"[OVERLAPPING CHATTER]" "NARRATOR:" "This story is about Howard Beale who was the Network News anchorman on UBS TV." "In his time, Howard Beale had been a mandarin of television." "The grand old man of news, with a HUT rating of 16 and a 28 audience share." "In 1969, however, his fortunes began to decline." "He fell to a 22 share." "The following year his wife died, and he was left a childless widower with an 8 rating and a 12 share." "He became morose and isolated, began to drink heavily." "And on September 22, 1975, he was fired effective in two weeks." "The news was broken to him by Max Schumacher who was the president of the news division at UBS." "The two old friends got properly pissed." "I was at CBS with Ed Murrow in 1951." "Must've been 1950, then." "I was NBC, uh, associate producer, Morning News." "I was just a kid, 26 years old." "Anyway...." "Anyway, they were building the lower level of the George Washington Bridge." "We were doing a remote from there." "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "And nobody told me." "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "Then after 7 in the morning, I get a call." ""Where the hell are you?" "You're supposed to be on the George Washington Bridge."" "I jump out of bed, throw my raincoat over my pajamas." "I run down the stairs, I run out in the street, hail a cab." "And I say to the cabby, "Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge."" "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "And the cabbie turns around and he says...." "He says, "Don't do it, buddy." "You're a young man." "You got your whole life ahead of you."" "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "Didn't I ever tell you that one before?" "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "I'm gonna kill myself." "Oh, shit, Howard." "[HOWARD GROANS]" "I'm gonna blow my brains out right on the air." "Right in the middle of the 7:00 news." "Well, you'll get a hell of a rating, I'll guarantee you that." "50 share easy." "You think so?" "Well, sure." "We could make a series out of it." "Suicide of the Week." "Hell." "Why limit ourselves?" "Execution of the Week." "Terrorist of the Week." "I love it." "Suicides." "Assassinations." "Mad bombers, Mafia hit men automobile smashups." "The Death Hour." "Great Sunday night show for the whole family." "We'll wipe that fucking Disney right off the air." "Hmm." "HOWARD:" "Let's do the Lenin deportation at the end of three." "MAN 1:" "That strong enough to bump?" "In one then, I'll do a lead on Sara Jane Moore to Mayberry in San Francisco." "MAN 2:" "In the film I saw, it was the chief of detectives." "I think we've got about 10 seconds on the shooting itself." "WOMAN:" "The whole thing is 1:25." "What does that come out?" "WOMAN:" "About 4:50." "MAN 2:" "We using Squeaky Fromme?" "MAN 1:" "Let's do that in two." "Squeaky, Ford at the airport, bump." "Now, you using a map going into San Francisco?" "MAN 2:" "Um, I prefer our news pics." "HOWARD:" "What have we got left?" "WOMAN:" "Gun control, Patty Hearst affidavit." "Guerrillas in Chad, OPEC in Vienna." "MAN:" "All right, fine." "I'll see you later." "Hello, Howard, how are you?" "HOWARD:" "Hi." "Okay." "Don't forget, Howard, Ron Nessen is now 16, okay?" "HOWARD:" "Mm-hm." "The first attempt on President Ford's life was 18 days ago and again yesterday in San Francisco." "In spite of the two attempts Mr. Ford says he will not become a prisoner of the Oval Office a hostage of would-be assassins." "FORD:" "The American people are good people:" "Democrats, Independents, Republicans and others." "How the hell you always get mixed up...." "FORD:" "Under no circumstances will I..." "[SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY] ...and I hope no others, capitulate to those that want to undercut what's all good in America." "MAN:" "Two, cue Howard." "Ladies and gentlemen I would like to announce that I will be retiring from this program in two weeks' time because of poor ratings." "Since this show was the only thing I had going for me in my life I have decided to kill myself." "So, what did she say?" "I'm gonna blow my brains out right on this program, a week from today." "Ten seconds to commercial." "So tune in next Tuesday." "That should give the public-relations people a week to promote the show." "We ought to get a hell of a rating out of that." "A 50 share, easy." "MAN:" "Take Tellison." "Listen." "Uh, did you hear that?" "What was that about?" "Howard just said he was going to blow his brains out next Tuesday." "What are you talking about?" "Didn't you hear him?" "He just said" "What's wrong now?" "Howard just said he was going