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‘The Kind Of Program Service All The People Want’: Pat Weaver’s Failed Fourth Network

2013; Routledge; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2013.858967

1465-3451

Evan Elkins,

Political and Economic history of UK and US

AbstractThis article details former NBC president Sylvester 'Pat' Weaver, Jr.'s attempt to start a fourth American television network in 1957. The development of Weaver's Program Service Network (PSN), and its ultimate failure, represent negotiations of several prominent discourses and practices within the television industry in the 1950s, including certain notions of the public interest, 'high culture' programming and quality audiences, and the changing economics of broadcasting. Drawing from archival evidence, I show that while PSN's fourth-network status may hint initially at a lost opportunity for broader participation in the US broadcasting industries, and thus an alternate path that the medium may have taken, it nevertheless reflected the economics and ideologies of free-market capitalism as well as the tension between commercial imperatives and cultural legitimacy already familiar to the medium in the late 1950s. In spite of Weaver's pronouncements about the oppressive three-network structure, the 'service' offered by Weaver and PSN was presented for the benefit of a handful of advertisers as much as it was for the general public. After offering a brief overview of Weaver and his place in television history and historiography, the article provides a history of PSN and its attempts to sign affiliation agreements with a handful of major-market stations. I look at the failed network not only to contribute to a more complete history of the American television industry, but also to consider how Weaver's failed venture helps us better understand the American network system's success in the face of challenges such as PSN. Notes1 Weaver's tenure at NBC has been documented in the following sources: Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: the evolution of American television (Oxford, 1975); James L. Baughman, Same Time, Same Station: creating American television, 1948–1961 (Baltimore, MD, 2007); Baughman, 'Show business in the living room': management expectations for American television,' Business and Economic History 26(2) (1997), 718–726; William Boddy, Fifties Television: the industry and its critics (Urbana, IL, 1990); Michele Hilmes (ed.), NBC: America's network (Berkeley, CA, 2007); Hilmes, Radio Voices: American broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis, MN, 1997); Vance Kepley, Jr., From 'frontal lobes' to the 'Bob-and-Bob' show: NBC management and programming strategies, 1949–65,' in Tino Balio (ed.), Hollywood in the Age of Television (Cambridge, 1990), 41–61; Kepley, The Weaver years at NBC, Wide Angle 12(2) (1990), 46–63; Pamela Wilson, NBC television's 'operation frontal lobes': cultural hegemony and fifties' program planning, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 15(1) (1995), 83–104.2 Boddy, 103.3 Barnouw, 189.4 Thomas Whiteside, The Communicator: I~Athens Starts Pouring In, New Yorker, October 16, 1954, 37–64; Thomas Whiteside, The Communicator: II~What About the Gratitude Factor? New Yorker, October 23, 1954, 43–76.5 Whiteside, Athens starts Pouring In,' 37, 40, 38.6 Weaver, Sylvester L., Master Communications Plan, September 15, 1958, 1. Box 29, Folder 11. Unless otherwise noted, all archival sources come from the Pat Weaver collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI.7 Kepley, Frontal lobes, 46.8 For example, while his costly, diverse programming schedule may seem like a bold artistic or cultural maneuver, it also served as a 'loss leader' for the network in its period of growth. That is, the network would absorb losses with these particular programs but hook viewers and make more money in the long run. See Kepley, Frontal lobes, 46–48.9 Hilmes, Radio Voices, 286.10 See Wilson, 83–104.11 Jean Seaton, Writing the history of broadcasting, in David Cannadine (ed.), History