1. Edward Pfister, interviewed by the author, Washington, D.C., Apr. 10, 1985. [BACK]

2. Public Broadcasting Report 3, no. 3 (Jan. 30, 1981). [BACK]

3. Public Broadcasting Report 2, no. 22 (Nov. 7, 1980). [BACK]

4. Public Broadcasting Report 3, no. 9 (Apr. 24, 1981). [BACK]

5. Public Broadcasting Report 4, no. 7 (Mar. 26, 1982). [BACK]

6. Public Broadcasting Report 3, no. 5 (Feb. 27, 1981). [BACK]

7. Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting, A Public Trust . Also, "A Summary and Overview of the Findings and Recommendations of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting" issued by the Commission, Jan. 30, 1977. The members of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting (Carnegie II) were William J. McGill (chairman), president, Columbia University; Stephen K. Bailey, professor of education and social policy, Harvard University; Red Burns, executive director, Alternate Media Center, New York University; Henry J. Cauthen, president, South Carolina Educational Television Commission; Peggy Charen, president, Action for Children's Television; Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr., professor of communications and engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Virginia Duncan, independent producer; Eli N. Evans, president, Charles H. Revson Foundation; John Gardner, founding chairman, Common Cause; Alex P. Haley, author; Walter W. Heller, Regent's Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota; Josie R. Johnson, vice president, General Alumni Association at Fisk University; Kenneth Mason, president, Quaker Oats Company; Bill Moyers, executive editor of Bill Moyers' Journal ; Kathleen Nolan, president, Screen Actors Guild; J. Leonard Reinsch, chairman, Cox Broadcasting Corporation; and Dr. Tomas Rivera, author and poet. [BACK]

8. Editorial in Broadcasting , Feb. 5, 1979, p. 30. [BACK]

9. An analysis of how the Communications Act of 1978 (HR 13015) might affect public television is contained in a document prepared by the PBS General Counsel's Office and distributed to members of the PBS Board with a covering memorandum from Lawrence K. Grossman, "Rewrite of the Communications Act," June 22, 1978, NPBA. [BACK]

10. "Final Report: Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications, October 1, 1983" (printed in Current , Sept. 27, 1983). [BACK]

11. The PBS standards for corporate underwriting were originally issued on April 15, 1987, as the Report of the Special Committee on Program Policies and Procedures . They have been updated periodically since, most recently in PBS National Program Funding Standards and Practices , issued by the Public Broadcasting Service, Alexandria, Va., Mar. 9, 1990. [BACK]

12. The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour , originally a joint production of WETA and WNET, is now produced by an independent company, MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Inc. However, executive producer Les Crystal (former president of NBC News) is employed not by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions but by the coproducing stations, WNET and WETA, as a part of the agreement between the independent producing agency and the public system. [BACK]

14. Arthur Unger, " NewsHour Looks Ahead," Newsday , Sept. 4, 1984. [BACK]

15. Walter Karp, "Tiptoeing Through the Halls of Power," Channels of Communication , Mar. 1986. [BACK]

16. Robert MacNeil announced his plan to retire from the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in 1995. [BACK]

17. Ben Brown, "PBS Chief Leaves Healthy Legacy," USA Today , Feb. 9, 1984. [BACK]

18. Tom Shales, "Pledge Week Exacts a Stiff Price for Commercial-Free TV," Paducah (Kentucky) Sun , Mar. 8, 1984. Shales wrote that "Outgoing PBS president Lawrence Grossman helped give public TV a lobotomy, and he made it look more like network TV." [BACK]

19. Penny Pagano, "New PBS Chief Lists Goals," St. Louis Globe-Democrat , Apr. 24, 1984 (from the Los Angeles Times Syndicate). [BACK]

20. "America's First Television War," Newsweek , Oct. 10, 1983. [BACK]

21. Tom Shales, "Vietnam: On PBS, A Landmark Journey Through 30 Years of Darkness," Washington Post , Oct. 3, 1983. [BACK]

22. Fox Butterfield, "TV Returns to Vietnam to Dissect the War," New York Times , Oct. 2, 1983. [BACK]

23. Davis resigned as Executive Director in 1990 and was succeeded by Ward Chamberlin. [BACK]

24. Ellin Stein, "Quality Time," American Film (Jan-Feb. 1986). [BACK]

25. "Ten Years of Moving Pictures: American Playhouse 1982-1991," Public Playhouse, Inc., 1991, NPBA. [BACK]

26. Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, Program for Action , p. 13. [BACK]

27. Lee Margulies, "'Sadness Begins' for Public Broadcasting," Los Angeles Times , May 13, 1982. The expression "the sadness begins" is from CPB president Edward Pfister. [BACK]

28. Tom Shales, "The TV Year That Was," Boston Globe , Jan. 4, 1984. [BACK]

29. The staples of the PBS prime-time schedule came into being by different routes. Nova was the brainchild of Michael Ambrosino, a WGBH/Boston producer, who worked with the BBC under a Corporation fellowship, developed a high regard for the BBC's science series ( Horizons ) and returned to WGBH with a deal to coproduce science shows with them. The National Geographic Specials , originally produced by Wolper Productions, began on CBS in 1965, shifted to ABC later, but ultimately lost their air time on the commercial networks. Gulf Oil and the National Geographic Society brought them to PBS a year later through WQED/Pittsburgh. Great Performances brought together two earlier series, Dance in America and Theater in America , both produced by Jac Venza at WNET/New York. [BACK]

30. Sue Mullin, "PBS Chief Expects Best Season Ever," Washington Times , Aug. 4, 1984. [BACK]

31. David Bergman, "PBS Prexy Forecasts Upbeat Future for Public TV," Daily Variety , May 29, 1984. [BACK]

32. The members of the original CPB Board were Frank Pace, Jr. (chair), former Secretary of the Army; James R. Killian, Jr. (vice chair), chairman of the corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Joseph A. Beirne, president, Communications Workers of America; Robert S. Benjamin, chairman, United Artists Corporation; Roscoe C. Carroll, corporation counsel, Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company; Michael A. Gammino, president, Columbus National Bank of Providence; Saul Haas, chairman, KIRO (AM-FM-TV), Seattle; Erich Leinsdorf, conductor, Boston Symphony Orchestra; John D. Rockefeller 3d, New York; Frank E. Schooley, director of broadcasting, University of Illinois; Oveta C. Hobby, publisher, Houston Post ; Joseph D. Hughes, vice president, T. Mellon & Sons; Carl E. Sanders, former Governor of Alabama; Jack Valenti, president, Motion Picture Association of America; and Milton S. Eisenhower, president, Johns Hopkins University. [BACK]

33. Television Digest , Feb. 24, 1975. [BACK]

34. Les Brown, "Benjamin to Quit Public TV Group," New York Times , Feb. 4, 1977. Benjamin's term as a director had expired eleven months before his resignation. His "lame duck" status may have been a factor in his decision to resign. [BACK]

35. "Pfister Urges Public Broadcasting Unity," Broadcasting , Nov. 9, 1981. [BACK]

36. The quotations from the Corporation's meeting of May 15, 1984, are taken from the minutes of that meeting, NPBA. [BACK]

37. Steve Behrens, "Public Broadcasting's Unholy Link to Politics," Channels , July-Aug. 1985. [BACK]