to kill himself next Tuesday." "What do you mean, "Howard just said he was going to kill himself next Tuesday"?" "He was supposed to do a tag on Ron Nessen" "He said, "Tune in next Tuesday." "I'm gonna shoot myself."" "What the hell's going on?" "MAN [OVER SPEAKER]:" "He said he was going to blow his brains out." "What the fuck's going on, Howard?" "They wanna know what the fuck's going on." "I can't hear you." "Turn the studio mike on." "We're back on in 11 seconds." "WOMAN:" "Ten seconds." "Howard, what are you doing?" "Have you flipped?" "I think we better get him off." "Get him off." "What's the matter with you?" "Get your fucking hands off." "Turn the sound off." "He's going out live!" "We're in a lot of fucking trouble down here." "This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen." "HOWARD:" "That's my head." "Go to standby." "You dumb schmuck!" "Lou, can't we clear out that downstairs lobby?" "There must be a hundred people." "How?" "Every TV station and wire service in the city." "I could barely get in." "Arthur, anything litigable?" "Not so far." "MAN 1:" "How many spots were wiped out?" "Frank just walked in." "We had to abort." "What could we do?" "He's talking to Wheeler." "Over 900 phone calls..." "MAN 2:" "Come on, Mickey, what page are you putting it on?" "MAN 3:" "Hackett just walked in." "ABC again, they want the tape." "Tell him to go fuck himself." "That goes for you too." "You're off the air as of now." "MAN 3:" "He wants to talk to you." "Who's replacing Beale tomorrow?" "We're flying Snowden up from Washington." "Everybody, hold it." "Let's see how the other networks handle this." "Ten o'clock news opened with it." "MAN [ON TV]:" "Good evening." "Howard Beale, one of television's...." "They're all gonna make it their lead story." "Howard Beale interrupted his Network News program tonight to announce that he was gonna kill himself." "An unusual thing happened at one of our sister networks, UBS, this evening." "How are we handling it?" "Halloway's going to make a brief statement at the end of the show that Howard's been under great personal stress, et cetera." "FRANK:" "I'll call you back, John." "All right." "We've got a stockholders' meeting tomorrow at which we're gonna announce the restructuring-of-management plan." "I don't want this grotesque incident to interfere with that." "I'll suggest Mr. Ruddy open with a short statement, washing this whole thing off." "You, Max, you better have some answers for those nuts that come to stockholders' meetings." "Mr. Beale has been under professional and personal strain." "I've got some surprises for you too, Schumacher." "I've had it up to here with your cruddy division and its annual $33 million deficit!" "You keep your hands off my news division, Frank." "We're responsible to corporate level, not you." "Well, goddamn, we'll see about that." "All right, take it easy." "Right now, how do we get Beale out of here?" "I understand there's at least a hundred reporters and camera crews in the lobby." "We got a limo at the freight exit." "Howard, you're gonna spend the night at my place." "There's bound to be press around yours." "I want Snowden here by noon." "Have Lester cover the CIA hearings and give the White House to Doris." "WOMAN:" "You're late for your screening, Max." "Right." "Okay." "If John Wheeler calls, switch him to Projection Room 7." "MAN:" "Margot, come in here a minute." "I'm sorry." "This Beale business...." "It's all right." "Sit down." "Diana asked if she could sit in on this." "Fine." "How's it going?" "I think you'll like this footage better than the stuff I showed you last time, Max." "[PHONE BUZZES]" "Max Schumacher." "Goddamn it." "When, Louise?" "Laureen?" "Well, did he say anything?" "MAN [ON SCREEN]:" "Communist Party to be these" "All right, thank you." "splintered underground groups?" "The Communist Party believes that the most pressing political necessity today is the consolidation of the revolutionary, radical and democratic movements into a united front." "Harry, Howard Beale left my house about 20 minutes ago." "Has he come in yet?" "of the bourgeois democratic state...." "Well, let me know when he arrives, huh?" "That's Laureen Hobbs, isn't it?" "BILL:" "Yeah." "This is from a David Susskind thing a while back." "I think we can use some of this stuff." "by the broadest possible coalition...." "What we're going to see now is something really sensational." "The Flagstaff Independent Bank of Arizona was ripped off last week by a terrorist group called the Ecumenical Liberation Army." "They actually took movies of the rip-off while they were ripping it off." "Wait till you see it." "The Ecumenical