and the Media (Basingstoke, 2007), 143.12 See Christopher Anderson, Hollywood TV: the studio system in the fifties (Austin, TX, 1994), 137–141; Boddy, 144–149; David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the birth of American television (Philadelphia, PA, 2004), 27–29.13 Weinstein, 27.14 In another indication of DuMont's vestigial role in building future 'fourth networks,' Rupert Murdoch purchased former DuMont outlets in New York and Washington for his upstart Fox Network in 1985. Weinstein, 38.15 Pat Weaver with Thomas M. Coffey, The Best Seat in the House: the golden years of radio and television (New York, 1994), 271–272.16 Baughman, Same Time, 119–120.17 Lewis Marcy Joins Pat Weaver Operations, Billboard, April 29, 1957, 2.18 Sylvester L. Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., November 14, 1957, 1. Box 10, Folder 3. This document is a summary of Weaver Associates, Inc. that Weaver presented to Kaiser Industries Corporation, one of the companies for which Weaver Associates acted as consultant.19 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 1.20 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 2.21 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 3.22 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 3–4.23 Only Pat Could Do It, Tide, June 14, 1957, 44.24 Sylvester L. Weaver, Major Market Program Service Is Now Available, March 25, 1957, Box 7, Folder 18.25 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 4.26 Sylvester L. Weaver, What's Wrong with Television? Tide, April 12, 1957, 14; In fact, a Weaver Associates, Inc. document from March 1957 refers to the venture as the Hi-Spot Network rather than Program Service Network. Fact Sheet on the Hi-Spot Network, March 25, 1957, Box 7, Folder 18.27 Weaver, What's Wrong, 11–12; Harlan M. Blake and Jack A. Blum, Network television rate practices: a case study in the failure of social control of price discrimination,' Yale Law Journal 74(8) (1965), 1350–1351.28 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 12.29 Pat Weaver Also Envisions Doing Business With NBC, CBS, ABC Affils, Variety, April 17, 1957, 36.30 Ibid.31 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 12.32 J.P. Shanley Idea Man at Work, New York Times, April 14, 1957, X13.33 Weaver, What's Wrong, 11.34 Weaver, What's Wrong, 12.35 Weaver, What's Wrong, 12.36 Weaver, What's Wrong, 14.37 Weaver, What's Wrong, 14.38 Only Pat Could Do It, 43.39 Only Pat Could Do It, 44.40 Only Pat Could Do It, 43.41 Only Pat Could Do It, 44.42 Weaver, What's Wrong, 14.43 Every Big City Needs 4 TV'ers, 1 an Indie: Weaver, Variety, May 15, 1957, 33.44 Weaver Reveals Project: N'tl. 'Program Service,' Radio-Television Daily, April 11, 1957, 1.45 Weaver Also Envisions, 23.46 Weaver, Master Communications Plan, 12.47 George Rosen, Can Next Year Be Different? Hardly, Based on Webs' Schedules, Variety, April 24, 1957, 21.48 People, Time, April 22, 1957.49 Tentative Station Lineup: Program Service Network, n.d., Box 6 Folder 10.50 Program Service Network: Proposed Time Rates, n.d., Box 8, Folder 1.51 Chi Tribune Radio-TV Hierarchy On the Prowl for New Stations, Variety, May 1, 1957, 46.52 Weaver Near WGN-TV Deal, Billboard, May 27, 1957, 2.53 WGN-TV Is First Affiliate of Pat Weaver's Net, Advertising Age, June 3, 1957, 2.54 Saturday Night Party, Program Description, n.d., Box 8, Folder 10.55 Larry Wolters, Miss Munsel Joins Rush to Lyric Network, Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1957, SW18.56 Weaver Takes Wraps Off New Network; Makes Formal Bow July 1, Billboard, June 3, 1957, 8.57 Hilmes, Radio Voices, 277.58 A Proposal to the David J. Mendelsohn Advertising Agency, Inc., n.d., Box 7, Folder 6.59 Shanley, X13; One (possibly unsolicited) idea submission for Program Service was a program called 'The Women's News Service', which would be spearheaded by Anita Colby, a model and actress who previously held the title of Feminine Director of the Selznick Studios. Women's News Service would be geared toward 'the new woman' and would '[cover] the world, in her