Children’s television
30 Minutes (TV program)
The story
30 Minutes is a television newsmagazine for high-school students produced by Joel Heller for CBS News that aired on CBS from September 16, 1978 to August 28, 1982, for a total of 74 original episodes. For the first and second seasons, Betsy Aaron and Christopher Glenn were the coeditors, who reported and presented the stories; in the third season, Betty Ann Bowser replaced Aaron.
Except during the last half of the fourth season, each episode typically featured two primary segments, one reported by each editor, as well a short segment on kids' legal rights, letters from viewers, or advice on careers. Most stories focused on subjects of interest to teenagers, while some covered political or social issues rarely addressed in daytime children's programming. Although 30 Minutes received critical acclaim and numerous awards, it was cancelled for a variety of reasons, including low ratings, difficulty attracting advertiser support due to its mixed demographic of teenagers and adults, and the Federal Communications Commission's shift to a deregulatory approach to broadcasting, which meant that the networks faced less pressure to schedule educational and informational programming for children.
Production Team
The executive producer of 30 Minutes was Joel Heller (1931–2024), who recruited many former colleagues to the production team, including director Vern Diamond, editor Christopher Glenn, and certain producers. During the first and second seasons, Glenn and Betsy Aaron were the two coeditors; in this capacity, they both reported and presented stories. In the third season, Betty Ann Bowser replaced Aaron. Each editor typically worked on three stories at a time—writing one, filming a second, and editing a third; usually, they worked together only when they taped the program in the studio. During the first two seasons, attorney Patricia McGuire hosted a brief segment on legal issues titled "What's Right?"
Heller was a veteran CBS News producer who had produced numerous informational programs for children for the network since 1961. He was the executive producer for the Emmy Award–winning news segments for kids titled In the News, which aired from 1971 to 1986. Initially two-and-one-half minutes long, these segments aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block between cartoons. Beginning in 1974, Heller also produced What's It All About?, a series of 30-minute specials that explained current issues to kids. Later he produced the Emmy Award–winning Razzmatazz, a newsmagazine for kids 8 to 14 that aired from 1977 to 1982. In 1979, while continuing to serve as executive producer of 30 Minutes, he was named director, children's programs, at CBS News. In the late 1980s he moved to CBS's documentary unit.
Aaron was a respected television journalist. She began her broadcasting career as a reporter for a local station in Philadelphia in 1962. In 1972 she joined ABC News as an associate producer for the ABC Evening News in New York and was later based out of Chicago. In 1976 she joined CBS News as a reporter in the Atlanta bureau, and in 1977 she became a correspondent. She also anchored Newsbreak, news digests that aired during prime time. After she left 30 Minutes in 1979, she worked as a reporter for NBC, ABC, and CNN, and later returned to CBS. During her long career, she reported from conflict zones in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle East.
Glenn was an experienced reporter, producer, and editor. In 1960, he broadcast for Armed Forces Broadcasting in South Korea and New York. Among other positions, he worked for WNEW, a radio station in New York, from 1964 to 1970 and Metromedia Radio News Network in Washington, DC, from 1970 to 1971. In the latter year he joined CBS News as a radio producer. He also became the reporter/narrator for In the News, where he produced over 5,000 segments and acquired substantial experience in reporting for kids. From 1974, he presented several episodes of What's It All About? After 30 Minutes ended, he coanchored CBS News Nightwatch from 1982 to 1984 and later returned to CBS Radio, where he anchored World News Roundup from 1999 until shortly before his death in 2006.
Betty Ann Bowser was a pioneering reporter. She began her broadcasting career at WAVY, a local television station in the Norfolk, Virginia area, in 1966. She then moved to WTAR, another local station in the state. In 1974 she joined CBS News, where she reported both national and international stories, including the famine in Africa. After 30 Minutes concluded, she became a general assignment and later a health correspondent for PBS News Hour, covering stories such as the trial of the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Hurricane Katrina, and the opioid epidemic, before retiring in 2013.
Patricia McGuire was an attorney who received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. She began her legal career as project director for Georgetown's Street Law Program, founded in 1972, which placed law students in high schools to educate youths on the legal system. In 1989 she became the president of Trinity College in Washington, DC.
