Primetime Propaganda

by Ben Shapiro

  The Family Viewing Hour debacle, then, is not a story of conservatives in the industry attempting to curb television’s wayward tendencies. It is a story of the industry attempting to prevent governmental censorship at all costs in order to preserve popular left-leaning programming, and a concomitant story of business rivals attempting to gain competitive advantage. Those two competing forces are, in a nutshell, the story of Hollywood overall.

  FIGHTING THE RIGHT-WING INTEREST GROUPS

  The Family Viewing Hour frightened creators within the television industry and bothered many executives. But it did not release their full fury.

  That fury was reserved for the Religious Right. By the late 1970s, it was becoming clear that television was awash in sex. One study showed that a single week in primetime television in 1979 depicted 806 sex incidents. That included four depictions of implied intercourse, 208 incidents of sexual language, and 331 instances of innuendo.48

  The Religious Right mobilized. Led by Rev. Donald Wildmon’s National Federation for Decency and Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, religious Americans began protesting the vast quantities of sex and liberalism they were receiving via their television sets. Soon, Wildmon and Falwell joined forces under the rubric of the Coalition for Better Television (CBTV). Their protests had an effect on advertisers, who responded to the market. In 1978, after being labeled as the nation’s third-largest advertiser on sex-soaked programs by Wildmon, Sears pulled its sponsorship from Three’s Company. Overall, by mid-1981, advertisers were withdrawing 5 to 8 percent of their commercials from controversial programs.49

  This freaked out the powers-that-be in television, who see any conservative boycott as a repeat of the Salem witch trials. In May 1981, television’s creators and executives got together in scenic Ojai, California, to batten down the hatches against the conservative onslaught. Grant Tinker of NBC trembled over the “galvanizing specter” of the religious right, which he labeled, “the first group to attack the entire medium.” (This was an inaccurate label—the religious right would have had nothing to complain about if television had been a steady diet of Gunsmoke reruns and episodes of The Waltons.) “We will not change or remove any of our programs. Although TV is today’s target, movies, books, magazines, and newspapers will not be far behind,” CBS senior vice president Gene Mater said.

  Thomas Wyman of CBS was most vehement, slandering the CBTV and the Moral Majority as “a constitutionally immoral minority” trying to “disenfranchise the real majority of viewers from making their own decisions about what to watch.” He said that Wildmon and Falwell “strike at the heart of the American ideal of a free marketplace. We must make it clear that what is at stake is not the propriety of the networks but the freedom of the airwaves.”50

  This was just plain dumb. The freedom of the airwaves includes the freedom of people to vote with their remotes, and with the dollars they spend on products—in fact, it’s those freedoms that make the freedom of the airwaves possible in the first place. Falwell and Wildmon were simply participating in the market of television, and the television executives and creators didn’t like it. The utter scorn in which Hollywood holds the Religious Right is incredible. Susan Harris, whose Soap became, according to her, “the first fatality of the Moral Majority,” sums up the Hollywood feeling about the Religious Right well: “Idiots talking. . . . There are a lot of people who really have medieval minds in all sorts of ways. Who aren’t open to anything new. Aren’t open to anything reasonable. Think science is a matter of belief. And that’s who you’re dealing with. People ran out and bought guns because they thought Obama was going to take their guns away. This is what you have out there. It’s not an audience, I think, I could ever speak to.”51 Falwell and Wildmon represented the vast unwashed; television wouldn’t stand for any attempt by those rubes to recapture control of the airwaves.

  For a while, that didn’t stop Falwell and Wildmon. They were able to wield enough power to cut down shows like Love, Sidney, a relatively innocuous series about a gay man played by Tony Randall.52 They also brought economic pressure to bear on shows like thirtysomething, which lost $1 million in advertising by broadcasting two men together in bed. Objectively speaking, this was no different from gay groups threatening boycotts of Soap. But for the Hollywood left, this was an outrage.53

  It was almost impossible for targeted boycotting to work against an entire industry determined to promote particular messages and values. Despite Wildmon’s and Falwell’s efforts, the industry continued to promulgate the material with which it agreed—and because the industry was virtually homogeneous, it was almost impossible for Wildmon and Falwell to succeed. By 1991, according to Wildmon’s American Family Association, NBC, CBS, and ABC primetime television broadcast more than ten thousand sexual “incidents” annually; the ratio of single people having sex to married people having sex was fourteen to one. These incredible statistics were confirmed in part by a survey carried out by a Florida State University professor, who found that between 1979 and 1989, sex talk and sex acts rose dramatically on television. The FCC, following television’s lead, actually loosened restrictions on the network affiliates in 1987, allowing “indecent” programming to dominate television between midnight and 6 A.M. Just three years later, the FCC went even further, allowing affiliates to run “indecent” material anytime from eight P.M. to six A.M.54 So much for the Family Viewing Hour!

