Appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by President Kennedy in 1960, Newton Minow disturbed the traditionally comfortable relationship between the commission and the broadcast industry. In his first major speech, he outraged industry officials by attacking television programming as "a vast wasteland" and indicated that he would support legislation for FCC supervision of the networks. When he later spoke of the industry's responsibility to children, a major broadcasting group quickly announced a plan to increase high quality children's programming. The three major networks were unable to reach an agreement, however, over Minow's plan to share the commercial disadvantages of high quality children's programming by rotating a program among the networks. In the fall of 1962, all three networks aired quality children's shows but were unable to attract commercial advertising. By the end of 1963, the absence of John Kennedy and Newton Minow lifted network fears of government regulation and the commitment to high quality but unprofitable children's shows died. (MM)