--- title: Newton Minow's Vast Wasteland Speech: How It Changed TV description: It was 55 years ago—on May 9, 1961—that the then-new FCC chairman Newton Minow proclaimed television a "vast wasteland" canonical: https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-09T12:00:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:04:30.817Z article:section: History og:title: Newton Minow's Vast Wasteland Speech: How It Changed TV og:description: That time the FCC chairman proclaimed television a "vast wasteland" og:url: https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c46bc486211af12/698891800b72e386476e92ec/minow.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Newton Minow og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Newton Minow's Vast Wasteland Speech: How It Changed TV twitter:description: That time the FCC chairman proclaimed television a "vast wasteland" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c46bc486211af12/698891800b72e386476e92ec/minow.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Scathing Speech That Made Television History > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Tech Time: The Future of TV [Watch (HLS stream): Tech Time: The Future of TV](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/s0cKIzc8.m3u8) (2:22)  _Published 2016-02-03. How will we be watching tv in a few years? And what will it look like? TIME Tech Editor Alex Fitzpatrick weighs in._  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 9, 2016 12:00 PM UTC  Newton N. Minow, FCC chairman, testifies before a Senate subcommittee on May 23, 1961, weeks after delivering his 'vast wasteland' speech. Newton N. Minow, FCC chairman, testifies before a Senate subcommittee on May 23, 1961, weeks after delivering his 'vast wasteland' speech. AP  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 9, 2016 12:00 PM UTC On May 9, 1961, Newton N. Minow stepped to the microphone in front of a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. Minow had recently been named chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and this would be his first speech. After telling those gathered that he had admiration and respect for the “honorable profession” of broadcasting, he cut to the theme of his remarks: how television could uphold the public interest. And it was clear he felt that goal was not yet being met: --- > “” --- The phrase with which he described television—a “vast wasteland”—would stick, cementing the [speech](http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm) in the annals of rhetoric. (The person who[ came up with the phrase ](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/where-the-phrase-vast-wasteland-came-from/238743/)was journalist John Bartlow Martin.) [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) The reason television needed to be better, Minow said, was bigger than entertainment. During the Cold War, the communications potential of television needed to be put to use for the cause of helping democracy defeat communism. In such a time, he said, “the old complacent, unbalanced fare of action-adventure and situation comedies is simply not good enough.” Though Minow was adamant that his FCC had no intention to “muzzle or censor broadcasting,” he did note that the FCC had the power to refuse to reissue broadcasting licenses. The audience, TIME reported, “took the speech as a deliberate tactic to scare stations and networks into better programing, and as a hint that they should do something about it soon.” The speech is [acknowledged](http://www.museum.tv/eotv/minownewton.htm) to have helped steer the development of what was still a young medium, though some might argue that television is even more violent and bloody than it was 55 years ago–Minow had never seen _Game of Thrones_, after all. While the mayhem would endure, educational and informative programming, like the network news, advanced in scope during Minow’s tenure. And, of course, the medium acquired a new moniker. In 2011, Minow [t](http://adage.com/article/rance-crain/minow-tv-a-vast-wasteland/227002/)[old AdvertisingAge](http://adage.com/article/rance-crain/minow-tv-a-vast-wasteland/227002/) that greater consumer choice was the most important improvement in television in the decades that had elapsed since his speech—that by getting “vaster,” television was necessarily less of a wasteland. **_Read TIME’s full coverage of the speech, from 1961, here in the TIME Vault:_** [“The People Own the Air”](http://time.com/vault/issue/1961-05-19/page/55/) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Almost nobody out there actually likes their cable company. Who wants to pay way too much money for a bunch of channels they never actually watch? Thankfully, it's getting easier than ever to cut the cord and get tv on demand, over the internet. Here's how the future of tv will be different. [ MUSIC ] For years, getting the best TV shows usually meant paying for an expensive cable package. But over the last few months lots of great shows have found their way online. Even HBO which makes some of the best TV out there, has a stand alone streaming service called HBO NOW. That makes life a lot easier for us TV fans if we only want shows like Game of Thrones, we don't need to pay lots of money for stuff we don't actually want to watch. Streaming services are having a big impact on how TV gets made in the first place, too. The big broadcasters have to make shows that appeal to a mass audience. That's their whole business model. But steaming companies like Netflix and Amazon can focus on making lots of high quality shows that might draw fewer viewers on their own, but add up in the long run. That's how we got great shows like House of Cards and Transparent. Netflix in particular is great at using big data To predict which shows will be a hit with viewers before they're even released. That's a really big change in how TV gets made in the first place. No more pilots, and no more focus groups. One rough patch right now for cord cutters is live sports. Depending on which teams you want to watch, it can be pretty tough to get games without cable. For instance, I can get Giants football games through an antenna, but I can't watch hockey or baseball without expensive streaming packages. And even those don't show home games all the time. There are signs of hope here though. ESPN is available on a very affordable slim TV. So you can get stuff like monday night football and lots of college hoops. Depending as other problems do if you cancel your cable and decide to sign up for lots of different streaming services. You might find that you're paying just as much as before. So you need to pick and choose to make it all worth while. Meanwhile, cable companies are making up for lost TV customers by jacking up rates on internet access. Still, the future is looking pretty bright for television fans. Companies like Netflix and Amazon are making really great original shows, broadcasters are starting to put more of their shows online, and life is slowly getting better for sports fans too. In a perfect world, we'd be able to watch whatever, whenever, wherever. It's looking pretty likely that will happen eventually, but unfortunately you shouldn't count on that coming true any Any time soon. 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