Interview of Newton Minnow, former FCC chair, by Studs Terkel.
Audio runs 46 minutes, transcript available at link.
Discussion includes advertising, business performance metrics (ratings), programming quality (Minnow's most famous phrase is "the Great Wasteland"), and educational television, amongst others.
This is part of the excellent Studs Terkel archive at WFMT which spans seven decades.
It's said that when "Gilligan's Island" was written, they'd intentionally named the shipwrecked boat after that FCC commissioner decrying TV's great wasteland.
I only just heard that myself. Trying to sort out where ... I'm pretty sure it was Thomas Hazlett, himself former chief economist at the FCC, speaking on the Yale University Press podcast, "The Politics of the Airwaves" episode (June 9, 2017).
Audio runs 46 minutes, transcript available at link.
Discussion includes advertising, business performance metrics (ratings), programming quality (Minnow's most famous phrase is "the Great Wasteland"), and educational television, amongst others.
This is part of the excellent Studs Terkel archive at WFMT which spans seven decades.