Circulation Magazine

Penthouse............................ Smithsonian.......................... U.S. News & World Report Southern Living.................... Field & Stream..................... VFW..................................... Money................................... Seventeen............................ Popular Science.................. The Workbasket.................. Home & Away...................... Parents................................. Life........................................ Ebony................................... Motorland.............................. Popular Mechanics.............. Country Living...................... Globe..................................... Elks....................................... Adventure Road................... 1,001 Home Ideas................ Outdoor Life.......................... Discovery............................

. 2,379,333. 2,310,970. 2,287,016. 2,263,922. 2,007,479. 1,951,004. 1,862,106. 1,853,314. 1,843,067. 1,779,463. 1,749,083. 1,721,816. 1,718,726. 1,703,019. 1,692,501. 1,634,930. 1,619,121. 1,600,963. 1,577,302. 1,569,951. 1,540,428. 1,520,915. 1,446,446

Sunset............................... Bon Appetit....................... The American Hunter... True Story......................... Changing Times............. The American Rifleman. Woman's World.............. Discover.......................... Boys' Life.......................... Mademoiselle................... Vogue............................... Golf Digest....................... New Woman................... Rodale's Organic Gardening..................... Home Mechanics........... The Family Handyman.. Teen.................................. Sesame Street.................. Travel & Leisure.............. Rolling Stone................... Self...................................

TV Guide................................. 16,800,441

Reader's Digest...................... 16,609,847

Modern Maturity..................... 14,973,019

National Geographic.................... 10,764,998

Better Homes & Gardens.... 8,091,751

Family Circle................................ 6,261,519

Woman's Day.......................... 5,744,842

Good Housekeeping................ 5,221,575

McCall's................................... 5,186,393

Ladies' Home Journal............ 5,020,551

Time........................................ 4,720,159

National Enquirer................... 4,381,242

Guideposts............................... 4,260,697

Redbook................................... 4,009,450

Star........................................... 3,706,131

Playboy..................................... 3,447,324

Newsweek............................. 3,101,152

People..................................... 3,038,363

Sports Illustrated...................... 2,895,131

Cosmopolitan........................... 2,873,071

Prevention.............................. 2,820,748

American Legion...................... 2,648,627

Glamour.................................... 2,386,150

Another trend which has accompanied the decline in readership and number of publications is the dramatic decline in competition. Variety at local and national levels has been reduced as media operations have become concentrated in the hands of just a few publishers and corporations. New York City is a good example. In the 1920s people in Manhattan could choose from fourteen different morning and evening dailies. Thirty years later, the choice was reduced by half, and today New York has only two morning papers, the Times and the News, plus one afternoon daily. In other areas around the country, the percentages of cities with competing newspapers have decreased dramatically as publishers are driven out of business by larger competitors. In 1926 there were more than 500 cities with competing newspapers. Today there are under 40 and the number is falling. At this point, 97 percent of the cities carrying daily papers have but a single publisher. They are called "one-owner-towns." Moreover, more and more of the remaining newspapers are under chain or group control. Chain publishers own newspapers all over the country. With a total circulation of over 22 million, chains comprise more than one third of the total daily newspaper circulation in the United States.

The U.S. has never had a national press or newspaper with a mass national circulation like The Times and The Daily Telegraph in Britain or the leading papers in other countries. However, the influence of a few large metropolitan newspapers, most notably the New York Times and the Washington Post, has increased so that these papers come close to constituting a national press. Both papers syndicate their staff-written stories to regional newspapers all over the country.

Most newspapers rely heavily on wire copy from the two major news services, the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI), which gather

wire copy: send in a news report (by telegram in former times).

THE MEDIA 263

A wide variety of publications is available

OBJECTIVITY

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

national and international news stories and sell them to subscribing news­papers. The stories reported in major papers often influence other news media. Newspapers around the country and, significantly, television news programs take a lead from the Times in deciding what is and is not a big story. When the Times ceased publication for several weeks in 1978, there was clear evidence of television news programs' lack of direction.

