--- 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=2400&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=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Scathing Speech That Made Television History ## 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/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/"},"headline":"The Scathing Speech That Made Television History","datePublished":"2016-05-09T12:00:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:04:30.817Z","description":"That time the FCC chairman proclaimed television a \"vast wasteland\"","url":"https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/","keywords":["Television","politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c46bc486211af12/698891800b72e386476e92ec/minow.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c46bc486211af12/698891800b72e386476e92ec/minow.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Newton Minow","caption":"Watchf Associated Press Domestic News Dist. of Col United States APHS49764 FCC CHAIRMAN","creditText":"AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4315217/newton-minow-vast-wasteland-1961-speech/","name":"The Scathing Speech That Made Television History"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Tech Time: The Future of TV","description":"How will we be watching tv in a few years? 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