History
The act was supported by many prominent Americans such as Fred Rogers and Senator John O. Pastore (chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications) during the House and Senate hearings in 1967.
The United States House of Representatives passed the bill 266-91 on September 21, 1967, with 51 members voting "present" and 2 not voting.
When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into law on November 7, 1967, he described its purpose:
It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth; our Nation wants more than a "chicken in every pot." We in America have an appetite for excellence, too. While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act.
More concretely:
It will give a wider and, I think, stronger voice to educational radio and television by providing new funds for broadcast facilities. It will launch a major study of television's use in the Nation's classrooms and their potential use throughout the world. Finally — and most important — it builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The act was originally to be called the "Public Television Act" and focus exclusively on television, worrying supporters of public radio. But in a sudden change of fortune, Senator Robert Griffin suggested changing the name to the "Public Broadcasting Act" when the bill passed through the Senate. After several revisions, including last-minute changes added with scotch tape, the law signed by Johnson included radio. This set the path for the incorporation of National Public Radio (NPR) in 1970.
Read more about this topic: Public Broadcasting Act Of 1967
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“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
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