The trend toward concentration of ownership is defended on the ground that large-scale organizations can provide the funds, know-how, and manage­ment to keep a newspaper profitable and competitive. But conglomeration raises questions among some social commentators about objectivity. Would marketplace diversity not ensure that error and bias would be counterbalanced, and does monopoly not increase the chance that the public may be misinformed?

The American press, especially in recent decades, has insisted on objectivity and detachment in news reports, usually imposing a more rigorous separation of fact from opinion than do newspapers in other countries. Opinion is excluded from news columns and is presented on separate editorial pages, which feature unsigned editorials and include opinions signed by readers, contributors, and syndicated columnists. Careful effort to preserve objectivity is made even among monopoly newspapers. The Washington Post, for example, which in 1976 had a monopoly in the morning market in the Washington, D.C., area, covered that year's presidential election by giving equal space to candidates Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Even the photographs of the can­didates were scrupulously equal in size and placement.

The mass media in the United States claim explicit recognition of their right to be free from government control and censorship. The First Amendment to the Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom...of the press." Government and media often engage in confronta­tions when reporters disclose classified information or pursue investigative reporting to uncover injustices and corruption within American institutions. This adversary stance toward government which many news executives and reporters advocate has led government officials and other critics to accuse the

264 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

RADIO AND TELEVISION

NETWORKS

PROGRAMMING

news media of transgressing the bounds of journalism and influencing events they once merely described. The controversy over the role of the media has led to many stormy court battles. When, in 1971, the Washington Post and New York Times published the "Pentagon Papers," a classified U.S. Defense document about the origins of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the Supreme Court ruled that the newspapers were within their rights to publish the material. The Washington Post's role in uncovering the Watergate scandal is another example of the media's involvement in national events. The story started a sequence of events that led to the resignation of President Nixon.

Theoretically, anyone in the United States can start a newspaper or magazine, but to become a radio or television broadcaster one must be granted a portion of the limited radio-television spectrum by the government's licensing board, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). For the most part, the American broadcasting system has always been a commercial system. It is supported by money from businesses that pay to advertise goods or services to the audience. Advertising messages are usually presented as 15, 30, or 60-second commercial announcements before, during, and after programs. Ссдц-mercial broadcasting is a huge industry bringing in profits of about 1.8 billion dollars annually. As of 1984, there were over 8,000 commercial AM and FM radio stations and over 850 commercial television stations. Attracting a smaller audience, there is also noncommercial public broadcasting for radio and tele­vision. The funding for public broadcasting comes primarily from congressional appropriations, grants from foundations, and contributions from viewers. The programs, often educational or cultural, appeal to a highly selective audience.

The number of radio and television broadcasting stations provides for wide diversification in programming. Most radio stations offer listeners a variety of music programs, including country-western, pop music, classical music, and jazz. Other stations feature news, talk interviews and discussions, and religious programs exclusively.

Most commercial television stations are affiliated with one of the three major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Networks are essentially program dis­tribution companies. A network buys programs from independent television production companies, most of which are located in Hollywood, and distributes these programs across the country to television stations that are affiliated with the network. The network is paid by advertisers to insert commercial announce­ments on the programs the network buys. Because networks are commercial systems dependent on advertising, they compete with each other for viewers and are intent on choosing programs that will win high audience ratings. Programs that aim at mass entertainment are preferred over educational and news programs. Evening news programs and other news shows are often criticized for concerning themselves with entertainment. Critics charge that networks often emphasize the personalities of newscasters at the expense of issues of public importance.

Supreme Court: see page 97.

Watergate: see page 29.

Vietnam: see page 15.

ABC: American Broadcasting Company.

CBS: Columbia Broadcasting Service.

NBC: National Broadcasting Company.

THE MEDIA 265

CABLE TELEVISION

SATELLITE TELEVISION

ISSUES

Viewers whose tastes are not satisfied by the many offerings of network and local programs are now increasing their options by subscribing to cable television. About 35 million Americans pay a monthly fee of approximately $17.00 for greater selection. Cable television companies receive signals from television stations through a larger master antenna or dish and relay the signal into the homes of subscribers by wires attached to home receivers. Cable companies can program 40 different channels, providing viewers with many specialized programs such as Hollywood musicals, local theater productions, and recent film releases.

