There are a few lines that I wish I had “created,” but none more so than William Goldman’s famous motto: “Nobody knows anything.”

In the process of selling TV content, I used to throw management into a tizzy when, asked if a particular program would succeed, I’d reply, “I don’t have a clue.” I expect that they never understood that, when I put millions of their dollars at risk, I couldn’t guarantee that the company would get their money back, never mind show a profit. All I could ever say was that I “sold at wholesale,” which translated from the ancient Hebraic meant that the broadcasters might buy said content or they might now. It was (and still is) the responsibility of the broadcaster to determine how many of their viewers would tune in to watch a particular program.

A brief example: When I acquired the distribution rights to Barney Miller, several of the studio intelligentsia claimed that Hal Lyndon couldn’t carry a comedy half-hour. It wasn’t that I was right about the program but rather that “the fates” were kind to me. The show grossed a couple hundred million dollars or more for Columbia.

So I found it amusing that, when a high-ranking show executive was asked about the new Anderson Cooper Show, he replied, “Think Donahue.”  

According to the New York Post:

It is a big gamble for Cooper, who will have to convince viewers they can fall in love again with a daytime TV star who is not talking about diets or dancing with his guests.

Even the great Phil Donahue himself doesn’t believe people want a new version of his show, which went off the air 15 years ago

Turning Cooper into a daytime idol — a GQ version of Regis Philbin — has even TV insiders asking what the new show is going to be like.

Neither the “pundits” nor the “creative executives” know if a large enough audience will tune in to watch Cooper for the show to be economically viable. I too am on that list. I have no clue.

Here’s how I explained it about 35 years ago:

Here I am, a forty-something Jewish electrical engineer from the Bronx with one wife, two kids, and a dog, who sells movies and television programs throughout the world, trying to determine what thirty-year-old Christian mothers want to watch during afternoons in Gary, Indiana.

Cooper will be an executive producer, and the show will be distributed by Warner Bros./Telepictures, who are as good as there is in handling this type of show. Yet, I will bet someone a dollar that the show won’t last a full season. But, as we all know, what the hell do I know?

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Today, Norman is addressing the 50th anniversary (May 9) of FCC Chairman Netwon Minow’s famous “vaste wasteland” speech:

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 each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Now for the rebuttal by Norman Horowitz:  

I would describe myself as a “content  libertarian” — that is, a believer in freedom of thought and expression. I am and have been in favor of the commercial nature of programming in our country because it offers the opportunity for the viewers of television to “vote” with their remote controls on what they want to see and not what anyone else thinks they should see.

In the early ’60s, I went to see the head of programming at a New York station and screened a lovely five-minute children’s program called “Pick a Letter.” The potential buyer watched with great interest and then told me that he wouldn’t buy it.

“Norman,” he said, “if a kid starts to watch it, in less than a minute he’ll switch off and watch a cartoon.” Five-year-olds have a “shit detector,” he explained, ”and if they get a sense that you’re trying to teach them something, they’ll change the station.“

It was a valuable lesson for me to have learned.

A few years later, I met “The Wunderkind” Fred Silverman at CBS, where he was the head of programming for daytime and children. He was the most dedicated programming executive that I’ve ever met. His job was to get as large an audience as possible for CBS, and boy, did he do that…probably to the chagrin of those “elitists”who would, if given the opportunity, try to “inform and educate” young people.

You can put it on, but you can’t make them watch it.

Around the same time, I met Monica Simms, who was the head of children’s programming at the BBC. She was a bright and charming woman, and we spent some time together outside of the office. I booked three tickets to whatever the “hot” Broadway show that was in fashion at the time, and Monica asked if it was possible to change the tickets and go and see “Oh! Calcutta!?” I’m still recovering emotionally from sitting in the first row of the theater for an X-rated performance with my wife and Monica. I was unable then or now to connect the woman who was in charge of children’s programming at the BBC wanting to see and enjoying that play.

In the early ’70s, I was in London, and Monica invited me to her home for dinner. There were about a dozen people there, including a bunch of very senior BBC producers  and programmers. Predictably, the after-dinner conversation centered around the “inadequacy” of American television that provided their audience with “what they wanted to see,” as opposed to the BBC, which gave their audience (to a certain extent) “what they should see.”

