The broadcasters' insistence on setting and maintaining their own standards goes back to 1921, when engineers were instructed to use an emergency switch in the event that a performer or guest used language or brought up topics that were held to be unsuitable. During radio's first decade, taboos included any mention of price or even the location of a sponsoring store. Later, the networks would have an organist at the ready in a standby studio. A noted incident is said to have occurred in 1932, when a major administration spokesman was reporting on the government's progress in dealing with the Great Depression. He allegedly used the word "damn," a light went on in the standby studio, and the nation heard organ arpeggios.

     By the late 1930s, the networks had established so­-called continuity acceptance procedures to ensure that their advertising policies and federal law were adhered to. Later, as the role of radio in American life became more clearly understood, a body of written policy was articulated, generally on a case-by-case basis, to guide not only advertisers and their agencies but also programmers and producers in entertainment and other programming.

     More than 67 percent of all television stations subscribed to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Code adopted in 1950 (a similar radio code had been in operation since 1935). In addition to provisions that addressed historic concerns respecting the "advancement of education and culture," responsibility toward children, community responsibility, and general program standards, the NAB Code also included advertising standards and time limits for non­ program material defined as "billboards, commercials, promotional announcements and all credits in excess of 30 seconds per program." In 1982, in settlement of an antitrust suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the NAB and the federal government entered into a consent decree abolishing the time standards and the industry-wide limitations on the number and length of commercials they provided. The Code program standards had been suspended in 1976 after a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the "family hour" violated the First Amendment. After the demise of the Code, the networks, which had already developed their own written standards, took over the entire burden.

     Standards-and the broadcasters' efforts to implement them--come to the fore whenever an apparent breach of the implicit obligation to respect the public trust occurs. Notable examples of perceived abuse that resulted in expanding the duties and enlarging standards and practices operations include the celebrated 1938 broadcast by Orson Welles's Mercury Theater of "The War of the Worlds," which simulated a radio broadcast interrupted by news reports describing the landing of Martians; the quiz show scandals of the 1950s; congressional hearings into violence; and concern over the possible blurring of fact and fiction in early docudrama. By 1985, a traditional network's department had no fewer than 80 people on its staff. Each episode of every series was reviewed in script form and as it was recorded.

     With the changes in ownership of the traditional networks, the emergence of the cable networks, and the deregulatory climate, there has been considerable relaxation of the process-not every episode is reviewed once a series is established-but the essential responsibilities of the editors remain the same. These include, in addition to compliance with the law, serving as surrogates for the network's affiliates who are licensed to be responsive to their local communities, reflecting the concerns of advertisers and ensuring that the programming is acceptable to the bulk of the mass audience. This involves serving as guardians of taste with respect to language, sexual, and other materials inappropriate for children and the suitability of advertising, especially of personal products.

     Commercial clearance involves the close screening of more than 50,000 announcements a year, falling into about 70 different product categories. The Federal Trade Commission's statements in the early 1970s that not only permitted but virtually mandated comparative advertising resulted in the establishment of courtlike procedures to adjudicate between advertisers making conflicting claims. By the mid-1980s, at least 25 per­ cent of all commercials contained comparisons to named competitor's products or services.

     Critics contend, with some justification, that standards and practices is anachronistic paternalism at best and most often a form of censorship; the networks claim the publisher's right to exercise their judgment  as  to what is appropriate for broadcast to the American public. The affiliated stations sometimes complain but are generally, though not always, satisfied that the networks are sufficiently vigilant as their surrogates. Network and sales executives worry that the very process of vetting leads to pettifoggery and rigidity. Advertisers rail at the scrupulous insistence that all claims be substantiated, as the law requires. By far the most frequent complaints, however, are heard from the creative community, which argues that the networks are too accommodating of the most conservative members of the audience and  that only by "pushing the envelope" with respect to sex, violence, or language can the medium advance.

     By the beginning of the new millennium, these conflicts reached new intensity. Cable networks such as Home Box Office (HBO) used their status as "subscriber" services to support production of material far too "extreme" for broadcast television or basic cable services. Although HBO could make the claim that it was "not TV, it's HBO," the development of ongoing series such as OZ, The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and The Wire made the channel seem to some like television without standards and to others television with the freedom to create in a manner equal to that of literature or film. These series took full advantage of the opportunity to use strong language and to depict sexual activities and violence in ways unseen in the period of network television dominance. Showtime, another subscriber-supported cable service, adapted Queer as Folk, a British series, for American audiences. In this case, some aspects of the British version were "toned down," suggesting that a form of "standards and practices judgment" was still in place. The success of these and other original for-cable-television programs encouraged both the programmers and the creative community to use the opportunities for more and more "daring" content.

     Recognizing the relative acceptance of these programs and the critical successes accompanying their presentation, other cable outlets began to offer more material that would have been rejected by conventional networks. FX offered The Shield, focused on the complicated character of a corrupt police officer, and Nip/Tuck an exploration of the moral quandaries of cosmetic surgeons. The former contained language, violence, and ethical positions that challenged standard notions of cultural acceptance. while the latter not only depicted sexual activity but also used graphic visual depictions of surgical procedures to define its "realism." Network television followed suit in some ways with relaxation of regulations on language and more daring depictions of sexual activity-often in programs containing "warnings" to viewers that some aspects of the program might be unacceptable. This practice, it seems, throws the decision to "censor" or approve of more "creative," "realistic," or "honest" depictions to the viewer rather than reserve the power of those choices at the industrial level.

     The primary purpose of standards and practices has always been to maintain the networks' most precious asset, its audience-in-being-the delivery of a significant share of television households, hour after hour, to the advertising community. Secondary purposes, historically, have included protecting the networks' images as responsible and responsive institutions, as sources of reliable information and satisfying entertainment for the entire family, and even as precious natural resources. In the final analysis, if the concern for not giving offense has contributed to blandness, it must also be credited for making a commercially sup­ ported national system possible. To the degree that this arrangement has changed, it is a mark of alterations in both society and the media industries.