Satellite TV was originally designed to offer a greater selection of programs to people in rural areas that could not easily be connected to the cable system. It now provides anybody who is ready to have a satellite dish installed in his or her backyard with the same programming as cable TV. There has been a controversy recently as to the viewer's right to freely receive signals that are beamed down onto his or her property. The so-called superstateons, which are in fact small independent stations, utilize the power of both cable and satellite to program nationwide. Conventional television has had to struggle to retain its audience as people switch over to cable viewing, satellite TV or renting video cassettes.

As responsive as television is to audience ratings, many critics complain that producers and network executives should be more sensitive to the effects of television violence on children and adults. The debate over the possible link between the amount of violence on television and the amount of violence in society has not yet been resolved. However, protest did lead to the introduction of "family viewing time" from seven to nine o'clock in the evening. During these hours, adult programs containing violence and sexual suggestiveness are kept to a minimum. There is a considerable amount of citizen involvement on other issues as well. For example, there are groups that lobby for a better standard of children's television, and other groups associated with the religious right which object to explicit language and immorality on the television screen.

part в Texts

THE CASE FOR

TELEVISION

JOURNALISM

by ERIC SEVAREID

Courtesy of Saturday Review

When Eric Sevareid retired from CBS News in November 1977, his fellow journalists bestowed on him tributes befitting a statesman. Newsweek dubbed Sevareid "without doubt the most imposing of all broadcast commentators," and the Christian Science Monitor called him TV's answer to antiquity's oracle at Delphi. In his two-minute commentaries on CBS's nightly news broadcast, he perfected his own literary form, blending fact and opinion, always leaving a twinge of optimism in the air. Though he was originally an essayist and became a broadcaster at 26 with reluctance, he left television after 38 years a staunch defender of the medium.

kind Qf adversary relation­ship between print journalism and electronic jour­nalism exists and has existed for many years in the United States. Innumerable newspaper critics seem to insist that broadcast journalism be like their journalism and measured by their standards. It cannot be. The two are more complementary than competitive, but they are different.

The journalism of sight and sound is the only truly new form of journalism to come along. It is a mass medium, a universal medium; as the Ameri­can public-education system is the world's first ef­fort to teach everyone, so far as that is possible. It

has serious built-in limitations as well as advan­tages, compared with print. Broadcast news op­erates in linear time, newspapers in lateral space. This means that a newspaper or magazine reader can be his own editor in a vital sense. He can glance over it and decide what to read, what to pass by. The TV viewer is a restless prisoner, obliged to sit through what does not interest him to get to what may interest him. While it is being shown, a local bus accident has as much impact, seems as important, as an outbreak of a big war. He can do little about tlrs, little about the viewer's unconscious resentments.

Everyone in America watches television to some degree, including most of those who pre­tend they don't. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter was right; he said there is no high­brow in any lowbrow, but there is a fair amount of lowbrow in every highbrow. Television is a combi­nation mostly of lowbrow and middlebrow, but there is more highbrow offered than highbrows will admit or even seek to know about. They will

THE MEDIA 267

1. continued

make plans, go to trouble and expense, when they buy a book or reserve a seat in the theater. They will noi study the week's offerings of music or drama or serious documentaries in the radio and TV program pages of their newspaper and then schedule themselves to be present. They want to come home, eat dinner, twist the dial and find something agreeable ready, accommodating to their schedule.

TV programming in America consumes 18 to 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. No other medium of information or entertainment ever tried anything like that. How many good new plays ap­pear in U.S. theaters each year? How many fine new motion pictures? Add it all together and per­haps you could fill 20 evenings out of the 365.

Every new development in mass communica­tions has been opposed by intellectuals of a cer­tain stripe. I am sure that Gutenberg was de­nounced by the elite of his time—his device would spread dangerous ideas among the God-fearing, obedient masses. The typewriter was denounced by intellectuals of the more elfin variety—its clack­ing would drive away the muses. The first motion pictures were denounced—they would destroy the legitimate theater. Then the sound motion pic­ture was denounced—it would destroy the true art of the film, which was pantomime.

To such critics, of course, television is de­stroying everything.