  In order for the Religious Right to have had any lasting overall impact, conservatives would have had to boycott not just one or two target sponsors, but a vast array of sponsors advertising on a vast array of shows. The television industry is a hydra—no matter how many advertisers are cut off, others will surely rise to take their place. And the television industry has demonstrated that it is unwilling to come to the table with conservative interest groups in the same way it routinely comes to the table with liberal interest groups. That left the Religious Right with one real alternative: Turn off the television. That’s what the Religious Right did in some measure. And the predictable result was the conservative movement’s self-excision from the television community, aiding and abetting the discrimination that goes on daily in Tinseltown.

  WHY HOLLYWOOD NEEDS THE TRIANGLE

  So why does the Hollywood community take liberal interest groups so seriously, while ignoring conservative interest groups? It’s not just because liberals dominate the television industry. It’s because members of the television industry have an interest in bigger government generally: They recognize that if they push leftist programs and leftist politicians and work with leftist interest groups to do so, they’ll help convert the American voter to put their buddies in power.

  And it is bigger government that has given Hollywood oligopoly. In the same way that welfare recipients vote Democrat to ensure the continuation of their welfare checks, Hollywood pushes liberal messages at least in part to ensure the free flow of laws that help them out. If there were open competition in the television world, no doubt rates would drop for advertising, payment would drop for writers, actors, and producers, and networks would have to compete on an even footing with entrants into the market. Right now, it’s an extremely lucrative industry for everyone inside the industry—and everyone else is a waiter. That’s the way the industry likes it.

  In the beginning, members of the television industry had a thoroughly contrarian view toward government. They wanted as little of it as possible. They wanted to be left alone to pursue their profit making. They objected to governmental regulation. But as the industry matured—as the honchos began to protect their territory—they began to realize that governmental relations could benefit them. The networks, the creators, the producers all began to work hand in glove with the government and government officials. Instead of the industry being purely capitalist, it became corporatist.

  Today, you will never see a tax-cutting argument in a scripted television show, even though you’ll see hundreds of arguments about the m
erits of climate-change legislation or antismoking regulations. You’ll see rips about Dick Cheney but never a word about Joe Biden. You’ll hear about the merits of gay marriage and abortion, but you’ll never hear about the human rights case for the war in Iraq. The Democratic Party agenda, combined with the interests of the liberal interest groups, predominates.

  Liberals in Hollywood support liberal interest groups who support liberals in government. That’s because Hollywood is being paid off by the government on a regular basis, as we’ll explore next.

  The Government-Hollywood Complex

  How Hollywood Became the Federal Government’s PR Firm

  We’ve already heard liberals in television talk up the merits of the free market in defending their liberal programming. If they took their own rhetoric seriously, they’d realize that government usually serves only to quash business’s profit-making capacity—in other words, they’d be conservatives.

  Yet they still program in favor of big government.

  Why? Because government doesn’t quash profit making in Hollywood. To the contrary, with the help of the government, TV’s powers-that-be are able to retain and maximize their oligopoly, crowding out competition. Executives and creators in television aren’t interested in the free market—they’re too busy swallowing subsidies from the government at the expense of the taxpayer and their potential competitors.

  It’s not that the executives in Hollywood need an unfair advantage because they’re untalented. In fact, it is their immense talent in business that drives them toward manipulation of the market by working with government. The problem isn’t truly Hollywood—it’s the vast growth of government unforeseen by the Founding Fathers. Once government became a grab bag of cash and favorable regulation, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood, like all other businesses, took advantage. Hollywood works just like GM: It’s bloated, unwieldy, and unionized. When its product is good, it does well. When its product declines, it goes to the government for a handout.

  Liberals in government are only too happy to help out Hollywood. Unlike GM, however, Hollywood doesn’t help out its friends by throwing around cash. Instead, Hollywood goes directly to the public, teaching audiences why they should vote liberal. While other businesses simply make campaign payoffs to get what they want from legislators, Hollywood is an opinion-making and opinion-shaping business.

  Hollywood is the most powerful actor in the hierarchy of free speech. It uses that free speech to put money in its own pocket by aiding its political allies in government, destroying its political enemies, and then hiding behind the First Amendment when people complain. In return, it only asks a little help from its governmental friends.

  “I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU”

  The buddy-buddy relationship between television’s power brokers and government actors is well-documented—executives and creators in the industry work together.

  That’s been true since the beginning. Because television has historically been intertwined with government, television honchos have cultivated close relationships with those who regulate them. David Sarnoff of NBC, despite his economically conservative leanings, quickly learned that connections with the government could be most useful. He cultivated a friendship with FDR; during the FDR administration, Sarnoff even helped the president install a recording system in the Oval Office.1 During World War II, FDR often used Sarnoff, skillfully deploying him all over the globe. During that time, Sarnoff found himself in direct communication with FDR on a consistent basis.2 Such kindnesses did not go unrewarded: When FDR appointed commissioners to the newly formed FCC in 1934, he appointed “friends of the industry.” He even took part in NBC’s Washington headquarters grand opening, and on RCA’s 25th birthday in 1944, he penned a celebratory letter to Sarnoff.3

  Sarnoff didn’t get along as well with President Truman (Truman actually thought Sarnoff hated him),4 but he loved Eisenhower, particularly because he had served directly under him during World War II. He supported Nixon and became part of his inner circle during the 1960 election cycle—in fact, Nixon’s supporters later blamed Sarnoff personally for convincing Nixon to appear in the famous Kennedy-Nixon debate in which he blew the election (though Sarnoff claimed they never discussed the matter).5 He had a wary but respectful relationship with LBJ—then-Senator Johnson once referred to RCA as “a key element in our defense structure.”6 In return for Sarnoff’s support of major politicians, NBC was granted regulatory largesse, particularly with regard to experimentation on color television.