Liberation Army." "That's not the one that kidnapped Patty Hearst?" "No, no." "That's the Symbionese Liberation Army." "This is the Ecumenical Liberation Army." "They're the ones who kidnapped Mary Ann Gifford three weeks ago." "There's a lot of liberation armies in the revolutionary underground and a lot of kidnapped heiresses." "This is Mary Ann Gifford." "That's the Great Ahmed Kahn, he's their leader." "DIANA:" "You mean, they actually shot this film while they were ripping off the bank?" "BILL:" "Wait till you see it." "I don't know whether to edit or leave it raw like this." "[CHUCKLES]" "This is terrific stuff." "Where did you get it?" "I got everything through Laureen Hobbs." "She's my contact for all this stuff." "[PHONE BUZZES]" "Yeah?" "MAN:" "I've got Howard on the other line." "All right, put him on." "Howard, I've got Max on 4." "Would you pick up?" "Listen, Max, I'd like another shot." "Oh, come on, Howard." "HOWARD:" "I don't mean the whole show...." "I'd just like to come on, make some brief farewell statement and then turn the show over to Jack Snowden." "I have 11 years at this network, Max." "I have some standing in the industry." "I just don't wanna go out like a clown." "It'll be simple, dignified." "You and Harry can check the copy." "I think it'll take the strain off the show, Max." "Well, what do you think?" "Well, okay." "And no booze today, Howard." "No booze." "MAN:" "Summaries have been received." "We're forwarding them...." "George, can, uh, you come into my office for a minute?" "GEORGE:" "Right." "Barbara, is Tommy around anywhere?" "I think so." "DIANA:" "I'd like to see the two of you for a moment." "[DIANA COUGHS]" "Uh, this is Bill Herron from our West Coast Special Programs Department." "George Bosch, Barbara Schlesinger, Tommy Pellegrino." "Look, I just saw some rough footage of a special Bill's doing on the revolutionary underground." "Most is tedious stuff of Laureen Hobbs and two fatigue jackets muttering mutilated Marxism." "But he's got about eight minutes of a bank robbery that is absolutely sensational." "Authentic stuff." "Actually shot while the robbery was going on." "You remember the Mary Ann Gifford kidnapping?" "It's that bunch of nuts." "She's in the movie shooting off machine guns." "Really terrific footage." "I think we can get a hell of a Movie of the Week out of it maybe even a series." "A series out of what?" "What are we talking about?" "Look, we've got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks." "And maybe they'll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses um, hijacking 747s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors." "We'd open each week's segment with that authentic footage hire writers to write some story behind that footage and we've got ourselves a series." "A series about a bunch of, uh, bank-robbing guerillas?" "What are we gonna call it, The Mao Tse-Tung Hour?" "Ha, ha!" "DIANA:" "Why not?" "They've got Strike Force, Task Force, SWAT, why not Che Guevara and his own little mod squad?" "Look, I sent you all a concept-analysis report yesterday." "Did any of you read it?" "Well, in a nutshell, it said the American people are turning sullen." "They've been clobbered by Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, the Depression." "They've turned off, shot up and fucked themselves limp." "And nothing helps." "So this concept-analysis report concludes the American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them." "I've been telling you people since I took this job six months ago that I want angry shows." "I don't want conventional programming on this network, I want counterculture." "I want antiestablishment." "I don't wanna play butch boss with you people." "When I took over this department it had the worst programming record in television history." "This network hasn't one show in the top 20." "This network is an industry joke." "And we better start putting together one winner for next September." "I want a show developed based on the activities of a terrorist group." "Joseph Stalin and his merry band of Bolsheviks." "I want ideas from you people." "That is what you're paid for." "And, by the way, the next time I send an audience research report around you'd all better read it, or I'll sack the fucking lot of you, is that clear?" "I'll be out on the coast in, uh, four weeks." "Will you set up a meeting with Laureen Hobbs?" "Sure." "But the business of management is management." "And at the time CCA took control of the UBS TV Network it was foundering with less than 7 percent of national television revenues most network programs being sold at station rates." "I am pleased to