Television and the Public Interest  

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"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you — and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland."

--"Television and the Public Interest" (1961) by Newton N. Minow

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The Wasteland Speech was given by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton N. Minow on May 9, 1961:

This speech is properly titled "Television and the Public Interest". It was a landmark speech for the medium of television, at a time when there were only three networks in the United States and when the realm of television was much less vast than it is today.

Minow often remarks that the two words best remembered from the speech are "vast wasteland," but the two words he wishes would be remembered are "public interest."

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Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Television and the Public Interest" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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