Bio

Like radio for a previous generation, television has the ability to penetrate the private home, and its potential of intrusiveness has been the subject of concern. It is, after all, a “guest” in the home, and in that capacity it is able to serve the public interest–informing, instructing, and enlightening. It also has the power, recognized early on, to serve private interests driven by the desire for economic gain. The Keen awareness of potential confrontation between service on the one hand and the desire for laissez-faire operation on the other historically led to another set of possible conflicts–between self-regulation and regulation by government. The U.S. broadcasting industry placed its faith and its interests in self-regulation.

The industry created its own Code of Broadcasting, which consisted of eight “rules. Four had to do with advertising and concern over “overcommercialization.” The other rules dealt with general operations and responsible programming: no “fraudulent, deceptive, or obscene” material. Many of these same ideas and even the language appeared again in the Television Code established in the early 1950s. 

Early on, a vexing problem for the code, a potential problem in any ethical system, surfaced. It was the issue of penalties for violating the code. As in any system of self-regulated ethics, there was little room for harsh sanctions. The only penalty called for violators to be investigated and notified. Later, the penalty was strengthened by adding notification of violations to the broadcast community–the threat of ostracism among colleagues. When television came to the scene, American radio had recently experienced rapid growth in its commercialization. With that growth came continuing threats of further, more far-reaching regulation from the Federal Communications Commission. In an effort to keep the government regulators at bay, the broadcasters’ Code of Good Practice became more definitive. One of the main elements focused on regulation of the amount of time that should be devoted to commercials. 

The evolution of the code can be seen by examining the use of commercial time in the 1930s. While there could be some advertising (of a goodwill nature) before 6:00 p.m., according to the code, “commercial announcements, as the term is generally understood, should not be broadcast between 7 and 11 p.m.” That restriction then evolved to allow increased broadcasting of commercial messages to 5 minutes, then 10, and then 18 by 1970. When television assumed a dominant place and broadcasting, beginning in the early 1950s, the rules affecting commercial time in that medium evolved the same way, increasing the allowed time slowly over the years.

Although the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) created a separate set of ethical guidelines for television, distinct from radio, the existing concerns were applied to the newer medium: time limits of advertising, types of products advertised, fraud (especially in advertising), directed to children. Other program themes, obviously taboo in their times, such as sexual suggestiveness and explicit violence, were also addressed.

At the same time, each U.S. network installed its own staff for network Standards and Practices (S and P) to enforce the network’s particular policies for advertising and programming. These were the offices and individuals often thought of as “network censors.” Large corporations also created statements of policies concerning their professional ethics as related to broadcasting.

These network and Company rules for self-regulation were supplementary to the NAB’s continuation of its two nationally visible codes, one for radio and one for television. These codes, however, were becoming unwieldy. A dozen or so pages of the Television Code of Good Practice contained a long list of programming prohibitions: hypnotism, occultism, and astrology as well as obscene, profane, or indecent material and programs that ridiculed those with disabilities.

Still, the NAB codes remained an important public relations device for the industry. At the apex of the codes’ use, NAB President Vince Wasilewski stated “Our Codes are not peripheral activities. No activity of NAB is closer to the public.”

As social mores changed and social and cultural climates became more permissive, so too did television programming. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the code seemed hopelessly outdated, continually violated, unforeseeable, and generally ignored by the broadcasters.

In 1982, when advertisers were lined up for a limited amount of available time on the television networks, it appeared that the networks gave fever for its best to time slots to the largest advertisers. Displeased, one of the smaller advertisers pointed out this practice to the U.S. Justice Department, claiming unfair competitive practices, a violation of antitrust laws. The Justice Department took action against the NAB because, it said, the NAB code, which limited the amount of available commercial time, was responsible for the network practice. The court agreed and ordered the NAB to purge that part of the code. After some initial hesitancy, the NAB agreed.

For eight years, from 1982 to 1990, neither radio nor television in the United States had a code of professional ethics. During that., research showed that although the networks and some large corporate broadcasters had their own codes (or standards and practices), there still seemed to be no universal guidance. One study, based on a national sample of broadcast managers, suggested that broadcasters preferred self-regulation rather than government regulation. It also suggested some concern that without such self-regulation, government regulation might increase.

In 1990, the NAB issued a new “Statement of Principles of Radio and Television Broadcasting,” designed as a brief, general document intended to reflect the generally accepted standards of American broadcasting. The statement encouraged broadcasters to write individually their own specific policies. It also encouraged responsible and careful judgment in the selection of materials for broadcast rather than forming a list of prohibitions, as was the case with the old code. Caution was advised in dealing with violence, drugs and substance abuse, and sexually oriented materials, but there was also positive encouragement for responsible artistic freedom and responsibility in children's programming. These statements made it clear that these principles are advisory rather than restrictive. Finally, the 1990 statement mentioned First Amendment rights of free speech and encouraged broadcasters to align themselves with the audiences’ expectations and the public interest. In sum, the new philosophy concerning ethics and broadcasting reveals that (1) they are advisory rather than prohibitive; (2) they should be centered in individual stations or corporations rather than a national organization like the NAB; (3) since there is no provision for monitoring and enforcement on the national level, any concerns about ethics should come from Individual stations and listeners/viewers; and (4) the decentralization of Ethics may be indicative of a pluralistic society, where values and mores reflect distinct group perspectives rather than a national standard.

Some observers bemoan the fact that there is no national visible standard–no way of measuring whether the language of a daring new television program is actually on the “cutting edge” or merely “bravado bunk.” Yet since the broadcast industry itself has been largely deregulated, the question remains whether this means there is now room for more self-regulation or whether self-regulation itself should also be deregulated.