Air Waves "are in the Public Domain": Public Television Advocacy in the 1950s

Abstract: Although educational radio stations flourished in the early 1920s--more than 200 existed prior to the introduction of network radio in 1926--most faltered shortly thereafter. One reason was the alignment of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), created by legislation declaring that the airwaves belonged to the public, with commercial interests. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) replaced the FRC in 1934, educational, religious, and labor groups promoted an amendment requiring the allocation of one-fourth of all broadcast licenses to nonprofit organizations. The amendment failed to pass, and by 1937, only 38 educational radio stations remained in operation. In 1948, as sales of televisions skyrocketed, Freida B. Hennock, the first female FCC commissioner, began a campaign to assign channel frequencies for nonprofit, educational use. Advocates backing Hennock documented the high number of acts or threats of violence shown to children every week on commercial television broadcasts. Consequently, when the FCC in 1952 added UHF (ultra high frequency) channels to the existing VHF (very high frequency) channels, they reserved 10 percent for use by nonprofit educational organizations. In the following testimony to a 1955 Congressional subcommittee, Hennock advocated oversight of commercial television by governmental and civic bodies and championed educational television. The testimony from the general manager of a new Pittsburgh educational station, William Wood, follows. Wood emphasized the lack of violence in his 'poverty stricken' station_s programming and included excerpts from fan mail praising an acclaimed children_s show, The Children's Corner , a program co-produced by Fred Rogers, who later created, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood . Until 1967, however, when the Federal government established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to appropriate funds for public television, non-commercial stations struggled to survive.

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