The four socially conscious TV programs seemed like good ideas at the time. Having been beaten repeatedly by Bonanza at 9 p.m. on Sundays, CBS put on the road-tested Smothers Brothers in 1967, transforming the music and comedy act into a variety show that appealed to a young audience. In 1977, last-place NBC introduced The Richard Pryor Show, capitalizing on the talent and appeal of the Emmy and Grammy award-winning comedian. In the summer ratings doldrums of 1994, NBC broadcast Michael Moore's TV Nation, a documentary program with low production costs, a BBC subsidy, and solid audience appeal. Then, in 1997, ABC picked up Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher from Comedy Central, adding this proven success to its late-night schedule.
But however promising these four programs appeared at first, all of them ended as casualties of network censors. Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher lasted six years, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ana TV Nation ran three and two years respectively, and The Richard Pryor Show lasted just four episodes. How and why these socially conscious programs met their demise is the subject of David Silverman's short but readable book.
The why is the least illuminating part of this book. Silverman begins his study with a perfunctory discussion of various outside influences on TV networks: academic studies, industry codes, and political pressures, including surgeon general reports, congressional investigations, legislation, and Federal Communications Commission regulations. But these external forces play no role in the book's conclusion. Instead, he blames the cancellation of the four programs on the networks' primal desire to appease advertisers, explaining that network programmers reject or jettison controversial content that might cause advertisers to reconsider their investment. "Advertisers and network executives often censor and systematically suppress dissent in the name of protecting the public, the government, corporations, or themselves," Silverman concludes, "but more often than not they do so to maintain their sources of revenue."
The introduction and conclusion may be uninspired, but detail and nuance bring the four middle chapters to life. The frustration of both CBS and the Smothers Brothers is palpable. The humor of Richard Pryor is so raw and the antics of Michael Moore are so cheeky that you can almost hear pencils breaking in the Broadcast Standards Department. By the point that Bill Maher calls the United States cowardly for "lobbing cruise missiles [at Afghanistan] from two thousand miles away" unlike "staying in a plane when it hits the building," you are holding your breath hoping that the inevitable did not happen. Of course, the inevitable did occur to each of the entertainers who were doing what they were hired to do, and neither the networks nor the entertainers should have been surprised by the conflict. As Lily Tomlin observed, "When you hire Richard Pryor, you get Richard Pryor." The networks wanted to take advantage of the sensibilities of these artists and rein them in at the same time, an enterprise doomed from the start.
By telling engaging stories of creative expression and censorship and of network misjudgment and recovery, Silverman shows how commercial markets have both needed and feared artistic license and free expression. For this reason, "You Can't Air That" would make good secondary reading in undergraduate media studies courses.
[Author Affiliation]
John P. Ferré
University of Louisville