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SIGHT AND SOUND By Leo Mhhkin NEW YORK, May 8.— It was only a couple of weeks or so ago that a lady member of Congress raised something of a tem pest in a teapot when she mailed out, in franked envelopes, an enthusiastic plug for a forthcoming television program paying homage to her home town. I forget at this moment the name of the Representative from Missouri, but the show was "Meet Me in St. Louis," a venture that the Hon. Congress- woman thought should be brought to the attention of every true blue, right-thinking American citizen. A project that she tried, in her own way, to bring to fruition by sending out copies of her extended remarks in the Congressional Record through the free postal service provided for all elected members of Congress. Now comes another Washington solon, Sen. Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, also mailing out copies of the Congressional Record in which is printed a speech made by the Senator only this past Saturday — calling attention to a TV program not coming on the air, but going off instead. This latter is "The Voice of Firestone," currently on ABC-TV on Monday nights, but destined to ring down its curtain at the end of this month after a 30 -year tenure in radio and television because it has been unable to find prime playing time on any of the three major networks for next season. Sen. Monroney is quite exercised about this, and wants somebody to do something. Let us bypass, for the moment, the novel paradox of a man from Oklahoma berating the broadcasters for allowing "The Voice of Firestone" to go off the air in favor of wholesale lots of Westerns. Actually, the real target of the Senators speech was the system of ratings used by both the TV networks and/or their clients that dictates what should or should not be put on the air. Still and all, it was a little odd to read, in this issue of the Congressional Record, the Senator from Oklahoma saying, in part, "Now ABC, apparently prosperous with its two-gun Westerns, its Maverick and whodunits, seems to have gone trigger-happy along with NBC and CBS for the blood and thunder which fatten the batting average in the daily TV rating services." I always thought Oklahoma looked on Westerns as their own native dish. AAA "It is recognized that the field of programming is a difficult and sensitive one,"* said Sen. Monroney, "but it is the ultimate measure of whether a station operates in the public interest. Certainly it is not very constructive to cry censorship whenever it is suggested that the level of programming can be improved . . . Are The Voice of Firestone and various other types of public service programs to remain the victims of the fallacy of chasing audience ratings at the expense of program quality? When the television networks and the other licensees accepted their license from the FCC, they assumed the responsibility of operating in the public interest. It appears to me that the present level of operating is geared to the mumbo-jumbo of ratings. For 75 million viewers, this is censorship by the small, infinitesimal, and doubtful sampling of a Madison Avenue created czar." AAA Nobody will deny that the rating services have their faults, and that the figures quoted very frequently are far off the mark. Or that, as Sen. Monroney indicates, high ratings and high quality do not go hand in hand as often as the broadcasters like to think. But in all this pro and con argument about the rating systems, the practice of counting noses to see how many people are attending, rather than inquiring into whether they liked or disliked the program on view, it strikes me there is a much deeper problem to be solved. One, indeed, that Senator Monroney, as a parc-ticing politician, might very well take into account himself. AAA I refer here to one of the basic tenets of a democracy — the rule of the majority. In essence, that is all that the ratings provide, an index of percentages. On this premise, the networks and their clients can be said to be fully justified in providing material on the air that the majority of the populace seems to want. Yet is the majority always right? Is quality to be equated with what the majority wants? Does the best man always win the election? Even in the sovereign state of Oklahoma? It might be an idea for the Senator from Oklahoma to ponder upon such matters for a while. Once this puzzlement is solved — if, indeed, there is any solution — the TV broadcasters will fall into place of their own accord. And "The Voice of Firestone" will find its proper niche, and its proper time, in the prime time schedules.
