criticism to me; and when I take exception or show hurt, she always consoles me by saying: "There is nothing personal about this; I am just stating the facts."

So with that out of the way, these are the facts: I am here today on behalf of Writers Guild of America, West-a union representing 5,000 television and motion picture writers. My remarks are directed to the effect that H.R. 3333 would have, if it becomes law, on the content and quality of television in this country-an area of prime importance to our membership, to the American people and, I assume, to the members of the subcommittee.

The rationale behind the proposed deregulation of television is that exploding technological advances in broadcasting methods will offer the viewer a wide range of choice and that the mere exercise of that choice will automatically assure programing in the public interest, convenience and necessity.

If this optimistic vision of the future does indeed come to pass, the loudest cheers will come from me and my fellow writers. But the mere assertion that regulation may not be necessary some distance down the road does not justify deregulation at the present time.

Furthermore, those of us with long years of experience in the field have seen television broadcasting in this country become an ever tighter monopoly dominated by the three networks-ABC, CBS and NBC. We have seen them use their vast financial resources and political influence to fight off all attempts to provide greater diversity in program sources, and we fully expect them to continue to do so. Other giant corporations may contend with the networks for the control of television, but such a struggle carries no guarantee of benefit to the viewing public.

There is, then, a distinct possibility that TV programing of tomorrow may closely resemble the programing of today, a commercial monopoly. Given the passage of H.R. 3333, this monopoly would be charged with no responsibility other than that of making money-a responsibility that it would carry out with great diligence.

There are those, of course, who would see nothing wrong in such a disposal of a public resource. The myth of commerical television as an ideal symbiosis of art and commerce is widespread: the network, the creative talent and the advertiser all make money by providing free entertainment to the viewing public. It seems ideal, a triumph of American ingenuity, but the public keeps adjusting the set; something is wrong with the picture.

To see what is wrong requires a differentiation between the myth and the reality of commercial television. The myth is that great entertainment can be obtained as a serendipitous byproduct of the selling of soap; the fact is that it cannot when those whose talents are confined to soap selling are also in charge of telling the director how to direct, the actor how to act and the writer how to write. The myth that the viewer insures programing fulfilling to his needs and wants by exercising his marketplace choice of channel switching until he finds the program he buys is not true. The network is not in the business of selling him programs; they are in the business of selling time to sponsors. The individual viewer has

as much leverage with them as an individual car owner has with OPEC.

The fact is that the members of the Writers Guild and every other creative person working in television has his or her work sabotaged daily by those who are not even in our business, and the viewing public is shortchanged by this.

Perhaps this sounds like a semantic argument. Let me offer one piece of confirming evidence: Examine the backgrounds of those who make the critical decisions in television-the network programers. Since they are judging material for its artistic worth, supposedly one would expect to find in their ranks people from the creative fields. Not so. They have backgrounds in business-salesmen, lawyers, account executives. Their judgments are sterile, imitative and survey oriented.

I am not here today to argue for the abolition of commercial television. Rather, I am arguing against the provisions of H.R. 3333 which might very well turn all television over to commercial interests and perpetuate the abuses of the present system.

Commercial TV needs, more than anything else, competition from other types of television.

When I last testified before this subcommittee on March 2, 1977, I had hopes that the rewrite of the 1934 Communications Act being discussed at that time would emphasize that competition from alternative sources.

Instead of that, we have H.R. 3333, which would, among other things, kill off the most promising alternate programing source we have public television-by converting it to commercial TV.

In closing, I ask you not to forget how important the future of television is to the future of this country. Television is much more than just an entertainment or a sales medium; it has become our culture, our teacher.

We spend hours with it each day; inevitably, it shapes our attitudes, our thinking or nonthinking; it plays a major role in our lives at the present time, even if those in charge of the medium deny both the role and their responsibility for it. It will play an increasing role in the future and that future deserves and demands a more thoughtful and creative legislative approach than H.R. 3333.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Thank you, Mr. Powell.

As I frequently respond to my wife when I feel that she has covered entirely too much ground in her denunciation of me, or some of my worldly works, my response is, simply: "There may be much in what you say."

I do think that you make a particularly valuable witness, however, because you are one who operates or has operated on the firing line of artistic talent in what I understand are frequent brushes with network management, or its minions. I know that we got some of the flavor of this in the hearings on violence and sex a couple of summers ago. What is the typical area of confrontation? Does it start at the very outset when the outline of a network idea comes down to the people on the artistic level who are hired to carry it out? Do they set the parameters then? Are you daily under some sort of whiplash? What is a typical experience?

Mr. POWELL. Well, I think you would have to start from the beginning, which is the inception of the idea, which may come from an individual writer or may come from a network, or it may come from some work in another medium that they have brought up; but they will shape the idea in its-I am talking about an idea for a series, now, or an idea for a movie for television-they will be in other sessions shaping this idea from the start, and contributing their input, which at the lower level is not all that bad. It is when you get up at the very highest decisionmaking levels that you find that decisions are very quixotic, not understandable, based on some survey somebody made at some time on what they thought that the man in white socks in Dubuque, Iowa, would like to see, nothing which you can relate to as one person, for want of a better term, of one artist to another.

There is no like creative judgment at the top, The creative judgment, unfortunately, is down at the bottom, and when you have to deal with the top, you are dealing with somebody, as I said, who is not in your business; you are dealing with a businessman who is interested in selling; and so the lack of communication there is almost total.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. How does a typical pilot, a new idea for a new series, come about? Does it spring from the levels where you work and where your members operate, or does it usually come down from the Fred Silvermans of the world?