It is destroying conversation, they tell us. Nonsense. Nonconversing families were always that way. TV has, in fact, stimulated thousands of millions of conversations that otherwise would not have occurred.

It is destroying the habit of reading, they say. This is nonsense. Book sales in the United States during the lifetime of general television have greatly increased and well beyond the increase in population. At the end of a program with Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, we at the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) announced on the air that if viewers wanted one of those little copies of the Constitution such as he had held in his hand, they had only to write to us. We received about 150,000 requests at CBS—mostly, I suspect, from people who didn't know the Constitution was actu­ally down on paper, who thought it was written in the skies or on a bronze tablet somewhere. After my first TV conversation with Eric Hoffer, a long­shoreman and author, his books sold out in nearly every bookstore in America—the next day.

TV is debasing the use of the English lan­guage, they tell us. Nonsense. Until radio and

Eric Severeid

then TV, tens of millions of people living in share­cropper cabins, in small villages on the plains and in the mountains, in the great city slums, had nev­er heard good English diction in their lives. If any­thing, this medium has improved the general level of diction.

The print-electronic adversary relationship is a one-way street. Print scrutinizes, analyzes, criti­cizes us on TV every day; we do not return the fa­vor. We have tried now and then, particularly in radio days with "CBS Views the Press," but not enough. On a nationwide network basis, it's al­most impossible because we have no real nation­al newspapers—papers read everywhere— to criticize for the benefit of the national audience. Our greatest failure is in not criticizing ourselves, at least through the mechanism of viewers' rebut­tals. Here and there, now and then, we have done it. It should have been a regular part of TV from the beginning. The Achilles heel of TV is that peo­ple can't talk back to that little box. If they had been able to, over the years, perhaps the gas of resentment could have escaped from the boiler in

There is the myth that since the pioneering, groundbreaking TV programs of Edward R. Mur-row and Fred Friendly in the 1950s, CBS News has been less daring, done fewer programs of a hard-hitting kind. The Murrow programs are im­mortal in this business because they were the first. Since then we have dealt, forthrightly, with every conceivable controversial issue one can think of—drugs, homosexuality, government cor­ruption, business corruption, TV commercials, gun control, pesticides, tax frauds, military waste,

268 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

1. continued

abortion, the Vietnam War—everything. What shortage has occurred has been on the side of the materials, not on the side of TV's willingness to tackle them.

I have recently inquired of other CBS News veterans if they can recall a single case of a pro­posed news story or a documentary that was killed by executives of the parent organization. Not one comes to anyone's mind. Some programs have been anathema to the top executive level, but they were not stopped. Some have caused severe heartburn at that level when they went on the air. Never has there been a case of people at that level saying to the News Division, "Don't ever do anything like that again."

For more than 13 years, I have done commen­tary—personal opinion inescapably involved— most nights of the week on the evening news. In that time exactly three scripts of mine were killed because of their substance by CBS News execu­tives. Each one by a different executive, and none of them ever did it again. Three—out of more than 2,000 scripts. How many newspaper editorialists or columnists, how many magazine writers, have had their copy so respected by their editors⁹

There is the perennial myth that sponsors [advertisers] influence, positively or negatively, what we put on the air. They play no role what­ever. No public affairs program has ever been canceled because of sponsor objection. Years ago, they played indirect roles. When I started do­ing a 6 p.m. radio program, nearly 30 years ago,

Ed Murrow, then a vice-president, felt it neces­sary to take me to lunch with executives of the in­surance company sponsoring the program. About 14 years ago, when I was doing the Sunday night TV news, a representative of the advertising agency handling the commercials would appear in the studio, though he never tried to change any­thing. Today one never sees a sponsor or an agency man, on the premises or off.

After all, in the United States TV network broadcasting might at its inception have become an appendage and apparatus of government; it might have gone completely Hollywood. It did nei­ther. It grimly held to every freedom the law al­lows, and it fights for more.

We are not the worst people in the land, we who work as journalists. Our product in print or on the air is a lot better, more educated and more re­sponsible than it was when I began, some 45 years ago, as a cub reporter. This has been the best generation of all in which to have lived as a journalist in America. We are no longer starvel­ings, and we sit above the salt. We have affected our times.

