In 1972, Television was nothing like it is today. Well, for the most part. The three US networks were straight-laced, clean-cut, very white, and a good decade or more behind reflecting the changing culture that began to emerge in the 1960s. The Public Broadcasting System was just a collection of stations that shared program content and was in its infancy. In Canada, there were two networks, CBC and CTV, and Cable TV, which offered a number of primarily US channels to subscribers in smaller and remote communities, was in its early expansion years. In both countries, news and events coverage followed similar approaches. Nineteen Seventy-two saw something new. Not only did colour TV sales exceed black and white sets but colour sets were now in half of all homes with TVs. But it was another technological advancement that set a group of youngsters to take on the stodgy old networks and present people with a new way of viewing the modern world.
True Value Television, or TVTV, was formed by Allen Rucker, Michael Shamberg, Tom Weinberg, Hudson Marquez, and Megan Williams. This collective set out to approach and present tv journalism in a new and revolution manner. Using the new technology of the Sony “portapak,” a portable video recording system released in 1968, this young group of social activists set out to change the mainstream three-channel commercial networks with documentary films and coverage of major American events that aired on community access and PBS channels. This was the New Journalism-guerrilla TV style.
Paul Goldsmith, a member of the collective, put together this documentary, TVTV: Video Revolutionaries, using fascinating footage and interviews with members some of those founding members. And there are many a famous, and to be famous faces among those who took part in this endeavour. Bill Murray, just before his SNL debut, Christopher Guess, John Belushi, and Harold Ramis, were all part of this new voice. There were many events like Super Bowl, the 1972 Republican and Democratic conventions, the Cajun Show, and later, after their move from San Fransico to Los Angeles, a failed comedy pilot that NBC never aired. By 1979, the group went their separate ways with little to show.
But this documentary offers a wealth of history, a history not well known, and highlights their attempts at new journalism, satire, comedy with a desire to open up the rather flat and stale mainstream media, to reflect more diverse perspectives and approaches to changing society. Today’s vast media landscape – from top-level networks and film companies, reality TV, independent productions, cheap cameras and computers, multiple viewing platforms, to the millions of YouTubers, TVTV offers a glimpse at the path that was taken, for good and ill, to where we are now.