Network censorship alleged

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 15

Network censorship alleged

NZPA-Reuter Washington A televison producer, Norman Lear, has decried the ability of the big television networks to keep controversial programmes off the air.

In a speech to the National Press Club, Mr Lear urged Congress to prevent the networks from increasing their economic power over independent producers like himself.

. The creator of “All in the Family” and other longplaying programmes said C.B.S. Inc. objected to Mary Tyler Moore being portrayed as a divorcee on her television show.

C.B.S. also opposed a show in which “All in the Family” star, Archie Bunker, put diapers on his infant grandson because it

displayed nudity, Mr Lear said.

He said American Broadcasting Company Inc. and the National Broadcasting Company practised similar censorship.

Homosexuality and the Vietnam war were other topics that the networks did not want on his shows, Mr Lear said.

Network control over independently produced shows stifled creativity and denied the public exposure to important topics, ■ he said.

Mr Lear said Congress should intervene to delay a recent Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) decision to permit the networks to invest in the production of programmes and

control syndication of reruns.

Hollywood film studios, independent producers and non-network television stations fought the opening of this lucrative opportunity to the networks but lost.

Diminishing the strength of independent producers who sell to the networks “is not in the public interest,” Mr Lear said. He said the networks had given up treating topics involving women or minorities for the sake of shortterm gains in the ratings. Mr Lear, whose Embassy Productions produced “Sanford and Son,” “Maude,” and “Good Times,” said networks had boasted they would continue to have up to 75 per cent of television advertising revenues by

1990. However, the networks told the F.C.C. their total audience share dropped from 88 per cent to 81 per cent from 1979 to 1981 because of competition from cable television and other media.