It has been a particular stroke of fortune to have been a journalist in Washington these years. There has not been a center of world news to compare with it since ancient Rome. We have donethe job better, I think, than our predecessors— and our successors will do it better than we. ■

Copyright ^s 1976 by SATURDAY REVIEW/WORLD, INC

Saturday Review: a bi-monthly general arts review.

Christian Science Monitor: daily evening paper; general political tendency: independent; Christian moral attitude.

Gutenberg, Johann: (circa 1400—1468), German inventor of movable type. Vietnam War: see page 15.

THE MEDIA 269

The Nature of TV in America Richard Burke Richard Burke is Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana Univer­sity, Bloomington, Indiana.

PART I: In the programming strategy, particularly of the net­works, what has always been the case is this. Within the prime time, i.e. from 8 in the evening until 11 — that's what we Consider our prime time of the day — the net­works traditionally were fairly successful at sharing the mass audience that was out there. That is to say, NBC would have roughly 30 percent, and CBS would have had 30 percent and ABC would have had 30 percent. This is in the prime time. Those numbers would be slightly lower if you took them over a day's time, but I'm concerned only with the evening viewing time. And that other 10 percent of the audience traditionally would have watched public broadcasting or they would have watched inde­pendent stations or they might have, in the very early days of cable, been watching one of the superstations. But by and large the networks were reasonably satisfied to have 30 percent, 30 percent, 30 percent. Over the last 5 or 6 or 8 years that number has started to drop, and they are obviously very concerned about that. That number went down as low as 75 percent in the last 2 or 3 years. In a commer­cially based system every viewer that you lose and every rating point that you lose can be converted into dollars. And the advertisers are saying, "Well, now look. You used to be able to deliver to us, as they say, so many hundreds of thou­sands of viewers. You don't seem to be able to do it any more. Why should we pay the same advertising rate?" In trying to get this 30 percent the networks have been accused frequently of producing what some critics have called the

least objectionable programming. And by least objectionable' what people mean is, it doesn't have to be good. You don't have to take any risks with it. You don't have to put a lot of time into it. It just has to be less objectionable than what the other network is looking at. Because the theory is that large numbers of people don't watch programs anyway. They watch television. They go over to the tele­vision and say, "What's on?" and keep turning through or pressing the buttons, and somebody says, "Oh, that's okay. Stop there. That's fine." Well, in this theory that I am explaining very superficially here, what you finally stop at is what's least objectionable, at least for you. So the networks will take and have taken this position that you don't have to win, you just don't fail. You see if you take big risks, you are likely to fail. So don't fail. That would be a primary rule. Don't lose your one third, and try to pro­duce the least objectionable pro­gramming possible.

PART II: Now, if you subscribe to this analysis of television pro­gramming, particularly by net­works, what you find out is that there isn't really as much diversity as there appears to be. I look at the schedule sometimes and in my best efforts to find something least ob­jectionable what I have to conclude is that it's all objectionable and I'll be better off to go for a walk or listen to music or do anything but watch the television. And I think if you looked at this and if you look at a weekly television guide, you'd say, "Yes, yes fine, I see 15 or 20 or 25 opportunities here, but I don't have any real choice at all. It's all

pretty much the same stuff." Then, of course, the networks of those programs would say, "You're being much too demanding." This is after all a mass medium and you may have highly advanced tastes." I don't really. I like police dramas a lot, but I can't always find them when I want them. So the argu­ment here is that this compulsion to do the least objectionable, the least risk in fact leads to a rather mediocre, rather bland diet of the kinds of programs that you would see listed here. In attempting to stay with programming that has the broadest mass appeal they obviously will take programs which are pretty safe. [And they will take programs which aren't very controversial, and they will do programs which have obvious large audience appeaLJ Now in programming I think it is reasonable to say that the great bulk of it is designed for mass entertainment, as opposed to news, information, education, instruc­tion. I think if you counted up the hours here and you looked at a week's worth you'd say, "This is clearly an entertainment-oriented medium." Now, what is the nature of this entertainment, of all the possible formats that we produce, of the western, the action drama and the variety show and this kind of thing. This so-called situation comedy is by far the most popular format that you would see here and also over a long period of time. When people are asked in various kinds of surveys what have been their favorite programs from 1950 on invariably 50 percent, 60 per­cent, 70 percent of that would identify the so-called situation comedy, that is to say a situation which is artificially contrived and created each week with a cast of characters that essentially re­mains the same. People come in and out. And that's really, not only this season, but over a long period of time probably the predominant format in this entertainment programming.

