"A Melancholy Business"

"It has now been made crystal clear that the American people hold the networks responsible for what appears on their schedules." With that belated recognition of the obvious, CBS President Frank Stanton announced that his network will no longer permit "games whose major appeal is the winning of large sums of money or lavishly expensive prizes." CBS followed through by axing The Big Payoff, Top Dollar and Name That Tune.

But rival NBC wanted none of that solution. Suggesting archly that to be consistent CBS would have to drop such petty-cash guessing games as I've Got a Secret and What's My Line?, NBC said that it would make its own shows honest from top dollar to bottom, because "millions of Americans like and want them."

As past contestants reappeared in the newspapers to plead innocence or cast suspicion, and TV reporters wrote reams of copy designed to show that they had really been in the know all along, considerable suspicion piled up against CBS's $64,000 programs, Question and Challenge. Even the great, granite TV-screen image of New York's Manufacturers Trust Company, with its dignified vice president and two uniformed guards, turned out to be hollow; the bank had guarded the questions all right, but had only the word of the producers that no one else had seen them. But the implications of the quiz scandals last week went far beyond the guilt or innocence of any individual show or contestant, including Charles Van Doren (who reappeared after a long, lost weekend in New England, accepted a subpoena to testify when the Washington hearings resume Nov. 2). Growing recognition of the networks' irresponsibility (notably their willingness to let packagers control much of their entertainment fare) put in question the ethics of the television industry in general. For the first time, the U.S. was forced to think about the philosophy that lies behind the picture tube as well as the character of those who sit in front of it.

Wrote the Atlanta Constitution's Ralph McGill: "It is a melancholy business, and it is the more so because it is a reflection on all of us. That so many millions hang on the results of the quizzes, in which sterile parrot knowledge was put to artificial use, was a commentary on our public values." As if to support McGill's point, the New York Daily News's inquiring photographer asked six New Yorkers a $64,000 question: "Would you have any qualms about appearing on a [rigged] quiz show?" Answered five out of six: No, I'd take the money. No amount of public naivete or cupidity could excuse the networks' lack of responsibility. Said CBS's Stanton: "As I see it with the benefit of hindsight, we should have been more thoughtful and critical."

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