announce I am submitting to the board of directors a plan for the coordination of the main profit centers." "And with the specific intention of making each division more responsive to management." "Point one." "The division producing the lowest rate of return has been the news division with its $98 million budget and its average annual deficit of 32 million." "I know that, historically, news divisions are expected to lose money." "But to our minds, this philosophy is a wanton fiscal affront to be resolutely resisted." "The new plan calls for local news to be transferred to owned stations' divisions." "News radio would be transferred to the UBS Radio Division and in effect the news division would be reduced from an independent division to a department accountable to network." "What was that all about, Ed?" "This is not the time, Max." "Why wasn't I told about this?" "Why was I led up onto that podium and publicly humiliated in front of the stockholders?" "Goddamn it, I spoke to John Wheeler this morning and he assured me the news division was safe." "That's one hell of a way to get me to resign." "We'll talk about this tomorrow at our regular morning meeting." "WOMAN:" "Eleven, 10..." "MAN:" "Roll VTA." "WOMAN:" "...nine, eight, seven, six." "In five, four, three, two...." "WOMAN:" "One." "MAN:" "One, cue VTA." "Cue announcer." "ANNOUNCER:" "The UBS evening news with Howard Beale." "MAN:" "Ready, two?" "Two, cue Howard." "Good evening." "Today is Wednesday, September the 24th and this is my last broadcast." "Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide." "Admittedly an act of madness." "Well, I'll tell you what happened." "I just ran out of bullshit." "All right, cut him off." "Leave him on." "Am I still on the air?" "If this is how he wants to go out, this is how he goes out." "[PHONE RINGING]" "except I just ran out of bullshit." "Mr. Schumacher's right here." "Wanna talk to him?" "Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living." "If we can't think up any reasons of our own, we have the God bullshit." "WOMAN:" "Holy Mary, Mother of Christ." "Tom, what is it?" "through all this pointless pain, humiliation and decay so there better be someone who does know." "That's the God bullshit." "He's saying that life is bullshit and it is." "What are you screaming about?" "Man is a noble creature that can order his own world." "Who needs God?" "[PHONE RINGING]" "If there's anybody out there that can look around this slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature believe me, that man is full of bullshit." "What's so goddamn funny?" "I can't help it, Harry." "It's funny." "Max, this is going out live to 67 affiliates." "Leave him on." "And I was married for 33 years of shrill, shrieking fraud." "Mr." "Hackett's trying to get through to you." "Tell Mr. Hackett to go fuck himself." "So I don't have any bullshit left." "I just ran out of it, you see." "[REPORTERS CLAMORING]" "REPORTER:" "Mr. Ruddy, could we have just one statement from you?" "ED:" "Sorry, I don't have all the information yet." "REPORTER:" "One question." "Could we--?" "If we could just have one statement about Mr. Beale." "NELSON:" "Max." "ED:" "I'll want to see Mr. Beale after this." "The way I hear it, Max, you were primarily responsible for this colossally stupid prank." "Is that the fact, Max?" "That's the fact." "It was unconscionable." "There doesn't seem to be anything more to say." "MAX:" "I have something to say, Ed." "I want to know why that whole debasement of the news division announced at the stockholders' meeting this afternoon was kept secret from me." "You and I go back 20 years, Ed." "I took this job with your personal assurance that you'd back my autonomy against any encroachment." "But ever since CCA acquired control of UBS Systems 10 months ago Hackett's been taking over everything." "Now who the hell is running this network?" "You or some conglomerate called CCA?" "I mean you're president of the Systems Group and Hackett's nothing but a hatchet man for CCA." "Nelson here, president of a network and he hasn't a thing to say about anything anymore." "I told you at the stockholders' meeting, Max that we would discuss all that at our regular meeting tomorrow morning." "If you had been patient I would've explained that I thought Frank Hackett precipitate and that the reorganization of the division would not be executed until everyone, specifically you, Max had been consulted and satisfied." "Instead, you sulked off like a child and engaged this network in a shocking and disgraceful episode." "Your position is no longer tenable regardless of how management is restructured." "I will expect