Format
30 Minutes focused on stories of interest to high-school students, but it sought to appeal to both younger and older viewers as well. In an essay for a book on teenagers and television, Heller explained his broadcasting philosophy, which he applied to 30 Minutes: "As the teen years begin, young people regard the TV set as a minor source of their entertainment and an unimportant source of their information unless some event or some school assignment draws them to it. However, we can improve our news and public affairs programming for young people by making sure that what we do broadcast is relevant to their real needs."
During the first three-and-a-half seasons, each episode of 30 Minutes typically included two primary segments, one reported by each editor; each segment was about ten minutes long. During the second half of the fourth and final season, budget constraints compelled the program to rely heavily on three-segment episodes including stories repeated from previous episodes and from Razzmatazz. Heller stated: "The stories not only are of interest to young people, but deal with matters that in a very real way touch the lives of the young …. It is our intention to bring them news stories that directly relate to their own concerns, worries and beliefs."
Most stories addressed a range of subjects of interest to teenagers, from the treatments available to individuals with acne to high-school marching bands, the effectiveness of driver's education, and young models and bodybuilders. Some covered political subjects in the news, such as kids growing up in the war-torn Middle East, young refugees arriving from Southeast Asia after the end of the Vietnam War, and children and teenagers recruited by the Ku Klux Klan.
30 Minutes is best remembered, however, for addressing sensitive social issues, such as suicide, child abuse, anorexia nervosa, and sexually transmitted disease; the effects of parental alcoholism or divorce on kids; and teenage marriage, homosexuality, and runaways. While prime-time newsmagazines like 60 Minutes and some daytime talk shows, like The Phil Donahue Show, covered such topics, it was exceedingly rare in the late 1970s and early 1980s for daytime children's programs to do so (exceptions include episodes of the ABC Afterschool Specials, CBS Afternoon Playhouse, and NBC Special Treat, which occasionally dealt with controversial subjects, but through drama). Glenn emphasized that these stories were reported under the same standards the evening news followed, and Aaron declared: "Sometimes I think we should run a disclaimer …. Something like: Warning—this language could be offensive to your parents." These segments were particularly valuable to young viewers who were facing these challenges alone.
30 Minutes also regularly featured three short segments. During the first two seasons, most episodes ended with "What's Right?," which examined legal issues of concern to teenagers, such as whether school principals have the right to search students' lockers, whether teachers can use corporal punishment to discipline students, and who is responsible if a teenager wrecks a car that he or she does not own. Heller explained that the goal was to "try to make the kids—and adults—aware of both their recourses and their responsibilities as we describe types of conflicts and explore the stands that could legally be taken." These segments were presented by the attorney Patricia McGuire of Georgeton University Law Center's Street Law Program. Initially, they were filmed with both anchors in the studio; later, they were filmed on location with only one. In the third season, "Letters to 30 Minutes" was introduced. In the fourth, "What It Takes" was added. For this segment, adults explained how they had succeeded in their careers; guests including an actor, a newspaper critic, a lawyer, a veterinarian, an advertising executive, and a pilot.
Production
30 Minutes debuted at the close of a decade that reshaped children's television, a period when ABC, CBS, and NBC expanded educational and informational programming for children in response to pressure from the advocacy group Action for Children's Television (ACT) and threats of new federal regulation. In 1968, Peggy Charren cofounded ACT with the goal of improving children's television. In 1970 ACT petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue new rules. The FCC declined, but in 1974 it released its "Children's Television Report and Policy Statement," in which it set forth policies and guidelines it expected broadcasters to comply with, but left compliance to industry self-regulation. Among other things, it stated that broadcasters should provide a reasonable amount of programming "designed to educate and inform—and not merely to entertain." In 1978 the FCC reestablished its Children's Task Force to assess the changes that had occurred since 1974. In 1979 this task force published a report on its findings, one of which concluded that the time devoted to educational and informational programming had remained essentially the same. Based on this finding, it concluded that broadcasters had failed to provide a reasonable amount of such programming. FCC staff determined that children's television would improve only if the FCC set mandatory rules.
