Tobacco Documents Online

95 halional Broadcasting Company Inc f•F Th rryRocketbuenPlgza 4444 P 664 - - NewYakN T 10020 21 v ~ Herbert S Schlosser President and Crnet Executive On cer The Honorable Joseph A. Califano, Jr. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Washington, D. C. 20201 Dear Mr. Secretary: Thank you for your letter informing me of'the initia- tive your Department has undertaken to discourage Americans from smoking. I have read your January 11 speech and your proposals for a nationwide campaign with considerable interest. As you no doubt know, many different an6worthy causes are supported by public service announcements regularly carried by the NBC Television Network an&NBC Owned sta- tions. These are requested and provided'to us by various government and'public organizations, and for many years now NBC has been broadcasting anti-smoking messages as part of this activity, from such concerned groups as the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and HEW's Public Health Service. A full range of anti-smoking announcements from these or-" ganizations appear in NBC's nighttime schedule and in our Saturday morning children's schedule. We consider this a valuable part of our public service effort. That effort, of course, does serve many other good causes. We regularly provide time for public service announcements

in the areas of Education, Energy and the Environment, Nutrition, Veterans' services, U.S. Savings Bonds, aid to the Handicapped, early cancer detection and the like. Obviously we have to allocate the available time among a variety of subjects on a fair basis. The campaign you propose is certainly an important one. NBC regards it as worthy of support and we will be glad to consider how much of our available public servi.-e an. nouncement time we can properly devote to this subject, without prejudicing support for other significant causes ., I appreciate your interest in NBC and the opportunity fo this company to be of assistance. €