Television, Sandinista Stylte, by T:D. Allman CDC 0041 °i I WM O N 5 1983 SEPTEMBER -OCTOBER $2.50 The New Season: Autumn of the Networks' Reign . - Rep. Tim Wirth Holds Back the Tide BY ROBERT FRIEE ar . !:i SPECIAL REPORT At the Threshold of 0 7 246 004 15 www.americanradiohistory.com 1 p Bonneville's services include professionally -staffed and compam-owned earth stations, studios, transponders, tape origination facilities und vital microtcute connections_ Bonneville Satellite has both the facilities and the people to make your communications a brilliant success. Bonneville Satellite is provide its own permanent and Depend on Bonneville's facilities serious about your project. portable microwave systems. You get and staff to make your project a Because we own and operate more dependable connections on success. For more information, call most of our facilities, we your "first and last mile." 1-800-752-8469, toll free. bave the best possible control. That gives you the best Earth Stations: Covering the possible service. nation. Bonneville Satellite owns or The full -spectrum leases uplink/downlink facilities across satellite company. Studio Facilities: Quality from the nation. the start. Studio/stage facilities for Where there are no permanent Bonneville Satellite on -camera productions are available facilities available, mobile equipment at most locations. All sites offer can be provided. Communications video tape origination. Space Segment: Flexibility Remote production can be through ownership. Owned Salt Lake City, 801-237-2450/New York, 212-935.5150 arranged in almost any location. Washington, D.C., 202.737.4440/San Diego, 619-569-8451 transponder inventory makes access Los Angeles, 213-467-7082 Microwave Connections: The easier. Your project benefits and so A subsidiary of Bonneville International Corporation vital earth link. Bonneville can does your bottom line. 165 Social Hall Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111 FACILITIES alPEOPLE Cl] CONSULTING HARDWARE PROGRAM DISTRIBUTION NEWS SERVICES SPORTS EVENTS 1111 TELECONFERENCE www.americanradiohistory.com NBC NEWS AT SUNRISE TODAY NBC NIGHTLY NEWS NBC NEWS OVERNIGHT GO WHERE THE NEWS IS. DAYA/VD NIGHT. www.americanradiohistory.com H A NN SEPT/OCT 1983 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 3 SUPERNEWS ISSUES & REPORTS Journalism in the High -Tech Mode Technology is giving reporters data banks in the field, LETTERS PAGE 4 computer graphics, and a million -mile reach. CROSSCURRENTS BY ROBERT FRIEDMAN Ideas and Observations PAGE 10 NEW TECH PAGE 26 "Cellular Radio Meets the Spacephone" POP NEWS by Richard Barbieri PAGE 16 TV's Growth Industry QUO VIDEO It's light, easily digested, in Short Takes on New Tech PAGE 18 increasing demand-and lots more is on the way. PUBLIC EYE BY REESE SCHONFELD "Throwing the Bull in Barcelona" by Les Brown PAGE 21 PAGE 33 COMMENT & CRITICISM Rep. Tim Wirth Holds Back the Tide Why a key Congressman PRIVATE EYE continues to thwart the "Another Season, Another Reason, broadcast and cable lobbies For Making Sitcoms" on deregulation by William A. Henry III PAGE 53 BY JAMES TRAUB PROGRAM NOTES The New News Take -offs reviewed by Sylvia Rabiner PAGE 57 PAGE 40 Magnum and The A Team THE NEW SEASON: reviewed by Stephen Fenichell _PAGE 59 Autumn of the BOOKS Networks' Reign Technologies of Freedom With Fame and Too Close for by Ithiel de Sola Pool Comfort, ad hoc networks are reviewed by Michael Pollan PAGE 61 changing the rules of the television game. ON AIR BY LAURENCE ZUCKERMAN "Death in Prime Time" & LES BROWN by Julie Talen PAGE 64 PAGE 45 SPECIAL REPORT PAGE 67 Television, At the Threshold of 1984: Sandinista Style Two Views Marx and Lenin would not be amused: Nicaragua's TV Menace "The of the Machine" system is surprisingly by Peter C.T. Elsworth pluralistic. 00000 "Technology Is Innocent" BY T.D. ALLMAN doe o by Paul Mareth COVER ILLUSTRATION BY RAFAL OLBINSKI PAGE 49 : H A W F is 2 ti E P T -O (' T www.americanradiohistory.com UPI CUSTOM NEWS SERVES ONLY THE NEWS YOU WANT. WHEN YOU WANT IT. L P row has the way to sEtisfyyour audience's rL n;er for news-Erd your craving fcr ratings.. LP Custom News. We .tall it tie "clutter cutter" because it allows 4:1J to pic4 and choose the news pU want kithaut wading through copy. Stay news. National news. Farr sews. Spots. 