your resignation at 10:00 tomorrow morning and we will coordinate our statements to the least detriment of everyone." "Bob McDonough will take over the news division until we can sort all this out." "[SIGHS]" "I'd like to see Mr. Beale now." "They're looking for him, Ed." "They don't know where he is." "Every day, five days a week for 15 years, I've been sitting behind that desk." "The dispassionate pundit reporting with seemly detachment the daily parade of lunacies that constitute the news." "And just once I wanted to say what I really felt." "Knock it off, Arthur." "It was, after all, my last...." "Did the overnight ratings come in yet?" "They're on your desk." "DIANA:" "Have you still got yesterday's overnights?" "WOMAN:" "Shall I bring them in?" "DIANA:" "Yeah." "These are those four outlines submitted by Universal for an hour series." "You needn't bother to read them." "I'll tell them to you." "The first one is set in a large Eastern law school, presumably Harvard." "The series is irresistibly entitled The New Lawyers." "The running characters are a crusty but benign ex-Supreme Court Justice presumably Oliver Wendell Holmes by way of Dr. Zorba." "There is a beautiful girl graduate student and the district attorney who is brilliant and sometimes cuts corners." "DIANA:" "Next one." "The second one is called The Amazon Squad." "DIANA:" "Lady cops?" "The running characters include a crusty but benign lieutenant who's always getting heat from the commissioner a hard-drinking detective who thinks women belong in the kitchen and a brilliant and beautiful young girl cop..." "...who's fighting the feminist battle." "DIANA:" "We're up to our ears in lady cops." "The next is another one of those investigative reporter shows." "A crusty but benign managing editor who's always" "You know, Barbara the Arabs have decided to jack up the price of oil another 20 percent." "Uh, the CIA has been caught opening Senator Humphrey's mail." "There's a civil war in Angola, another one in Beirut." "The" " New York City's still facing default." "They finally caught up with Patricia Hearst." "And the whole front page of the Daily News is Howard Beale." "There's also a two-column story on Page 1 of the Times." "Helen, call Mr. Hackett's office." "See if he can give me a few minutes this morning." "KTNS, Kansas City, refuses to carry our Network News show anymore unless Beale is taken off the air." "Did you see the overnights on the Network News?" "It has an eight in New York, a nine in L.A. and a 27 share in both cities." "Last night Howard Beale went on the air and yelled "bullshit" for two minutes and I can tell you right now that tonight's show will get a 30 share, at least." "I think we've lucked into something." "For God's sakes." "Are you suggesting that we put that lunatic back on the air yelling "bullshit"?" "I think we should put Beale back on the air tonight and keep him on." "Did you see the news this morning?" "Did you see the Times?" "We've got press on this you couldn't buy for a million dollars." "Frank." "That dumb show jumped five rating points in one night." "Tonight's show has gotta be at least 15." "We just increased our audience by 20 or 30 million people in one night." "You're not gonna get this dumped in your lap for the rest of your days." "You can't piss it away." "Howard Beale said what every American feels that he's tired of all the bullshit." "He's articulating the popular rage." "I want that show, Frank." "I can turn that show into the biggest smash on television." "What do you mean?" "It's a news show." "It's not your department." "I see Howard Beale as a latter-day prophet." "A magnificent, messianic figure inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times." "A strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday that I tell you, Frank, could just go through the roof and I'm talking about a $6 cost per thousand show." "I'm talking about a hundred-- A 130,000-dollar minutes." "Do you wanna figure out the revenues of a strip show that sells for 100,000 bucks a minute?" "One show like that could pull this network out of the hole." "Frank, it's being handed to us on a plate." "Let's not blow it." "[PHONE BUZZES]" "FRANK:" "Yes?" "Tell him I'll be a few minutes." "Let me think it over." "Frank, let's not go to committee on this." "It's 20 after 10." "We want Beale in that studio." "We don't wanna lose the momentum." "For God's sake, Diana we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television." "I'd like to talk to Legal Affairs at least and Herb Thackeray and certainly Joe Donnelly in Standards and Practices." "And you know, I'm going to be eyeball to eyeball with