Mr. POWELL. It can start at either level. I'll give you an example, the networks like CBS, they have people at a lower level who will meet with writers and producers and creators; and when they are having meetings they will be getting an input of perhaps 400 ideas per week; and, obviously, you can't make an artistic judgment on that many ideas coming at you all the time.

So the judgment will be partly based on your track record and whether it is something they are looking for at the present time, whether it is a 9 o,clock idea or an 8 o'clock idea or they have a time slot at 9:30 they would like to fill, something like that.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. And I suppose as the evening goes on they can be a little more "adult," as they like to say it?

Mr. POWELL. Yes; and then they will commission you, if they like the idea enough, to write the script. You would first clear the story outline or the first episode with them. You write the script and then the waiting process begins; and you hope for, or you await hopefully, the decision of the top man at CBS who is in charge of programing; and perhaps he will read your script or perhaps he will not, based partly on what others tell him, partly because the concept of what they need may have changed.

Fantasy may be in, and yours is not a fantasy, so it is out, or vice versa. All of those things enter into the decision, and sometimes you never really get an answer. You don't know why it was rejected. Sometimes you do get an answer as to why it was rejected; and quite often it will not even be read, in spite of the fact that the network has paid for a script and has invested quite a bit of money in it.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Would it be an exception when a writer himself and I should think ideas would be turning over all the time in the heads of Hollywood writers-is it the exception when

an idea springs into being with a writer and makes its way up the line, rather than the other way around?

Mr. POWELL. No, if I had to make a guess, I would say it is possibly half and half. I would not say it is an exception; but the idea will probably be changed by network input along the way; and then if a pilot is commissioned to be filmed, the network will have an input into the filming and into the casting and who is directing it; and then after it is filmed, when a judgment is made on whether it is going to be a series, the whole direction, projected direction, may be changed, which happens quite often.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. After it has run the course, it may look very little like what started out in the first script?

Mr. POWELL. Exactly. If I may, I want to add that these decisions, these changes, are all based on commercial considerations: what the network thinks will sell, or what the surveys say.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Or what they think will build an audience? Mr. POWELL. Yes, or what Preview House tells them was the reception.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Well, that is another factor, is it?

Mr. POWELL. The testing is another factor, yes, which, again, is a substitute for creative judgment.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Did you hear Fred Silverman's speech to the Hollywood production community earlier this year, when he warned them against the theory that technology was going to do much to set them free with diversity?

Mr. POWELL. Yes, I did.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Did you derive some of your ideas from that presentation?

Mr. POWELL. No; I derived my ideas from being in television for almost 30 years, and having seen very little change, having seen the networks fight very successfully to hold back change; so that I am not all that optimistic about the new technologies.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. What is the vehicle by which networks are able to withstand change under the present system?

Mr. POWELL. Well, I hesitate to say that in this room, but mainly it is political influence.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Political influence carried out in what way? Mr. POWELL. Carried out through the Members of Congress and through the FCC and also the power of the pocketbook in subverting possible paid cable systems, by buying up the events that they had projected to show, sports events, movies, et cetera.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. But, importantly, as sanctified under the 1934 act, which gives the Commission the power as a regulatory body to determine whether a new technology is going to impact on the present successful technology, and as has so often happened, stultified change.

Mr. POWELL. Well, let me say that I don't believe that technology is ever going to set us free. I think that died at Three Mile Island, if not before. I am suspicious of technology as a tool for greater freedom.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Suppose a Hollywood studio had a chance to distribute by satellite, something that we only dreamed of 45 years ago when this law was written, direct to Earth stations. Then, every commercial television station would have the opportunity to

purchase programs, bypassing the networks. Consider also the possibility of certain stations achieving superstation status, the many opportunities that exist for making the networks wonder a little bit about keeping their product on the air. Don't you think all this has the potential for breaking this front that you see standing against artistic development and diversity?

Mr. POWELL. Yes, I do. I think that has a good potential. I think as a practicality we have to grant that the networks are now into production of major films by guaranteeing them a large hunk of money for a television sale, even before it is made; so that the networks do have a large amount of influence with the motion picture companies at the present time.

If the motion picture companies do have a chance to circumvent the networks, as you suggest, probably they will take it, but they will think long and hard before severing their ties with the networks. Relating that back to the current bill, I think that there will always have to be some regulation necessary in order to prevent monopolization of whatever new technologies come forward. I don't think the new technologies automatically assure freedom of the marketplace.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Well, granted, but here is cable already reaching somewhere between 14 and 15 million American homes.

The prospect is for 40 million within the next 4 or 5 years. If we could succeed in compelling cable to be competitive, rather than just a reflection, an extension, of over-the-air television, would you see this as one ray of hope?

Mr. POWELL. Yes, I would. Again, I don't see that as stemming from this current bill.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. You don't?

Mr. POWELL. I don't.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Boy, there must be some reason the broadcasters don't like this bill other than the spectrum fee, which they can well afford.

Mr. POWELL. Well, I don't see any great, real animosity on the part of the broadcasters to the bill, except for the spectrum fee; and I think that is just a negotiating posture.

Mr. VAN DEERLIN. Well, I wish it were thus, but-Miss Sachs? Ms. SACHS. Mr. Powell, have you ever written for public broadcasting?

Mr. POWELL. No, I have not.

Ms. SACHS. Why is that?

Mr. POWELL. Because public broadcasting not only doesn't have the money to pay me-I would contribute my services in many cases-but also it doesn't have the money to pay the actors or to pay for the scenery or to pay for the director or anything else connected with what would have to be a third-class television production, or even a second- or third-class production.

It just doesn't have the money, period. So there is no market there for writers.

Ms. SACHS. Do you think that the amount of money which is proposed in the legislation would be sufficient to attract people like you and other members of the Writers Guild to public television as an alternative to the problems you encounter in commercial broadcasting?