In response to pressure from ACT and the threat of new FCC regulation, CBS and the other networks began expanding their educational and informational programming for children in the early 1970s. The first of CBS's programs was In the Know, two-and-one-half-minute informational segments that premiered in September 1970 and aired between Saturday morning cartoons; aimed at kids 6 to 12, it was hosted by characters from the animated series Josie and the Pussycats and featured live-action films on subjects like volcanoes, watchmaking, lunar rovers, iron-ore mining, and the construction of the Eiffel Tower. Encouraged by its success, in September 1971 In the News, which Heller produced and Glenn anchored, was introduced. In a 1982 Gallup survey of 1,010 teen-agers, nearly 90 percent stated that these segments had informed them about the world when they were younger and nearly half declared that they were a major source of information about current events. That same month CBS launched You Are There, anchored by Walter Cronkite—"eyewitness" reenactments of historic events like the trial of Socrates, Paul Revere's ride, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. In the early 1970s, Heller produced What's It All About?, a series of 30-minute specials that explained current issues to kids, such as the 1974 elections, inflation, Communism, and the Middle East. Later, CBS launched a one-hour newsmagazine for younger kids titled Razzmatazz. Developed in collaboration with Scholastic Magazines, this Emmy Award–winning program aired from 1977 to 1982. It was produced by Heller, hosted by Barry Bostwick and later Brian Tochi, and featured segments showing young people pursuing a range of interests, from competing in rodeos to serving as volunteer firefighters.
After the newsmagazine 60 Minutes became one of CBS's most successful programs, CBS News was asked to create a half-hour news program for teenagers. Jerry Golab, then vice president for children's programming, asked Heller to develop this program and to title it 30 Minutes: "That was all he said …. I asked what kind of program he was talking about. 'I don't know,' he told me. '60 Minutes is a big success—why can't you do the same thing on Saturday for the kids?'" Although it was inspired by 60 Minutes, it had no connection to the latter's production team. Nevertheless, Heller remarked that he hoped that it would eventually become the 60 Minutes for young people—a program he admired because it was what he described as the "ombudsman of the everyday man."
Heller stated that with this new venture, the network was "entering into uncharted waters." The program was more expensive to make than the animated series that aired on Saturday mornings. For the first season, 13 episodes were produced, each of which had a budget of $70,000 and was repeated only once. By contrast, the typical cartoon had a budget of about $140,000 but was repeated several times. Heller appreciated the fact that CBS was willing to rely on profits from the network's entertainment programming to subsidize the losses on informational programs like 30 Minutes. But at a workshop presented by a chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, he emphasized that broadcasting was ultimately a business and could expend only limited funds on high-quality children's programs because both audiences and advertiser support were limited.
30 Minutes was taped at CBS Broadcast Center in New York and filmed on location. Aaron and Glenn were selected as the program's initial editors. The decision to use two accomplished CBS correspondents, rather than teenagers, was intentional. As Heller observed, "One major way we try to establish a line of honest communication with young people … is to use experienced adult journalists as on-the-air hosts. We have found that it is better to use an adult to present the broadcast rather than a young person speaking to other young people. Although youthful enthusiasm can be charming, a fourteen-year-old talking about teen problems does not ring true unless that young person is talking about his personal experiences." Nevertheless, some segments were produced by teenagers. For example, in the first season, a group of high-school students who were traveling to Communist China were equipped with 8mm sound cameras and filmed their visit. For the second season, students from Roberto Clemente High School in Chicago produced a film on gang violence and for the third season, one on sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers.
Broadcast
30 Minutes premiered on CBS on Saturday, September 16, 1978, at 1:30 p.m., after the network's block of children's cartoons had concluded. It aired for the first three Saturday afternoons of each month, while the CBS Children's Film Festival was shown on the fourth Saturday. Newsweek heralded the premiere of 30 Minutes and similar programs that season as signs that children's television was finally maturing: "Has children's television finally decided to grow up? Judging from the new series and specials in kidvid's fall semester, TV's most infantile genre is displaying signs of a refreshing—if not entirely voluntary—maturity. Under the lash of governmental and consumerist protest, kidvid's manufacturers are eschewing stereotypes and downplaying violence. The emphasis remains on entertainment, but now all manner of social messages are being woven into the fun."
