When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you--and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

What do we mean by 'the public interest?' Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.

We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled…

Sending communications satellites will be much more important than sending man into space because they will send ideas into space. Ideas last longer than men.

Television has thrown in the towel. It rarely even pays lip service to its once brave mission to educate and illuminate. Instead it gives us what we want, in m…

You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel.