This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.

In the past two days two things have happened to two of the most important critics in broadcasting: Jack Gould of the New York Times stopped being a critic. Seldes relates a story of one of Gould's articles which resulted in a crime program being removed from the Saturday morning line-up. Another critic "got angry." John Crosby normally did not get mad, but in this instance he became upset about the figures collected by the National Organization for Better Radio and Television - the figures were about the incidents of crime in children's programing. The budget of the 21 programs that the organization found "admirable" was less than the budget of one crime Western. Crosby demanded that the networks take over the creation of children's programs.

Seldes goes on to discuss the implications of "condemned programs," and the limits of the networks.
He goes on to discuss an unofficial group that reports to Congress about programming. He finds this dreadful and would prefer a grassroots organization.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 71484
Municipal archives id: LT3108