'beat er. Business. Entertainment ..Ls abou_ any news :ategory you : n think of is on the UPI nsto-n News mena. From the list of hurxieds of ava labia .ers, you nak+e all tie s oecitic selections of wiat yoc wuauld like to receive E rd what you don't want to see. L P Custom News del Kier-3 news Peg a your maximum daily uirementV sa:ellite, UJITtD.R=S IV EFM UNAL cn cur affordable high speed Frinler Give wour audience all the nevus lley want., Frorammed the way you want. Nape your main course L P Custom News. Cine Jporr -he WJrld Far r -To e information. conta- Paula Baird, UPI Vice 'residen- f.r E oadcast Sales and Marketing 1-E DD-621-4746 UPI CUSTOM MENU UP1 1Cl1STO1M. AfdtENti www.americanradiohistory.com C H A NN E I. S EDITOR -IN -CHIEF Les Brown PUBLISHER George M. Dillehay MANAGING EDITOR Audrey Berman SENIOR EDITOR Michael Pollan ASSOCIATE EDITORS James Traub Savannah Waring Walker ASSISTANT EDITOR Lisa Moss CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mark Edmundson, Walter Karp, At the Fore Front people in government and special -inter- Michael Schwarz est groups, who have used it as a tool to STAFF ASSOCIATE Richard Barbieri WILLIAM FORE'S ARTICLE, "WHEN GREED squelch opposing views. No matter how Masquerades as Principle" [On Air, July/ benevolent one may believe government DESIGN DIRECTION August], offers misguided arguments to be, its access to the control of program Mark Borden against loosening government's regula- content squares very awkwardly with Marian Chin tion of broadcasting. some Americans' notions of how best to Can one reasonably claim TV signals insulate our means from the CIRCULATION DIRECTOR of expression Kathryn Ann Ritondo are scarce? A.C. Nielsen reports 58 per- good intentions of our regulators. PROMOTION/PUBLICITY DIRECTOR cent of our households can receive nine Fore is an admirably sincere social Irene Reisman or more over -the -air signals. Already, 12 commentator. In his sometimes vitriolic PRODUCTION MANAGER percent of homes can receive 20 or more arguments, however, he has not only Brad Jaffe channels. On the horizon are low -power stepped out of character but also away CONTROLLER television, five -channel MDS, and direct - from the facts. Joseph E. Edelman to -home broadcasting. Contrast this with Roy DANISH newspaper VICE PRESIDENT, ADVERTISING SALES competition; only a handful of Director Paul D. Jampolsky cities are served by more than a single Television Information Office ACCOUNT MANAGER daily paper. New York City Alison Brantley Fore equates selling price with scar- ADVERTISING ASSISTANT city, citing transfers in Boston ($220 mil- Donna A. Carullo lion) and Los Angeles ($245 million) to Less News Is Better make his point. But those are hardly typi- ADVERTISING SALES OFFICES New York: 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, cal sales, as they include other substan- I SAW A NEWS REPORT (DES MOINES REG- 212-398-1300. Southeast: Casey & Shore, 6255 tial assets. In 1982, the average price for a ister) relating to the RTNDA study done Barfield Rd., Atlanta, GA 30328. New England: VHF station was $16.2 million, and for a by Dr. Vernon Stone of Southern Illinois David Facey, 67 Pequosette St., Watertown, MA 02172. Midwest Consumer/Corporate Sales: Global UHF, $4.8 million. University [CrossCurrents, July/Au- Advertising, Inc., 505 North Lake Shore Dr., Pursuing Fore's line a bit further, how gust]. The headline writer took the view- Chicago, IL 60611. would he account for the $22 million sale point opposite to James Traub's, and de- Media Commentary Council, Inc.: David B. Hertz, of The Oakland Tribune in a city of clared, "After Deregulation, 9 Percent of Chairman; Les Brown, President; Michael J. Arlen, 362,000 when in Jacksonville, Florida, Stations Eleanor Elliott, Mary Milton, Thomas B. Morgan, Cut News Time." Lloyd Morissett, Jack Nessel, Jorge Schement, with a population over 500,000, a televi- As an old war horse who has traversed George Stoney, Lionel Van Deerlin, Albert Warren, sion station went for $18 million? The rea- the jousting arenas of journalism, I think Herbert Wilkins. Editorial Advisory Board: Erik Barnouw, George son is not hard to find: Oakland has one more than 9 percent of the stations should Bonham, David Burnham, John Mack Carter, James newspaper while Jacksonville has five cut back their news. Some do it so poorly, Chace, Jean Firstenberg, Fred W. Friendly, David television stations. with such untrained, unqualified people, Lachenbruch, Michael Rice, William Sheehan. What can one make of Fore's compari- that it undermines the credibility of the CHANNELS of Communications (ISSN 0276-1572) is published bimonthly by the Media Commentary sons of spectrum space to more familiar others. Council, Inc., a not -for-profit corporation. Volume 3, public resources? Forests have trees, Let us not require that news be done, Number 3, Sept/Oct, 1983. Copyright © 1983 by the fisheries have fish, rivers have water, and no matter how poorly. Perhaps your laud- Media Commentary Council, Inc. All rights public reserved. Subscriptions: $18 a year. All foreign parks offer beauty and space. But able desire to have both more and better countries add $6 per year. Please address all a sliver of spectrum space is empty and news creates an illusion that more is bet- subscription mail to CHANNELS of Communications, useless until a broadcaster fills it with ter.