Mr. Ruddy on this." "If I'm going to the mat with Ruddy, I wanna make sure of some of my ground." "I'm the one whose ass is going on the line." "I'll get back to you, Diana." "I don't believe this." "I don't believe the top brass of a national television network are sitting around their salads" "FRANK:" "The top brass of a bankrupt national television network with projected losses of close to $150 million." "I don't care how bankrupt." "You can't be seriously proposing, and the rest of us seriously considering putting on a pornographic Network News show." "The FCC'd kill us." "Sit down, Nelson." "The FCC can't do anything except rap our knuckles." "I don't even wanna think about the litigious possibilities, Frank." "Could be up to our ears in lawsuits." "The affiliates won't carry it." "Affiliates will kiss your ass, if you can hand them a hit show." "The popular reaction" "We don't know the popular reaction." "We have to find out." "The New York Times" "The New York Times doesn't advertise on our network." "All I know is this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting." "We're not a respectable network." "We're a whorehouse network." "We have to take whatever we can get." "[FORK CLANGS]" "Well, I don't want any part of it." "I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse." "That's very commendable of you, Nelson." "Now, sit down." "Your indignation has been duly recorded." "You can always resign tomorrow." "Now look, what in substance are we proposing?" "Merely to add editorial comment to our Network News show." "Brinkley, Sevareid, Reasoner, all have their comments." "Now Howard Beale will have his." "I think we ought to give it a shot." "Let's see what happens tonight." "Telephone, please." "I don't wanna be the messenger that has to tell Max Schumacher." "Max doesn't work at this network anymore." "Mr. Ruddy fired him last night." "Bob McDonough's running the news division now." "Bob McDonough in News, please." "Oh, I don't know." "I may teach or I may write a book whatever the hell one does when one approaches the autumn of one's years." "My God, is that me?" "Was I ever that young?" "Ha, ha." "No." "Howard just brought in a picture of Ed Murrow and the whole CBS gang when we were there." "You wouldn't believe it." "Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, Hollenbeck, Bob Trout." "Is that you, Howard?" "Mm-hm." "Yeah." "Okay, Dick, we'll be in touch." "Right." "You remember this kid?" "He's the kid I think you once sent out to interview Cleveland Amory on vivisection." "[BOTH LAUGHING]" "What's so funny?" "[MEN LAUGHING]" "MAX:" "So I jump out of bed in my pajamas, I grab my raincoat, I run downstairs." "I run out in the street and I hail a cab." "And I jumped in and I yell at the driver:" ""Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge."" "[ALL LAUGHING]" "And the driver turns around and he says:" ""Don't do it, buddy, don't do it." "You're young, you got your whole life ahead of you."" "ALL:" "Ha-ha-ha!" "MAN:" "Wait a minute!" "Wait a minute!" "If you think that's funny" "No, if you think that's funny, wait till you hear this." "I've just come back from Frank Hackett's office." "He wants to put Howard on the air." "You're kidding." "Apparently the ratings went up five points last night and he wants Howard to go back on and do his angry-man thing." "What are you talking about?" "I'm telling you." "They want Howard to go back on and yell "bullshit."" "[ALL LAUGHING]" "They want Howard to go on spontaneously letting out his anger." "A latter-day prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times." "Hey, that sounds pretty good." "Who's this "they"?" "Hackett." "Chaney was there." "The Legal Affairs guy." "Oh, and that girl from Programming." "Christensen?" "What's she got to do with this?" "HOWARD:" "You're kidding, aren't you?" "I'm not kidding." "I told them." "I said:" ""Look, we're running a news department, not a circus." "And Howard Beale's not a bearded lady." "If you think I'm gonna go along with this bastardization you can have my resignation along with Max Schumacher's right now." "I think I'm speaking for Howard Beale and everybody else--"" "That's my job you're turning down." "I'd go nuts without some kind of work." "What's wrong with being an angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times?" "What do you think, Max?" "Do you want to be an angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times?" "Yeah, I think I'd like to be an angry prophet denouncing the hypocrisies of our times." "[ALL LAUGHING]" "Then grab it." "Grab it!" "[ALL LAUGHING]" "Afternoon, Mr. Ruddy." "Good afternoon." "Good