ABSTRACT
The Carnegie Commission report continues to serve as the single most important document in the history of public television. Defenders and critics from both inside and outside of public television have cited the report to support a wide range of arguments. The chapter aims to drawing from the Carnegie Commission report the basic model of public television. The Carnegie Commission began its report by indicating that public television "includes all that is of human interest and importance which is not at the moment appropriate or available for support by advertising, and which is not arranged for formal instruction". One of the more notable aspects of the Carnegie report is the degree to which it was infused with an overwhelming sense of the important mission of the proposed public television system. The specific mission of public television has been often contested, beginning with early questions about the role of purely instructional television within a public television system.