  The same held true at ABC, where Leonard Goldenson cultivated government figures on a regular basis. Goldenson received business advice from Senator John Pastore (D-Rhode Island), despite the fact that ABC was television’s most prominent purveyor of television violence, and Pastore was Congress’s most ardent foe of television violence. Suspiciously enough, Pastore advised Goldenson how to build his news department (a Senator advising a major network on its news coverage tactics certainly isn’t altruistic). Pastore informed Goldenson that ABC would be wise to “build a more competitive news and public affairs operation in order to enhance its public image.” Goldenson, recognizing an offer he couldn’t refuse, acted quickly, snapping up Dwight Eisenhower’s press secretary, James Hagerty, to act as president of ABC’s news division. Hagerty would end up playing a role in the denouement of the Cuban Missile Crisis, acting as go-between for the Russians and the Kennedy Administration.7

  Goldenson also had an exceedingly warm relationship with the Kennedy clan. Because of that closeness, he forced Mike Wallace to back down from allegations made by columnist Drew Pearson (whose philosophy Goldenson wrongly described as “right-wing, conspiratorial”) that JFK’s Profiles In Courage had been ghostwritten by JFK speechwriter Theodore Sorenson.8 Of course, as subsequent history has shown, Sorenson did indeed write the book. There can be little doubt that Goldenson’s personal predilection for JFK, whom he called “energetic, witty, warm, courageous” and credited with lighting “the spirited flame of hope . . . in our national consciousness,” contributed to his actions.9

  Goldenson’s fondness for Democratic politicians never waned. Goldenson thought that LBJ was rude, crude, and dictatorial, which he was. Nonetheless, Goldenson was so close with President Lyndon Johnson that he went skinny dipping in the White House pool with him (Eric Massa would have been LBJ’s ideal staffer). Goldenson even allowed LBJ to illegally run a blind trust without reporting him.10

  Bill Paley, a nominal Republican, reached out to the FDR White House in an attempt to warm up Roosevelt. In 1935, Stephen Early, FDR’s press secretary, told FDR, “He is friendly. So is Columbia. Confidentially, I understand that he desires to tell the president something of Columbia’s political policy, plus a willingness to be of service during the campaign.”11 Paley often lunched with FDR at the White House, and in fact, FDR attempted to throw business Paley’s way; according to historian Robert J. Brown, “Paley and the president worked out a plan to expand the scope of [CBS radio’s] shortwave activities to include much of South America.”12

  During the 1930s, even as he tête-à-têted with Roosevelt liberals, Paley allowed anti-FDR sponsors to dominate the airwaves with probusiness messages. When profits were threatened by political partisanship on the airwaves, however, he suddenly swung CBS’s position—CBS, he now said, had to be “wholly, honestly and militantly nonpartisan. . . . We must never have an editorial page.” Then, when it became clear that Eisenhower would become president in 1952, Paley offered Eisenhower a regular slot on CBS, stating, “I feel strongly that you should have a regular platform for the discussion of some of the serious issues confronting the country. . . .” Eisenhower reciprocated by offering Paley a spot in his cabinet, writing, “You’ll be the one man around here who can come into my office at any time without knocking.” Paley turned him down. It was a pattern that would continue the rest of Paley’s life—bowing to governmental actors in order to ensure profit margin, no mat
ter who the politicians were.13

  It was a wonderful time for the networks. The government stood strongly in their corner—government regulation essentially restricted other networks from starting up by limiting the number of “very high frequency” (VHF) channels available, as well as limiting the number of stations that networks could own. This created a situation in which the major cities generally had only three available signals, one owned by each network.14 At the same time, networks couldn’t own more than five VHF stations at a time.15 Following the logic through, this meant that CBS, NBC, and ABC could make profits from the biggest markets and shut out any potential competitors; potential competitors would be relegated to the boonies, where they couldn’t rake in the cash. It was extraordinarily convenient all the way around.

  PANDERING GOES PARTISAN

  The early television honchos connected with every power broker they could find in Washington. That mercenary state of affairs began to break down with the advent of the Vietnam War. The executives continued to try to placate government officials, particularly LBJ; some government officials, like Robert Kintner, were former television executives. But the creators in Hollywood were increasingly upset with the war and with LBJ. For the first time, space emerged between the creators in Hollywood and the executives with regard to the television-government nexus. The liberal consensus that governed everyone in Hollywood was straining.

  The first show to expose that gap between executives and creators was The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tommy Smothers, you’ll remember, was a politically active comedian who identified with the pacifistic hippie movement and consistently ripped LBJ. This irked both LBJ, and by extension, the network; eventually, the show was cancelled.