Target: Prime Time: Advocacy Groups and the Struggle Over Entertainment Television

289 Pages·1990·14.72 MB·English

by  Kathryn C. Montgomery

TARGET: PRIME TIME
COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY
edited by George Gerbner and Marsha Siefert
IMAGE ETHICS
The Moral Rights of Subjects
in Photographs, Film, and Television
Edited by Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz,
and Jay Ruby
CENSORSHIP
The Knot That Binds Power and Knowledge
By Sue Curry Jansen
THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
Transformations in World Life and Media in
the 21st Century
By Marshall McLuhan and Bruce R. Powers
SPLIT SIGNALS
Television and Politics in the Soviet Union
By Ellen Mickiewicz
TARGET: PRIME TIME
Advocacy Groups and the
Struggle over Entertainment Television
By Kathryn C. Montgomery
TELEVISION AND AMERICA'S CHILDREN
A Crisis of Neglect
By Edward L. Palmer
PLAYING DOCTOR
Television, Storytelling, and Medical Power
By Joseph Turow
TARGET:
PRIME TIME
Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over
Entertainment Television
Kathryn C. Montgomery
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petalingjaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1989 by Kathryn C. Montgomery
First published in 1989 by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1990
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Montgomery, Kathryn.
Target: prime time : advocacy groups and the struggle
over entertainment television /
Kathryn C. Montgomery.
p. cm. Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Minorities in television. I. Title. II. Title: Advocacy
groups and the struggle over entertainment television.
PN 1992.8.M54M66 1989
305.8'0973-~dc 19 88-23287 CIP
ISBN 0-19-504964-0
ISBN 0-19-506320-1 (pbk.)
2468 10 9753
Printed in the United States of America
Preface
In 1977, prime-time television was under attack on several fronts:
the PTA had just put the networks "on probation" for exces-
sive violence; the U.S. Civil Rights Commission had accused
the TV industry of discrimination against women and minori-
ties; and church groups were trying to keep the provocative
new ABC comedy, Soap, from reaching the airwaves. While these
events were making headlines, I was immersed in doctoral
coursework at UCLA and teaching part-time at California State
University, Los Angeles.
As a student and teacher of the mass media, I was struck by
the fact that, with all the discussion and debate about "pres-
sure groups," there was very little understanding of their im-
pact on television. I was also aware of a marked dissonance
between the official statements network executives made to the
press and the first-hand accounts I was getting from friends in
the television business. And I could see that many people out-
side the industry—including a number of the advocacy groups
trying to influence television—were confused about the way
the networks operated, often acting according to conventional
wisdom which was usually inaccurate or incomplete.
I was curious about several things: Were advocacy groups
having any significant impact on entertainment programming,
or were they just a minor aggravation to the networks? Were
these groups—as was often charged—responsible for making
TV programming bland, or were they having a more positive
influence? How was the powerful institution of network tele-
vision coping with pressures from outside?
vi Preface
I began to pursue these questions as a possible doctoral the-
sis. My professors were understandably skeptical about such a
project, warning me that few people in the industry would agree
to talk to me on the record about this issue. And some of my
first interviews at the networks seemed to bear this out. "For
all I know," charged one executive as he eyed me suspiciously,
"you could be writing a blueprint for pressure groups!" Even-
tually I decided to focus my dissertation research on a case study
of the gay activists, reported to be one of the most successful
advocacy groups. I found gay organizations extremely cooper-
ative, not only consenting to lengthy interviews but also mak-
ing their files (which included extensive correspondence with
the networks) available to me. This information, along with in-
terviews of network executives, producers, and writers, formed
the basis of my dissertation, which was completed in 1979. (Part
of that research has been incorporated into Chapter 5 of this
book.)
At the end of my study I was even more intrigued. I knew
that I had been able to see only a small part of the entire pic-
ture. The experience had given me a fresh perspective on the
subject, opening up new doors and raising more questions. It
had also sharpened my research skills and equipped me with
a basic understanding of how the system worked.
During the next few years I avidly followed developments
between advocacy groups and network television. Although I
didn't have the time to do more formal research, teaching in
Los Angeles made it possible to keep track of ongoing events
at close hand. I frequently had TV industry representatives and
advocacy group leaders lecture to my classes. And I was pres-
ent at several critical events.
In 1980, I took my students to hear Federal Communications
Commission chairman Charles Ferris address a group of blacks
in the industry. It was during this event that the controversy
over NBC's Beulah Land suddenly burst into the public spot-