language.' Anita Colby correspondence to Sylvester L. Weaver, April 11, 1957.60 Susan Ware, It's One O'Clock and Here is Mary Margaret McBride: a radio biography (New York, 2005), 208.61 Ware, 208.62 Weaver, What's Wrong, 12.63 Fred Wile, memo to Pat Weaver, subject: Daytime, May 15, 1957. Box 7, Folder 16.64 Hilmes, Radio Voices, 283–284; Ware, 199–202.65 Weaver, Weaver Associates, Inc., 12.66 WGN-TV Is First Affiliate, 130.67 Fred Wile, memo to Pat Weaver, subject: Daytime Availabilities, April 26, 1957.68 Wile, Daytime Availabilities.69 Larry Wolters, Sid Caesar to Rejoin Old Boss, Chicago Daily Tribune, May 21, 1957, B6.70 Weaver in WABD Tie, Variety, July 3, 1957, 38.71 Sylvester L. Weaver, Jr., 'Program Service'—An Interim Report, Variety, July 10, 1957, 38.72 Weaver, An Interim Report, 38.73 Weaver, An Interim Report, 38.74 'Ding Dong' Web Bow Delayed, Billboard, August 5, 1957, 3. That Program Service was holding off on introducing Ding Dong School to other markets meant that Mary Margaret McBride's show would have to wait as well, since live interconnection cable could not be ordered in units under one hour per day. Jerry Chester, letter to JJ Bernard, September 18, 1957, Box 9, Folder 4.75 Ding Dong School Outranks All TV Competition in Chicago Area, n.d., Box 6, Folder 10.76 'Ding Dong' Only in Chi as Weaver Web Waits, Variety, August 7, 1957, 24.77 Howard Miller Nixes Pat Weaver Bid for 'Saturday Night Dance Party,' Variety, August 28, 1957, 24.78 Fred Wile, memo to Pat Weaver, subject: Whitehall, October 24, 1957, Box 7, Folder 17.79 Chester, letter to Bernard.80 Make Me Laugh: Programs and Facilities Analysis, October 17, 1957, Box 7, Folder 4.81 Stan Freberg Pitches Show to Pat Weaver For Still-Due TV Web, Variety, October 9, 1957, 35.82 Prospects of Fourth TV Network Dim Under Limited V Facilities, Variety, October 9, 1957, 35.83 Weaver to 'Direct' Kaiser's TV Adv., Variety, July 17, 1957, 2.84 Lewis M. Marcy, correspondence with Henry Schmerzler, January 22, 1958, Box 8, Folder 3; Lewis M. Marcy, correspondence with John Hills, March 27, 1958, Box 8, Folder 3.85 Sylvester L. Weaver, Draft of memorandum to Kaiser management, January 30, 1959, Box 10, Folder 3.86 Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: television and the family ideal in postwar America (Chicago, IL, 1992), 112.87 Pamela Wilson suggests, 'During this period, television constructed history through the creation of a master historical narrative in which all Americans were presumed to share the same heritage as well as culture.' The 'enlightenment' programming of 'Operation Frontal Lobes' existed to help promote this master narrative to America. Wilson, 100.88 Cultural Trend Heartens Panel, New York Times, February 16, 1958, 71.89 Cultural Trend Heartens Panel, 71.90 See David H. Ostroff, A history of STV, inc. and the 1964 California vote against pay television, Journal of Broadcasting 27(4) (Fall 1983), 371–386.91 Anthony Haden-Guest, The Year of Sigourney Weaver, New York Magazine, June 11, 1984, 36.92 Prime Network informational packet, n.d., Box 3, Folder 8.93 Sylvester L. Weaver, Jr., correspondence, n.d., Box 3, Folder 1.94 Bill Silag, Fourth Network 'Inevitable,' Radio-Television Daily, July 14, 1965.95 Newton N. Minow, Television and the Public Interest, address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Washington, D.C., May 9, 1961. See also Michael Curtin, Redeeming the Wasteland: television documentary and cold war politics (New Brunswick, NJ, 1995), 19–23.96 Ashbrook P. Bryant, memo, subject: Telephone Conversation with Sylvester J. (Pat) Weaver, July 11, 1962. Newton N. Minow collection, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI. Box 45, Folder 1.97 Kepley, Frontal Lobes, 50–51.98 Sylvester L. Weaver, TV Offers a New Renaissance, Supplement to World's Press News and Advertisers' Review, September 30, 1955, 1.99 Weaver, TV Offers a New Renaissance.100 Barnouw, 396.Additional informationNotes on contributorsEvan ElkinsEvan Elkins is a Ph.D. candidate of Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.