TV Veterans Discuss the Sad State of Medium at Academy

The effects of TV on today’s viewers were assessed by a group of Los Angeles television veterans who participated in a retrospective on local broadcasting Monday night, staged by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

“I am sobered by what I see on television today,” said Stephanie Edwards. “I see us raising a group of young people who ‘see’ and ‘want’ rather than ‘see’ and ‘do.’ Young people today tell me they want to go into law, not because of the profession, but because of the lifestyle they see on ‘L.A. Law’ . . . or into journalism because ‘Murphy Brown’ makes it look like fun. We are making them believe they can have something in half an hour,” said Edwards, a veteran talk show host.

Sally Baker, who drew some 300,000 letters per year when she was hosting the “Hobo Kelly” show on local stations, expressed her concern that most children’s shows today are non-hosted action-adventure. “Children need to be taught consequences,” she said. “When there’s a host, children can make a connection, but programs today are dehumanizing our populace. Things need to be put into scripts to help children grow up safely.”

Lloyd Thaxton, a former TV teen-age music show host who now produces and directs “Fight Back! With David Horowitz,” said, “I hope before long the people who do TV will stop thinking of the audience as a bunch of 12-year-olds. That’s what they used to tell us. But executives have forgotten that the audience has grown up . . . that’s one reason the networks are in trouble today.”

Gene Weed, who has been with Dick Clark Productions for several years, took a smack at the ratings system, saying “the sample size is too small to give us accurate information. In this country where we can put a man on the moon, we ought to have the technology to figure out exactly what people are watching.” He said he found it impossible to believe that ‘Roseanne’ has often been the No. 1 show.

Walt Baker, an academy vice president, hosted the discussion at the academy’s new complex in North Hollywood. Other panel members were newsman George Putnam, sportscaster Gil Stratton, movie host and KNX entertainment reporter Tom Hatten, KCBS’ Tritia Toyota and former Channel 2 newsman-commentator Ralph Story.

Story, who said he’s about to turn 70, said of his career on both radio and television: “I started out with a respectful job and ended up in a frivolous one . . . and in fact, that’s the way TV turned out.”