announced that Dr. Eli A. Rubinstein, Assistant Director for Extramural Programs and Behavioral Sciences, National Institute of Mental Health will be vice chairman, and that Mr. Richard A. Moore, special consultant to the Secretary, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, will provide coordination between the Committee and the Office of the Secretary. Mr. Moore also attended the meeting. The Committee's discussion centered around the general research strategy and tactics to be employed in initiating the project. The following guidelines were accepted:

1. The Committee will serve in a scientific advisory role to the Surgeon General and to the research to be developed by the National Institute of Mental Health where the full-time staff is now being organized.

2. The National Institute of Mental Health will serve as the central resource for the work. NIMH will be the referral point for official inquiries and responses about the work of the Committee.

3. The next step will be the development and selection of specific research projects to obtain new knowledge to try to answer the major research questions on the relationship between television and social behavior. Approximately $1 million is earmarked for actual research initiated by or recommended by this Committee.

4. The Advisory Committee recommended that recent relevant activities such as the work of the Mass Media Task Force of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence be carefully examined to insure maximum use of any recent findings in the initiation of research studies.

I think that is responsive to the point you made in your introduction about not duplicating the work.

Senator PASTORE. I understand there have been various studies, and I suppose they will take advantage of those too, for whatever they may be worth.

Ďr. RUBINSTEIN. That is true. But the present state of research in television and social behavior is the work of individual investigators, and is largely uncoordinated. The Advisory Committee recommended that the NIMH National Clearinghouse for Mental Health Information provide a comprehensive and continuing source of information about research on TV and social behavior.

6. The Committee agreed that it would be inappropriate to take a narrow view of the problem of television and social behavior. It, therefore, recommended that the research efforts be undertaken in two phases: (a) a short-term objective of a year or two to try to obtain better immediate answers, and (b) a long-term objective to develop a continuing comprehensive examination of the process of child development which is influenced by the impact of television and social behavior.

Senator PASTORE. I subscribe wholeheartedly to that recommendation, because there are many people that are rather impatient about this, and they feel we ought to get some immediate answers as well if they are obtainable.

I think you can study this subject ad infinitum if you allowed yourself to, but at some point-that is the reason why we were very careful to try to get an interim by October. I don't mean you are going to be

compelled—we are not mandating this illustrious body of professional people to meet any deadline. All we don't want is to have it wither on

the vine.

The point is that at some point I think you ought to come forward and say, well, we think these are some of the answers that can be considered as of now. We are going to ask you to come in possibly some time in October just to give us a rundown as to how far you have gone.

I will tell you very frankly, on this very deep and scientific subject, I don't think you will have any immediate answers by then, excepting, of course, the extent we would get a good rundown and analysis from the National Commission on Crime and Violence. You may come in at that time and give us your appraisal of what you think it amounts to and how far beyond that we should go.

Dr. RUBINSTEIN. We are obviously, Senator, following very closely the work of the National Commission and are equally interested in seeing their report on the Mass Media Task Force just as soon as it is available and, as you have already indicated, it should be available in the very near future.

The final comment that the Committee made, which I think is relevant to the point you are making about the complexity of the whole issue and the difficulty of coming up with really final answers, the final point they made was no firm completion date for the study was set. The next meeting of the Advisory Committee will be held September 24-25, 1969. At that time substantive proposals for research will be considered.

Senator PASTORE. Let me ask you a question: As a Ph. D. and one who has been very much involved in this area, especially as a member of the National Institute of Mental Health, do you think we are actually operating in a dark area here, or do you feel there is a feasibility of some answers?

Dr. RUBINSTEIN. I think there is no question that there is a feasibility of some answers, Senator.

I think that what we need to be careful about, and I believe the reason that the Committee advised these two phases of the entire study, is that as we uncover new knowledge in this field and come closer to having answers about the relationship, we will be at the same time uncovering new issues and new problems and new complexities in an area which is a growing issue with both the increase in the use of television and a number of other aspects of our whole social system at the present time.

So we are really talking about uncovering new knowledge and coming to some closer answers, but also uncovering new questions. Senator PASTORE. Let me ask you this question, too.

Do you think that this is a problem that could be resolved by the lay mind, without some scientific study?

Dr. RUBINSTEIN. I don't think so, Senator.

I think if you will take a recent case in point with the moon shot, there were among experts prior to that time, a difference of opinion as to whether the moon was hot or cold and some very eminent scientists took opposing points of view on that.

It wasn't until the material was brought back from the moon that is now under observation, that people of the caliber of Dr. Harold Urey,

who was a primary advocate of the cold-moon theory, is now perhaps revising his point of view.

I think what I am trying to suggest is that it is often the case that eminent people, without sufficient evidence in an area of great complexity, can take diametrically opposing points of view until new, hard data becomes available. I think that is what you asked us to do and that is what we are trying to do.

Senator PASTORE. In other words, it would be unfair and it would not be proper to have a lay person say silence does affect behavior of young children, or has a relationship to that behavior any more than that lay person could say it does not, without some scientific substance behind that statement.

Dr. RUBINSTEIN. That would be my point of view; yes, sir.
Senator PASTORE. Are there any questions of Dr. Rubinstein?
Senator Moss. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Senator GRIFFIN. Is there a staff director designated?
Are you going to be the staff director?

