In addition to pressure from sponsors, civil rights leaders, their own employees, and personal sense of justice, we think that part of the equation for CBS and GE/NBC was the impact on public policy. The Congress is going to take up legislation regulating TV violence (and Senate Commerce Chair Daniel Inouye just signaled his support for such a bill). The FCC is considering a new give-away to television broadcasters for their additional digital channels, requiring cable television carriage. There don’t want any serious scrutiny on their deals and mergers. There’s generally a policy angle lurking whenever the media industry does the right thing.
