Public Broadcasting Act of 1967

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The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (

The act charged the CPB with encouraging and facilitating program diversity, and expanding and developing non-commercial broadcasting. The CPB would have the funds to help local stations create innovative programs, thereby increasing the service of broadcasting in the public interest throughout the country.^[2]

Background

A need of improvement to educational television -- as radio was not initially considered in further improvement of noncommercial broadcasting -- began in 1964 in the Democratic Party Platform with calls for a bolstering of education in general and a line dedicated to the enhancement of educational television throughout the U.S.^[3] Public interest in educational television was brought about by the proposals by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television and the Ford Foundation.^[4]

Provisions

Title I of the Public Broadcasting Act details the costs of upgrading educational broadcasting, both for radio and television, as well as establishes how much of the money budgeted to educational broadcasting can be granted to broadcasters in each state and how that granted money is used.^[5]

Title II establishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as a nonprofit corporation tasked with aiding in the creation, development, and funding of noncommercial educational television and radio networks and programming, as well as creating programming for noncommercial educational networks to use and broadcast to the public. Created programs that are controversial should be objective and present a balance of opinions. Likewise, the corporation cannot support any political candidate nor any political party. The CPB was granted $9 million to use during its first year of operation, no more than $250,000 of which was to be granted by the CPB to noncommercial educational stations. The Act also calls for the establishment of a Board of Directors made up of 15 individuals chosen by the president and confirmed by Senate whose duty it is to initially set up the CPB and to continue to facilitate its actions. These directors serve six year terms, two of which may be served consecutively.^[5]

Title III allows and grants money for a study to be done by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in order to ascertain how educational broadcasting can be improved further.^[5]

Minor amendments were also made to other areas of the Communications Act of 1934 -- previously only containing language pertaining to and directly addressing television -- to include radio broadcasting in its oversight.^[5]

Legislative history

On April 11, 1967, the Senate Subcommittee on Communications held their hearing on the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. In the proceedings of the hearing, all of the witnesses who appeared voiced their support for the general purposes of the bill, and the majority supported the passage of the legislation as it was currently drafted. The majority of witnesses' testimonies focused on providing the legislators with information about how the CPB should operate in regards to specific topics related to the witnesses' fields of expertise, but not necessarily ideas or suggestions that warranted the addition, removal, or editing of any of the bill's provisions. Some voiced concern over the government involvement in the operations of the would-be Corporation for Public Broadcasting, worrying that the provisions of the bill that established the apolitical nature of the corporation were not strong enough. Several other witnesses whose backgrounds were in the commercial broadcasting industry urged the committee to authorize the immediate use of satellite technology by the CPB.^[6]

The debate of the bill on the Senate floor was mostly in favor of the passage of the bill as passed by committee with a few amendments which aligned with the original intent of the bill; however, the same was not the case in the House. On the House floor during debate, an amendment proposed by

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into law on November 7, 1967, he described its purpose as:

It announces to the world that our nation wants more than just material wealth; our nation wants more than a 'chicken in every pot.' We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act.^[9]

It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities. It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and its potential use throughout the world. Finally — and most important — it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."^[9]

Most political observers viewed the Act as a component of Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives intended to increase governmental support for health, welfare, and educational activities in the U.S. The support that the Act and similar legislation addressing other matters received reflected the liberal consensus of the period.

Educational television

In addition to the progress made by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, other areas such as educational television (ETV) made headway as well. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had reserved almost 250 channel frequencies for educational stations in 1953,^[10] although, seven years later, only 44 such stations were in operation.^[11] However, by 1969, the number of stations had climbed to 175.

Each week, the National Education Television and Radio Center (renamed National Educational Television in 1963) aired a few hours of relatively inexpensive programs to educational stations across the country. These programs were produced by a plethora of stations across the nation, such as WGBH in Boston, WTTW in Chicago, and KQED in San Francisco. Unfortunately, with the growth of commercial radio and television, the more poorly-funded educational programming was being largely ignored by the American public. The higher budgets of the commercial networks and stations were making it difficult for the educational programs to attract viewers' attention, due to their smaller budgets and, thus, lower production values.

Networks and stations that previously aired a modest amount of educational programming began to eschew it in the early 1960s in favor of a near-total emphasis on commercial entertainment programs because they lured more people, and thus more advertising dollars. Locally-run, nonprofit television and radio tried to "fill in the gaps"^[12] but, due to the technological gap created by budget constraints (typically caused by being no more than a line item on a municipality, state, or university's annual budget that could not be adjusted in the middle of a year to address arising needs), it was increasingly difficult to produce programming with high production values that viewers had become accustomed to.

In 1965, the increasing distance between commercial and educational programming and audience size led to the Carnegie Corporation of New York ordering its Commission on Education Television to conduct a study of the American ETV system and, from that study, derive changes and recommendations for future action regarding ETV. The report created from the study was published about two years later and became a "catalyst and model"^[11] for the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

With the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, smaller television and radio broadcasters, operated usually by community organizations, state and local governments, or universities, were able to be seen and heard by a wider range of

Many adults and children today would have grown up without some of the more well-known

CPB was created and funded by the federal government; it does not produce or distribute any programming.[14]

NPR is a multimedia news organization and radio program producer, with member stations and supporters nationwide.^[16]

See also

• Federal Communications Commission
• Freedom of speech in the United States

References

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Public Broadcasting Act of 1967

External links

• The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Dedicated public servant Dean W. Coston helped write the Public Broadcasting act and ensured the inclusion of radio programming. His papers may be found at the University of Maryland Libraries.