However, the program's time slot was challenging because most teenagers were either watching sports on television at that time or not watching television at all. As one critic commented, 30 Minutes offered a worthwhile alternative to Saturday morning's entertainment programming, but "who wants their children watching TV in the middle of a Saturday afternoon?" However, Faith Frenz-Heckman, vice president of children's programs at CBS Entertainment, maintained that 30 Minutes was slotted for Saturday afternoons because more sets were in use, more older viewers were watching, and if the program had been scheduled opposite cartoons it would not have had the audience it aimed to reach.
Nevertheless, Heller believed that the program's ideal time slot would have been a weekday after school or early Saturday or Sunday evening so that parents could watch it with their children. Glenn declared: "The dream location for this show would be at 7:30 p.m. …. One evening a week, we'd reach a lot more people, and it's a logical spot. My second choice would be late afternoon, like 4:30 Thursday. The audience is greater there. But 30 Minutes is unfortunately stacked against football." Television critic David Bianculli suggested that even though the program's time slot may have limited its audience, the fact that it received comparatively little notice may have it enabled it to cover more sensitive subjects and even include occasional profanity than if it had aired in a slot where more viewers were paying attention.
Cancellation
Although 30 Minutes was critically acclaimed, Its ratings were low and its mixed audience of adults and children made it difficult to market to advertisers, who preferred targeting a single demographic. In 1981, Bill Leonard, then president of CBS News, intervened to save it from cancellation after the end of the third season. But in 1982 it was finally cancelled. Heller estimated that CBS would save $1 million a year by replacing the program with the CBS Children's Film Festival, which aired films that the network simply bought from distributors.
The program's cancellation also coincided with the FCC's retreat from its efforts to regulate children's television after President Ronald Reagan, whose administration championed deregulation, assumed office. Mark S. Fowler, the new FCC chairman, implemented this approach, arguing that the market, not the government, should shape television programming. During his tenure, the networks cancelled 30 Minutes and other expensive educational and informational programs.
Ratings
Ratings for 30 Minutes were typically lower than ratings than for the cartoons that preceded it and the sports programs that aired opposite it. But Heller stated: "We didn't lose our audience and sometimes we did slightly better than the Children's Film Festival, which had been in our time slot before …. In that way we considered the show a ratings success—not a success compared to Bugs Bunny, but it was respectable." The chart below shows the program's ratings during the May and November sweeps periods.
Reviews
30 Minutes was universally acclaimed by critics. David Bianculli exclaimed: "If you haven't seen CBS's 30 Minutes yet, you should. Even though this pint-sized verson of 60 Minutes is meant for kids, it makes for fine adult entertainment." Lee Margulies of the Los Angeles Times commented: "The longer pieces are solidly produced and should interest most teens." John J. O'Connor of the New York Times praised the program as "far above the level of most programing designed for young audiences" and singled it out for tackling difficult subjects, such as juvenile offenders treated as adults. A critic for Variety remarked: "A pint-sized '60 Minutes,' this teen-oriented news magazine is off to a responsible and interesting beginning, though it needs to find the right approach to its segments. Should there be an emphasis on investigative work? Or should the items be simply informative? The format no doubt will shake out with time. … A good effort that ought to be strengthened." The popular syndicated television columnist Gary Deeb described the program as "outstanding" and condemned CBS's decision to cancel it.
Awards
30 Minutes was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Informational Series in 1979. It won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Children's Informational/Instructional Series in 1980, 1981, and 1982.
In 1978 it received a Peabody Award. The commendation read: "In 30 Minutes, CBS News has successfully dealt with a variety of subjects, primarily of interest to teen-agers, but generally of interest to other segments of the viewing public as well. In so doing, they have produced a series of programs of real quality, programs which, in the opinion of the Peabody Board, have made significant contributions to keeping the young people of this nation informed."
In 1979 it was honored for its "Significant Contribution" at the 7th Annual Achievement in Children's Television Awards, sponsored by ACT.
In 1980 it received an Ohio State Award, presented by the Institute for Education by Radio-Television at Ohio State University to recognize excellence in educational, informational, and public affairs radio and television programming.
Home media
30 Minutes has not been released officially on DVD. A small number of episodes are in the collection of the Paley Archive at the Beverly Hills Public Library and at the Paley Museum in New York. One episode is in the collection of the UCLA Film & Television Archive in Los Angeles. Transcripts of episodes, usually under the title CBS New Public Affairs Broadcasts, are available on microfiche in the collections of select libraries in the United States.