We have allowed the “elitist” Newton Minow’s of the world to advocate “what is good, better, or best” on television, which is wonderful as long as they are not with the FCC or any other regulatory body. Please do not deify Newton Minow and those of his ilk who will have you enjoy only what they deem acceptable.

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It was sometime in the very early ’70s that I met and became friendly with Lionel Keith Murphy. He was an Australian politician and jurist who served as a Senator, and then as the Attorney-General in the government of Gough Whitlam and as a Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1975 until his death in 1986.

Lionel was one of the brightest and most charming men I’ve ever met. He had a ready smile and a twinkle in his eye. He was my kind of guy for a variety of reasons, but most important was how he adored women and had the ability to make the least attractive of them feel like Miss Australia when he spoke to them.

In ’73 or ’74, my office in Sydney sent me clippings of Lionel’s remarks in the Australian Senate decrying the pernicious effects on Australian culture by the telecast of American content. Boy, did he ever attack American television!  

Several weeks later, I was in Sydney and having dinner with Lionel and his wife Ingrid. I raised the issue of what Lionel had said about American television content. Lionel gave me the best political lesson of my life in his reply:

Norman, were I to stand up on the floor of the Senate and decry Australian Aboriginal history, no one in the Senate would have listened, and no one in the press would have reported it. By attacking television, everyone listened, and the press loved every word that I spoke. The press will not report on issues such as education, racism, hunger, and such, but they love it when someone attacks television and will cover it extensively.

That brings me to Donald Trump.

This man has established himself as a political powerhouse by attacking the Obama birth certificate “non-issue”. As a result, television has embraced him, even though he has little else to say about anything.

Trump has recently suggested that we tell OPEC to cut oil prices. He said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that lowering the price of gas is as easy as telling OPEC’s members to do so. Wow, what a great and novel idea!

Candy Crowley of CNN argued that the United States can’t control OPEC. Trump disagreed, saying:

Candy, it’s the messenger, You know, I can send two executives into a room. They can say the same thing. One guy comes home with the bacon and the other one doesn’t. And I’ve seen it a thousand times. It’s the messenger. We don’t have the right messenger. Obama is not the right messenger. We are not a respected nation anymore. The world is laughing at us.

Let me tell you, it’ll go down if you say it properly.

He is free to make whatever accusations he chooses to. However: The media could choose either not to cover him when he does so or contradict him when he makes unfounded accusations.

Sadly, I expect that he knows that the outrageous positions he takes makes no sense, and he makes them anyway. Trump realizes that the solution to obtaining television and print notoriety is to be outrageous. He also realizes that he can become a known national commodity by being on television just like Budweiser beer…and it is all free for him!

I submit that it’s improper to use the name Donald Trump and the word “journalism” in the same paragraph.

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For the second week in a row, CNN benefits from hard news. Last week was even better than the week before, with CNN topping all the other news networks in all the demographic ratings.

In raw audience, FoxNews still has a lead, but CNN has risen to the top ten in both total day (9th) and primetime (10th). In the key demo, 25-54s, CNN had 24,000 more viewers than FoxNews. Over the total day, CNN had 46,000 more viewers than FoxNews.  In primetime, CNN also edged FoxNews in 18-49 year olds and did even better with 18-34 year olds. This was equally true of total day ratings. MSNBC finished a rather distant third in total viewing, and in the demographics.  

It’s exhilarating to conceive of what CNN could do if major events occurred every week. It has taken an earthquake, a tsunami, an atomic meltdown and a demi-war in Libya to get CNN as far as it has gotten. I don’t expect that to happen again soon, so I suggest that CNN go out and find hard news stories that others have neglected — there are plenty of them — and build on them to compete with FoxNews.

CNN has proven, once again, that it has people who can cover the news, rather than talk about it. I’d rather see Anderson Cooper out in the field than behind a desk. I’d rather not see Eliot Spitzer at all.

CNN was built on news intelligence. Back then, it had a full one-point rating, rather than the 0.4 it staggers around with these days. It’s good to see that last week it had a full rating point in households, and a point eight in total day.

It’s about time that CNN got back in the major leagues. I’m glad to see it happen, and I hope it lasts more than two weeks.

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To get us back in the proper mood, here’s one of the greatest living comedians, Stephen Fry, formerly of the famous British duo “Fry and Laurie.” If you’ve only experienced Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House, you’re in for a wonderful surprise:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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