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Stanton - 16 - 688
Start Session #183822.
 
Boston, March 20023823.
 
Tape 1: Frank Stanton Boston3824.
 
FS: A third of the shareholders, the owner of theproperty, has to get as much circulation as he can get. Andit has to be of a certain kind. And he can do that, but thatisn’t providing a full news service or a responsible newsservice. If he wants market price of stock to go up, he hasto do, in the news area, something I find is not being very responsible. Because I don’t know how you can talk aboutproviding a news service if it’s not broad based and isimbalanced in its output.3825.
 
For example, I thought the other night (phone rings)3826.
 
Q: Before phone rang, talking about responsibility of owner to shareholder or audience. I think your feeling wasthat even though he owned it, he had a responsibility to dothe best news possible if he’s going to do it3827.
 
FS: If he’s going to be in the news business. If heclaims to be a journalist, or rather, an organization of  journalists, in my book he has a responsibility to theaudience. And if he can sell that circulation to anadvertiser, so be it. But don’t let the advertiser determinethe way the news goes in order to get circulation. It’s trueof introducing entertainment into news. You dilute theproduct and in the end, short change the public you’retrying to serve. It happens more and more, I think, than itdid forty years ago. But maybe I’m too narrow in my visionof what happened forty years ago.3828.
 
But Ed Murrow, would never have dreamed of asking the audience what they wanted to hear in the way of news, because he was a distinguished journalist over many  years. He tried to give what he thought was the right
 
Stanton - 16 - 689
 balance of news to the public, rather than being governed by what the public wanted.3829.
 
Q: Saying before phone rang you were watching a program the other night.3830.
 
 Yes, first ten minutes of 22 minute news broadcast was given to the story in Texas of Andrea Yates. The acthad taken place, it had been ventilated day after day, andstill on the particular day in question—I think the day thecast went to the jury—there wasn’t anything in the way of new info. But I guess simply because the journalistresponsible thought that was what the public wasinterested in hearing. There were a lot of other thingshappening in SE Asia and New York that deserved ventilation. Never touched on the broadcast because there wasn’t time. I think that’s the result of mergers. Mergersdemand more in the way of earnings and earnings dependupon circulation. I just find it reprehensible.3831.
 
Q: In the airline industry, rule that foreigners can’town majority of stock. Since owners of major network haveachieved them through getting stock, do you think thegovernment should take a look at who owns the news partsof the entertainment companies. This is far off into thefuture—Disney stock owned by many non-Americans. Whatlimitations should the gov’t put on ownership of  broadcasting.3832.
 
FS: That’s a tough one. I’ve been on both sides of theargument. Age doesn’t give me any wisdom on thatsubject.3833.
 
I’m less concerned about ownership now than forty or fifty years ago. It’s almost a wide-open opportunity. If someone wants to start own radio network, he could do it.Guess he could do it on TV too, but it would cost him moremoney. He could do cable, have a studio, and feed it over whatever distribution system he wants. He has to have a medium to transmit, which means he gets into the FCC.
 
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3834.
 
If I wanted to start a cable system in Columbus OHand I made a deal with the gas works to feed my programnot over the air or on anyone’s line, and I made a deal tofeed it over gas pipes, I don’t know why the FCC wouldhave to meddle. I don’t think they would. Why wouldn’t Ido that? It’s a hell of a price to pay to get away from gov’tregulation. I don’t know any other way I could beat thetelephone company or anybody else in distribution. If Icould get access to the pipelines, I think I’d go a pretty good job.3835.
 
Now you can’t do that geographically. You’d have todo it in each community. How do you link thecommunities? Go back to FCC and get access to carrier.Not an easy thing to do, but I think it could be done. It wouldn’t satisfy me because there’d be large parts of thepopulation that you wouldn’t serve.3836.
 
The great thing about radio is it goes everywhere andhappens in the dark and the light and so forth.3837.
 
Q: Do you think looking back; the American public is better served today than it was forty or fifty years ago?3838.
 
FS: Absolutely.3839.
 
Q: and why is that?3840.
 
FS: Because there’s access for everyone to get theinformation. And fifty years ago you were confined largely to print and print didn’t get deep enough into the cross-section of the population. It was a matter of money. Whocould afford to buy the newspaper?3841.
 
It’s very hard to believe that if someone wasinterested in what’s going on they couldn’t get access to a radio. That’s one of the great things about radios againsttelevision.3842.
 
Q: Are you hungry?
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