afternoon, Mr. Ruddy." "He's waiting for you, Mr. Ruddy." "ED:" "Thank you." "Nelson Chaney tells me Beale may actually go on the air this evening." "As far as I know, Howard's going to do it." "You going to sit still for this, Ed?" "Yes." "I think Hackett's overstepped himself." "There's some kind of corporate maneuvering going on, Max." "Hackett is clearly forcing a confrontation." "That would account for his behavior at the stockholders' meeting." "However, I think he's making a serious mistake with this Beale business." "I suspect CCA will be upset at Hackett's presumptuousness." "Certainly Mr. Jensen will." "So I'm going to let Hackett have his head for a while." "He just might lose it over this Beale business." "I'd like you to reconsider your resignation, Max." "I assume that Hackett wouldn't take such steps without some support on the CCA board." "I'll have to go directly to Mr. Jensen." "When that happens, I'm going to need every friend I've got." "And I certainly don't want Hackett's people in all of the divisional positions." "So I'd like you to stay on, Max." "[SIGHS]" "Of course, Ed." "Thank you, Max." "ANNOUNCER:" "This has been the UBS evening news with Howard Beale." "NARRATOR:" "The initial response to the new Howard Beale Show was not auspicatory." "The press was without exception hostile and the industry reaction negative." "The ratings for the Thursday and Friday shows were both 14." "But Monday's rating dropped a point clearly suggesting the novelty was wearing off." "Did you know there are a number of psychics working as licensed brokers on Wall Street?" "Some of them counsel their clients by use of tarot cards." "They're all pretty successful, even in a bear market and selling short." "I met one of them last week and thought of doing a show around her." "The Wayward Witch of Wall Street, something like that." "If her tips were any good, she could wreck the market." "So I called her this morning and asked her how she was on predicting the future." "She said she was occasionally prescient." "For example, she said:" ""I just had a fleeting vision of you sitting in an office with a craggy middle-aged man with whom you are, or will be, emotionally involved."" "And here I am." "And she does all this with tarot cards?" "No." "This one operates on parapsychology." "She has trance-like episodes and feels things in her energy field." "I think this lady could be very useful to you, Max." "In what way?" "Well you put on a news show and here's somebody who can predict tomorrow's news for you." "Her name, aptly enough, is Sibyl." "Sibyl the Soothsayer." "You could give her two minutes of trance at the end of a Howard Beale Show say, once a week, Friday which is suggestively occult, and she could oraculate." "Then next week everyone tunes in to see how good her predictions were." "Maybe she could do the weather." "Your Network News is going to need some help, Max, if it's gonna hold." "Beale doesn't do the angry-man thing well at all." "He's too, uh, kvetchy." "He's being irascible." "We want a prophet, not a curmudgeon." "He should do more apocalyptic doom." "I think you should take on a couple of writers to write some jeremiads for him." "I see you don't fancy my suggestions." "[LAUGHS]" "Hell, you're not serious, are you?" "Oh, I'm serious." "The fact is I could make your Beale Show the highest-rated news show in television, if you'd let me have a crack at it." "What do you mean, "have a crack at it"?" "I'd like to program it for you." "Develop it." "I wouldn't interfere with the actual news itself, but TV is showbiz, Max." "And even the news has to have a little showmanship." "My God, you are serious." "Oh." "I watched your 6:00 news today." "It's straight tabloid." "You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park." "You had less than a minute of hard national and international news." "It was all sex, scandal, brutal crimes, sports children with incurable diseases and lost puppies." "I don't think I'll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you're soliciting audiences like the rest of us." "All I'm saying is, if you're gonna hustle, at least do it right." "I'm gonna bring this up at tomorrow's meeting." "I don't like network hassles." "I was hoping you and I could work this out." "Now that's why I'm here." "And I was hoping that you were looking for an emotional involvement with a craggy middle-aged man." "Oh, I wouldn't rule that out entirely." "All right, Diana." "You bring up all your ideas at the meeting tomorrow because if you don't, I will." "I think Howard's making a goddamn fool of himself and so does everybody that Howard and I know in this industry." "It was a