light. As the battle escalated, I followed it closely.
The next year, I participated in a dramatic three-day confer-
ence on "The Proliferation of Pressure Groups in Prime Time."
At this meeting—open to the press but closed to advocacy
groups—network executives, producers, writers, advertisers,
Preface vii
journalists, and scholars hotly debated the issues raised by the
recent wave of pressures on the industry.
In 1982, I attended a follow-up meeting in Aspen, Colorado.
This time, a handpicked set of advocacy group leaders had been
invited to sit down with network representatives in order to
hammer out "rules of the game" for dealing with network tele-
vision. The press was barred from attending. What became clear
to me was that there were already in place unwritten industry
rules governing the relationship between advocacy groups and
the networks. These "rules of the game" had never been made
public.
By this time I had become so engrossed in the subject that I
knew I had to write a book. My appointment to the UCLA
faculty gave me the time and institutional support I needed to
accomplish such a major project.
Since virtually no research had been done in this area, I had
few models to follow for my work. Fortunately, there were some
studies on decision making in television that I was able to draw
upon for background and guidance. During the early stages of
my doctoral research, for example, I found Edward Jay Ep-
stein's pioneering 1974 book, News from Nowhere, particularly
insightful at documenting the role played by organizational
structures and policies in shaping network news stories and
broadcasts. The work of Muriel Cantor, especially her study of
Hollywood TV producers, was also an important influence.
George Gerbner's study during the 1950s of the operations of
the network censorship departments and Robert Pekurny's 1977
doctoral dissertation on the structure and operation of NBC's
Broadcast Standards department both gave me useful back-
ground material.
As I continued my own investigation, I was encouraged by
the work of a small, but growing, group of media scholars who
were also examining the internal processes of entertainment
television. Geoffrey Cowan's book, See No Evil, gave a lively
and informative behind-the-scenes account of the pressures over
TV violence. Joseph Turow's articles and his book, Media Indus-
tries, provided a comprehensive description and analysis of in-
stitutional structures and processes. Horace Newcomb and
viii Preface
Robert S. Alley's collection of interviews with prominent tele-
vision producers (The Producer's Medium) provided a context for
better understanding the production community. And finally,
Todd Gitlin's 1983 study, Inside Prime Time, was particularly
valuable for its "thick description" of the televison industry
subculture.
I conducted my research on two levels. The first was designed
to establish the broad contours of the relationship between ad-
vocacy groups and network televison. I talked to as many group
leaders and industry representatives as possible, and surveyed
a wide range of primary and secondary published material. My
second level of research was a series of detailed case studies
examining the most significant groups, protests, and pressure
campaigns.
Much of the primary data in this book comes from my inter-
views with advocacy group leaders, network executives, pro-
ducers and writers. Given the highly charged nature of the
subject matter, some people declined to be interviewed. Others
could not be found. But a surprisingly large number of people
did agree to talk to me. While interviews are an effective means
of understanding peoples' attitudes and perceptions, they are
not always sufficient as research sources, because of selective
memory and intentional or unintentional distortions. To com-
pensate for this limitation—and for the unavailability of some
participants—I corroborated many of the facts from interviews
with accounts from others involved in particular incidents. I
also used information from newspapers and trade publications,
as well as primary documents such as scripts and correspon-
dence.
As the title of the book suggests, this study is restricted to
efforts at influencing network prime-time programs. For that
reason, groups involved with other areas of television pro-
gramming have been mentioned only in passing. I also touch
only briefly on those aspects of early TV history that others
have written about at length. (For example, I do not spend much
time on the anti-communist blacklist in television.)
A word about citations. At the suggestion of my editors, in
Preface i
x
an attempt to make the book easier to read, I have collapsed
the references and explanatory notes for each paragraph into a
single entry. These appear in the Notes section at the end of
the book.
The story that unfolds within these pages is a continuing one,
As I write these words, new developments are taking place,
adding twists and turns to the ongoing narrative. There will be
many further changes over time, some of which I've tried to
anticipate in the last chapter. These will be strongly influenced
by the relationships, mechanisms, and processes that I have
documented. It is my hope that this book will prove valuable—
to the general public, to students of the media, and to policy-
makers—for its insights into an area that has remained murky
and misunderstood for too long.
Los Angeles, California Kathryn C. Montgomery
August 1988