Television cemented its grip on American attention spans during the 1960s. The industry added channels and improved the quality of its color pictures. However, some Americans became increasingly critical of television programming in the decade. They worried that TV would, in the words of many a concerned parent, "rot their children's minds."

Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow (1926–) summed up the concerns about television in his address to the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961. "When television is good," said Minow, "nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse." He challenged broadcasters to watch their TV shows for an entire day. Minow assured them, in words that became his most famous, that they would observe "a vast wasteland."

Minow was right—TV in the 1960s was both good and bad. Sports programming improved...