A Year for Teen-Agers

There was great harrumphing and clearing of throats at the 25th Peabody Awards luncheon in Manhattan last week. Each year, bronze medallions are supposed to be handed out for "distinguished and meritorious public service rendered by radio and television."

But the committee found a bone in its throat. "1964 was not a vintage year for broadcasting," blurted Peabody Juror Paul Porter, onetime Federal Communications Commission chairman. It was, he continued, "a year when the intelligent adult television audience has been consistently shortchanged by networks wooing teen-agers." In sum, a year of so much "dreary sameness and steady conformity" that "some of the Peabody judges were tempted to take a sabbatical and not make any awards."

"But," Porter conceded, "there were bright spots and high spots," and the Peabody board then proceeded to honor eleven. Among them: CBS Reports, Robert Saudek's Profiles in Courage (NBC), ABC News Commentator William Lawrence, the color documentary The Louvre (NBC), Joyce Hall for sponsoring Hallmark Hall of Fame (NBC), and Julia Child for The French Chef (WGBH Boston and NET).

Every network effort cited by the Peabody panel was in the public service category, a type of programming that accounts for only 4% of the networks' time. But more precisely appraised, its share is even less. As the season ends, undersponsored Profiles in Courage is still being bypassed by 20% of NBC's affiliates, unsponsored CBS Reports by 45% of the CBS outlets.

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