Astrological TV: The Creation and Destruction of a Genre

The National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters implemented its Television Code in March 1952 to protect the commercial system from congressional attempts to reform it. Angered by the Code's prohibition of the so-called astrological programs, viewers mobilized and wrote letters of protest to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1953. Taken as a whole, the letters demonstrate viewers' confusion about-but wholesale belief in-the FCC's role in regulating television, and they reveal viewers' discursive construction of this fledgling genre. Rather than analyzing the prohibition of astrological programs as a self-regulatory maneuver or as a cultural moment, this article highlights the intersection of industrial self-regulation, government regulatory power, and viewer feedback.