres. Next, people who have played major roles in the development of the networks and could share their firsthand observations added an important dimension, one that goes beyond mute facts. Iam grateful to the following for consenting to be interviewed by me: Norman Cor- win, Michael Dann, Freeman Gosden, William S. Paley, Robert Sarnoff, Robert Saudek, Fred Silverman, Dr. Frank Stanton, David White, and Dr. Vladimir Zworykin. Also of critical importance were the facilities of the CBS News Ref- erence Library, where much of the research about the business as- pects of network history took place. Marcia Ratcliff and Roberta Had- ley were attentive and resourceful in guiding me through the twists Viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS and turns of industry development. Iam also indebted to Vera Mayer, director, Information Services, at NBC, and to Al Pinsky, manager, Scientific Information Services, at RCA, for their assistance. Leslie Slocum of the Television Information Office in New York and Catharine Heinz, director of the Broadcast Pioneers Library in Wash- ington, D.C., steered me toward important documents, as did the staff of New York University's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, where some of the manuscript was written. RCA Laboratories and the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, N.J., have my thanks as well, along with the NATAS-UCLA Television Library in Los Angeles. Bernice and Sidney Abrams, Jane Condon Bartels, Douglas Gibbons of the Museum of Broadcasting, Frederick Jacobi of WNET, Rosemary O'Brien, Gay Orde, Frida Schubert of RCA, and Jan Waring also pro- vided invaluable assistance, as did ABC, CBS, NBC, WGBH, and the Museum of Modern Art. Special thanks must go to Peter Lampack for his wise counsel and patience. Joseph Gonzalez, my editor at Doubleday, has contributed a great deal to the making of this book. His dedication and good judg- ment is in large part responsible for its initiation and completion. Contents Acknowledgments vii Part I SIBLING RIVALRY /. High Hopes 3 2. Making Waves io 3. Cats' Whiskers 23 4. E Pluribus Unum 32 5. Shoestring 44 Part II IN THE MONEY 6. Dialogue 69 7. Exhibit A 81 8. My Way 1o6 9. Monopoly 128 /o. Color War 137 ii. War and Peace at CBS 147 X CONTENTS Part III THE LAST FRONTIER /2. Prelude: Rise of the Programmer 159 13. Operation Frontal Lobes 166 .4. Quiz Kids /80 /5. CBS Plus Thirty 200 16. The Aubrey Dictum 212 /7. A Student of Television 224 Part IV SIGNS OF OBSOLESCENCE /8. A Problem of Succession 241 /9. Resurrection of an Ideal 248 20. From Broadcasting to Narrowcasting 260 Notes on Sources 269 Bibliography 281 Index 287 «. .. during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main in- sulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: 'Look Now, Pay Later.'" —Edward R. Murrow Part I SIBLING RIVALRY 1 High Hopes IN AP1111, 1927, when the National Broadcasting Company was hardly six months old and the notion of radio networks was just beginning to impinge on the American consciousness, the New York Times asked H. G. Wells to predict the future of broadcasting as part of aseries of articles entitled "The Way the World Is Going." As aprofessional fu- ture-watcher, Wells had high hopes for the new medium: "We should hear the best we wished; Chaliapin and Melba would sing to us; Pres- ident Coolidge and Mr. Baldwin would talk to us simply, earnestly, directly." Wells expected that "in a compact of ten minutes, Julian Huxley, for example, and Bernard Shaw would settle about Dar- winism forever." Furthermore, "All sporting results before we went to bed would be included, the weather forecast, advice about our gar- den, the treatment of influenza and the exact time. One would live in anew world and ask in all the neighbors." But Wells was sorely disappointed by what he actually found in the ether. Though he tried to write "impartial, impersonal, unsectarian, non-tendential, non-controversial, unprejudiced, kindly things" about radio, "like the stuff its authorities invite us to transmit," he was forced to conclude that the future of broadcasting was akin to the fu- ture of crossword puzzles, "a very trivial future, indeed." No genre of programming satisfied. The music was "tenth-rate." He ridiculed ad- vertising and proclaimed radio drama "a new and useful art if only 4 LOOK NOW, PAY LATER because it teaches us what life must be like for the blind." He pre- dicted the only regular audience for abroadcasting service would con- sist largely of "very sedentary persons living in badly lighted houses or otherwise unable to read, who have never realized the possibilities of the gramophone and the pianola and who have no capacity nor op- portunity for thought or conversation." Given Wells's formidable reputation, his assessment touched off a transatlantic controversy, and several weeks later the Times ran agag- gle of angry replies written by those with vested interests in the new industry: Lee De Forest, inventor; A. Atwater Kent, radio manufac- turer; and the vice-president and general manager of the Radio Cor- poration of America, one David Sarnoff. De Forest, atireless promoter of radio, even to the point of operating his own station single-hand- edly, predicted, "the tastes and demands of the listening public are continually on the upgrade." He believed the "sort of trash which was acceptable two years ago would no longer be tolerated." And as to Wells's fond hope that broadcasting would fade away out of public indifference, De Forest replied, "No, M.G.,' radio is here to stay." Sounding very much like a present-day network executive defending his industry against charges that it reduces the audience to passive, inert beings subsisting on cynical and juvenile programming, the in- ventor countered with a paean to broadcasting's already sweeping influence: "For radio has worked and is now working too profound a change in our national culture, our musical tastes, ever to be cast aside.