Dr. RUBINSTEIN. I am serving as the executive coordinator for the entire endeavor. We are in the process of hiring a full-time staff of approximately a dozen people, within which there will be three or four senior research associates, who will have the major responsibility of coordinating the actual research activities per se and will be working full time on this activity.

I am including this in some other responsibilities I have within the Institutes.

But I am serving as executive coordinator and, in the absence of the Surgeon General, I am serving as the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee.

Senator GRIFFIN. Thank you.

Senator PASTORE. I would like this testimony to be made a part of the previous record.

Thank you very much, Dr. Rubinstein.

We appreciate your coming. We look forward to a good report. Dr. RUBINSTEIN. Thank you, Senator.

OPENING STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN

Senator PASTORE. We will now come to the business of S. 2004, which is a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934, to establish orderly procedures for the consideration of applications for renewal of broadcast licenses.

I ask unanimous consent at this time that the bill be made a part of the record at this point.

(The bill and agency comments follow:)

[S. 2004, 91st Cong., first sess.]

A BILL To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to establish orderly procedures for the consideration of applications for renewal of broadcast licenses

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 309 (a) shall be amended by adding the following after the final sentence thereof: "Notwithstanding any other provision of the Act, the Commission, in acting upon any application for renewal of a broadcast license filed under section 308, may not consider the application of any other person for the facilities for which renewal is sought. If the

Commission finds upon the record and representations of the licensee that the public interest, convenience, and necessity has been and would be served thereby, it shall grant the renewal application. If the Commission determines after a hearing that a grant of the application of a renewal applicant would not be in the public interest, convenience, and necessity, it shall deny such application, and applications for construction permits by other parties may then be accepted, pursuant to section 308, for the broadcast service previously licensed to the renewal applicant whose renewal was denied."

COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,

Hon. WARREN G. MAGNUSON,

Chairman, Committee on Commerce,

U.S. Senate.

Washington, D.C., May 26, 1969.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Your letter of May 1, 1969, requests our comments on S. 2004, 91st Congress, which is a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to establish orderly procedures for the consideration of applications for renewal of broadcast licenses.

We have no special information as to the desirability of the measure and, therefore, make no comment regarding its merits.

Sincerely yours,

R. F. KELLER (For the Comptroller General of the United States).

Senator PASTORE. Under the bill, the FCC at the time it considers an application for renewal of a broadcast license must first determine whether the public interest, convenience, and necessity has been and would be served by a grant of the application.

If the Commission is able to make an affirmative determination of this question, based on the past record and representations of the applicant, it shall grant the application for renewal.

If, on the other hand, the Commission is unable to make such a finding and determines after a hearing that a renewal of the applicant's license would not be in the public interest, convenience, and necessity, it shall deny the application.

I want to make it abundantly clear at this moment that we have not shifted the burden of proof. The burden of proof is still under the bill on the broadcaster to show that he has lived up to the law, and lived up to the representations and pledges that he made at the time of the application.

In other words, no party is precluded from bringing a complaint against a licensee that that licensee has not lived up to its responsibilities. And then a hearing will ensue and the burden of proof is upon the licensee to show that he has.

Then it will be up to the Federal Communications Commission to decide whether or not the license should be renewed or be revoked.

And only after that license is revoked can all applicants come in and apply for the facilities.

That is all it amounts to. No one is denied the right to register a complaint. That's not changed. No one is freed from the responsibilitywhen I say no one, I mean the broadcasters-are not freed from the responsibility of proving that they have lived up to their responsibility.

And then if they have failed to prove that they have done so, the license then can be revoked by the FCC, and then it comes up for grabs. You have to realize that the reason behind all this is that we have thousands upon thousands of licenses in this country. We have 7,000 licenses in this country. You can imagine 7,000 licenses came up for grabs. You can imagine what would happen to the public interest and what would happen to the broadcasting industry.

Now, heretofore that has not been the case. The custom has been that the people usually have withheld applying for a license already in existence at renewal time. But that has changed for some reason, I don't know the answer to it, maybe it will develop during the course of this hearing. But that has changed.

And I can foresee the burden upon this Congress to provide the money that would be necessary to hire the hearing officers to augment the staff of the FCC, and also almost present us with an impossible problem.

Now, having said this, I don't want to leave the impression that my mind is closed. It could well be that I have not thought of things that will be presented here that would make me relax the opinion that I have just expressed.

The purpose of this is to bring about equity and justice and nothing more. If the law should remain the way it is in the public interest, I will be the first one to stand up and say so.

On the other hand, if it should be adopted, I will be the first one to stand up and say so. This is a bill that is not intended to appease or to accommodate anyone. This is a bill that is intended to serve the public interest, and that is the only question that will be before this committee. And if the public interest is better served without the bill, we will leave the law the way it is. The burden of proof will be upon the witnesses who come here to show the law needs to be changed in the public interest.

I have a long opening statement here, and I will have it put in the record. I have just stated as simply as I can what this is all about. (The statement follows:)

The Committee will now begin consideration of S. 2004, a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934, to establish orderly procedures for the consideration of applications for renewal of broadcast licenses.

Under the bill, the FCC, at the time it considers an application for renewal of a broadcast license, must first determine whether the public interest, convenience, and necessity has been and would be served by a grant of the application.