Waging War against Network Television: Richard Nixon and the Political Origins of Cable Television

Firmly believing that the media had “kicked him around” over the course of his political career, Richard Nixon waged a war against network broadcasting stations when he assumed the presidency. Instituting the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) in the Executive Office, President Nixon stood determined to involve his administration in telecommunications policy-making, especially prioritizing efforts to undermine the social, economic, and political influence of network television in American life. Nixon believed the three stations had failed viewers in programming choices and in coverage of elections and public policy issues. He found the solution in a nascent cable television industry. Working directly with the president, a small band of OTP policymakers argued to Congress, the FCC, and the American public that the cable industry could help usher in a fundamentally new role for television in American political life. In a vision that became known as “blue skies,” Nixon’s OTP promoted cable television as a purveyor of media diversity that was integral to democracy in a mass-mediated society and proof of the effectiveness of the free market to promote public good. This paper will show how cable deregulation emerged not as a product of Reagan’s economic agenda in the 1980s, but rather as a tool used by Nixon to break down the monopolistic regulatory structure of the broadcasting networks that he, and many others on both ends of the political spectrum, felt had undemocratically influenced American political discussions. Drawing on archival research from the Cable Library, personal manuscript collections of OTP members, FCC collections, and the Nixon library, this paper will examine politics driving changes in cable policy under Nixon as the president sought to use the new medium to establish direct channels of communication with the American people and eliminate the power of network television that Nixon perceived as “liberally biased.”