Don Wildmon

AFA/AFR founder

September 1996 – Back in the early 1980s, I attended a seminar at Aspen, Colorado. The seminar consisted of a small number of people who came together to discuss the problem of filth on television. Attending were individuals from  entertainment, advertising, and corporate industries. There were two individuals present to carry the load on behalf of better programming – myself and one other individual.

One participant had a new hit TV series called Hill Street Blues. His name was Steven Bochco. The only comments I remember made at the seminar were made by Mr. Bochco. He said that he was “going to push the limits of television as far as I can push them.”

Mr. Bochco has remained faithful to his vow. His NYPD Blue broke new ground for sexual nudity and foul language in 1993. Not content with that, he has decided that he wants to bring even more coarse, vulgar and foul language to the networks – and CBS has agreed to pay him to do so. The name of his new program is Public Morals.

Mr. Bochco is a man to be pitied. His greatest ambition in life is to take his talent and use it for the cheap and tawdry. His greatest goal is to see how much trash he can put on television.

How twisted is this man’s mind? Well, he thinks the reason people are not watching network television as much any more is that they’re looking for something more provocative. (Translated, that means filthy.)

Mr. Bochco is typical of the people who rule Hollywood and the networks. These are people whose minds are as far removed from the typical American as the east is from the west. They live in their own little isolated and insulated world and think that everyone else thinks and lives as they do.

In this issue are action steps (page 20 of September 96 AFA Journal) to help Mr. Bochco’s newest adventure be a failure. There is no way to keep CBS from airing the program if they are determined to do so. But what you can help assure is that CBS will lose millions and millions of dollars on the project. So I hope you will take those action steps. Perhaps if CBS loses enough they will make a change.

But there is one other thing you can do. Lift Mr. Bochco up to God in your prayers. What a contribution he could make if he ever discovered that life is a gift from God and there are greater goals than seeing how much filth he can get away with on television.