In 1952, the broadcasting industry’s trade association, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), sought to sanitize television content via its self-regulatory document, the Television Code. The Code covered everything from the stories and characters to the images and sounds of TV programs, disallowing profanity, illicit sex and drinking, negative portrayals of family life and law enforcement officials, and irreverence for God and nation.
Using archival documents from the Federal Communications Commission, NBC, the NAB, and a television reformer, Senator William Benton, this book explores the run-up to the adoption of the 1952 Television Code from the perspectives of the government, TV viewers, local broadcasters, national networks, and the industry’s trade association. Deborah L. Jaramillo analyzes the competing motives and agendas of each of these groups as she builds a convincing case that the NAB actually developed the Television Code to protect commercial television from reformers who wanted more educational programming, as well as from advocates of subscription television, an alternative model to the commercial system. By agreeing to self-censor content that viewers, local stations, and politicians found objectionable, Jaramillo concludes, the NAB helped to ensure that commercial broadcast television would remain the dominant model for decades to come.
Publisher: University of Texas Press (2018)