From: A talk by Richard Burke,

delivered at Bloomington, IN,

April 24, 1986

270 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

The Herald-Telephone, Thursday, April 24,

All

Television

THURSDAY EVENING

6:00

6:30

7:00

7:30

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

10:00 I 10:30

11:00

11:30

12:00

CD^1

WTWO

e

News

NBC News

Fortune

Happy Days

Cosby Show

Family Ties

Cheers

Night Court

Hill Street Blues

News

Tonight

wnv

о

Ditf Strokes

Company

Little House On The Prairie

All In Family

Baseball: Cincinnati Reds at Houston Astros

News

Movie

©

wnu

вэ

Quilting

Business

MacNeil / Lehrer Newshour

Heart Of The Dragon

Mysteryl

Capitol Jrnl.

I.U. Journal

Business

Gourmet

©

wrtv

о

News

ABC News

Ent. Tonight

Movie: "Invitation To Hell"

20/20

News

Benson

Nightline

—

WTVW

о

Benson

ABC News

News

Ent. Tonight

Movie: "Invitation To Hell"

20/20

News

B. Miller

WKRP

©

wish

о

News

CBS News

Chance

Simon & Simon

Bridges To Cross

News

H's Heroes

Night Heat

©

WON

—

Good Times

Jeftersons

B. Miller

B. Newhart

Movie: "The Chosen"

News

WKRP

Trapper John, M.D.

m

WTHI

CD

News

CBS News

Nevrtyweds

Price

Simon & Simon

Bridges To Cross

News

Night Heat

и

WTBS

—

A. Griffith

Gunsmoke

Sanlord

Movie: "Psycho"

Baseball: Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers

©

Jim And Tammy

700 Club

L. Sumrall

Life

Lesea Alive

In Touch

Praise The Lord

Praise Lord

WTHR

(В

News

NBC News

Jeopardy

Fortune

Cosby Show

Family Ties

Cheers

Night Court

Hill Street Blues

News

Tonight

И)

MTV

—

VJ: Martha Quinn

Monkees

VJ: Martha Quinn

VJ: Mark Goodman

Rock Influences

VJ

m

WXM

Star Trek

Too Close

Taxi

Movie: "Right Of The Phoenix"

B. Newhart

Benny Hill

H'mooners

—

WBAK

Make A Deal

ABC News

Ent. Tonight

Company

Movie: "Invitation To Hell"

20/20

ML Zone

Nightline

Sanford!

ESPN

—

Horse Racing

SpoCtr.

SpeedWeek

Fashion

Stanley Cup Playoffs: Division Final

SpoCtr.

Outdoor Lite

(91

USA

—

Cartoons

Radio 1990

Animals

Motorcycle Racing: Daytona 200 Classic

Petrocetli

Alfred Hitchcock Hour

EdgeNt.

ai

NASH

—

Country Rock

Be A Star

Fandango

Nashville Now

Country Rock

Videocount.

Be A Star

Fandango

Nashville

о

CNN

—

Newswatch

Showbiz

Moneyline

Crossfire

Primenews

Larry King Live

News

Moneyline

Sports

NewsNkjht

©

CSPN

—

Viewer Call-In

National Press Club

Congressional Hearing

Viewer Call-In

Today In Washington

UFE

—

Simmons

It Figures

Family

Cassie S Co.

Regis Philbin's Lifestyles

Dr. Ruth Show

Movie: "September Storm"

ARTS

—

"Dinner At Ritz" Cont'd

Shortstories

Music Of Man

Montserrat Caballe: The Woman, The Diva

At The Met

Madrigal

Music

CBN

—

Green Acres

Rifleman

Alias Smith And Jones

Wackiest Ship In The Army

700 Club

Don't Die

Girl From U.N.C.LE.

Groucho

PAY TV CHANNELS

(B

HBO

—

Movie: "Between Friends" Cont'd

Movie: "Cat's Eye"

Movie: "Code Of Silence"

Movie: "Act Of Vengeance"

a

ns

—

Disney

Ozzie

Movie: "Treasure Island"

Island

Movie: "Country"

"Darby O'Gill And The Little People"

@

SHOW

—

Movie

Showtime

Tom Petty & Heartbreakers

Movie: "D.C. Cab"

Honeymooners

"Ten From Your Show Of Shows"

e

MAX

—

Crazy About The Movies

Movie: "Supergirl"

Movie: "Body Heat"

Comedy

Movie: "Fanny Hill"

THE MEDIA 271

The Herald-Telephone, Thursday, April 24,

All

Television

Movies

EVENING 8:00 Q SD ** "Invitation To Hell"

(1984, Drama) Robert Urich, Susan Lucci. A devilish woman serves as the director of a country club where she seduces men physically and women materially. (R) g (2 hrs.) ® **H "The Chosen"(1961, Dra­ma) Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger. Based on Chaim Potok's novel. A friendship slowly develops between a worldly, assimilated Jew and the son of a Hassidic rabbi. (2 hrs.) (5) S3 * * * "Flight Of The Phoenix" (1966, Adventure) James Stewart, Pe­ter Finch. When contact with rescuers becomes impossible, crash survivors begin repairing an old airplane forced down in the desert. (3 hrs.) Ш +* "D.C. Cab"(1983, Comedy) Mr. T, Adam Baldwin. Drivers of a nearly bankrupt Washington taxicab operation become heroes when they rescue two kidnapped children. 'R' g

8:05 QD **+Ъ "Psycho" (1960, Suspense) Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh. A young woman encounters a psychotic killer at a secluded motel af­ter stealing a large sum of money from her employer. (2 hrs., 25 min.)

9:00® **% "CodeOf Silence" {1984, Adventure) Chuck Norris, Henry Silva. A maverick Chicago cop wages a soli­tary war against rival drug-running gangs. 'R'g(l hr., 41 min.)

@ *** "Country" (198i, Drama) Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard. Threat­ened with foreclosure of her farm, an Iowa woman struggles to hold on to her land and keep her family together. 'PG'(1 hr., 49 min.) (29 *+*H "Body Heat"(№1, Suspense) William Hurt, Kathleen Turner. A smalltime Florida lawyer is persuaded by his lover to murder her husband. 'R' (1 hr., 53 min.) 11:000) ** "September Storm" (1960, Adventure) Joanne Dru, Mark Stevens. An international group attempts to re­cover a large Spanish treasure from a sunken ship. (2 hrs.) (7) "Act Of Vengeance"(1986, Drama) Charles Bronson, Ellen Burstyn. Based on the true story of Joseph "Jock" Ya-blonski, whose crusade to rid the Unit­ed Mine Workers union of corruption led to violence and ultimately to mur­der in December 1969. □ @9 * +* "Darby O'Gill And The Little People" (1959, Fantasy) Albert Sharpe, Sean Connery. An old Irish caretaker who is about to lose his job to a younger man captures the king of the leprechauns and forces him to grant three wishes. 'G' (1 hr., 35 min.) (57) +*H "Ten From Your Show Of Shows"(1973, Comedy) Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca. Ten classic skits from the original telecasts of "Your Show Of Shows," with personal anecdotes by

Sid Caesar. 'G' (1 hr., 32 min.) 11:30® * "Fanny Hill" (1983, Drama) Lisa Raines, Oliver Reed. A woman of pleasure hopes to gain fortune in 18th-century London. 'R' (1 hr., 30 min.) 12:000 **H "The Barbarian And The Geisba"(1958, Drama) John Wayne, Sam Jaffe. The first American ambas­sador to Japan receives cold rebuffs from the emperor and devotion from a geisha. (2 hrs.)

272 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

° This Is Not Your Life:

---

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26