fluke." "It didn't work." "So tomorrow, Howard goes back to the old format and all of this gutter depravity comes to an end." "Okay." "I don't get it, Diana." "You hung around until 7:30 and then came all the way down here just to pitch a couple of loony showbiz ideas when you knew goddamn well I'd laugh you right out of the office." "I don't get it." "What's your scam in this?" "Max, my little visit here tonight was a gesture made out of your stature in the industry and because I personally admired you since I was a kid majoring in speech at the University of Missouri." "Sooner or later, with or without you I'm going to take over your Network News show and I figured I might as well start tonight." "I, uh, think I once gave a lecture at the University of Missouri." "I was in the audience." "I had a terrible schoolgirl crush on you for a couple of months." "If we could get back for a moment to that gypsy who predicted all that about, uh, emotional involvements and middle-aged men." "What are you doing for dinner tonight?" "[PICKS UP PHONE]" "[DIALING PHONE]" "I can't make it tonight, love." "Call me tomorrow." "Do you have a favorite restaurant?" "I eat anything." "Son of a bitch, I get a feeling I'm being made." "You are." "Ah, I've got to warn you, I don't do anything on my first date." "We'll see." "Schmuck, what are you getting into?" "[ALL CHATTERING]" "I was married for four years and pretended to be happy and had six years of analysis and pretended to be sane." "My husband ran off with his boyfriend and I had an affair with my analyst." "He told me I was the worst lay he'd ever had." "I can't tell you how many men have told me what a lousy lay I am." "I apparently have a masculine temperament." "I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely and can't wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom." "I seem to be inept at everything except my work." "I'm good at my work." "So I confine myself to that." "All I want out of life is a 30 share and a 20 rating." "You're married, surely?" "Twenty-five years." "I have a married daughter in Seattle who's six months pregnant a younger girl who's starting at Northwestern in January." "Well, Max, here we are." "Middle-aged man reaffirming his middle-aged manhood and a terrified young woman with a father complex." "What sort of script do you think we can make out of this?" "Corridor gossip, uh, says that you are Frank Hackett's backstage girl." "Ha, ha." "I'm not." "Frank is a corporation man, body and soul." "He has no loves, lusts or allegiances that are not consummately directed toward becoming a CCA board member." "So why should he bother with me?" "I'm not even a stockholder." "What about your loves, lusts and allegiances?" "Is your wife in town?" "Yes." "Well, then, we better go to my place." "HOWARD:" "I can't hear you." "You will have to talk a little louder." "Yes." "I hear you." "Yes." "Yes." "Why me?" "I said, "Why me?"" "Okay." "Howard in his office?" "Oh, Harry, I'm killing this whole screwball, angry-prophet thing." "Tonight we go back to straight news." "Okay." "WOMAN [OVER SPEAKER]:" "Fifteen seconds, 14, 13...." "Yeah?" "What?" "Max, I'm telling you, he's fine." "He's been sharp all day." "He's been funny as hell." "Had everybody cracking up at the rundown meeting." "I told him." "I told him." "Up." "Cue VTA." "Ready, two." "Cue announcer." "ANNOUNCER:" "The UBS Evening News with Howard Beale." "Take 2, cue Howard." "Last night, I was awakened from a fitful sleep shortly after 2:00 in the morning by a shrill, sibilant, faceless voice." "I couldn't make it out at first in the dark bedroom and I said, "I'm sorry, you will have to talk a little louder."" "What do you want me to do?" "Nothing." "And the voice said to me, "I want you to tell the people the truth." "Not an easy thing to do because the people don't want to know."" "And I said, "You're kidding." "What the hell should I know about the truth?"" "But the voice said to me, "Don't worry about the truth." "I will put the words in your mouth."" "I said, "What's this, the Burning Bush?" "For God's sake, I'm not Moses."" "The voice said to me, "And I'm not God." "What has that got to do with it?"" "The voice said to me:" ""We're not talking about eternal or absolute or ultimate truth." "We're talking about impermanent, transient, human truth." "I don't expect you people to be capable of truth but at least you're capable of self-preservation."" "And I said, "Why me?"" "And the voice said, "Because you're on television, dummy." "Beautiful." "You have 40 million Americans listening to you." "After this show, you could have 50." "I'm not asking you to walk the land in sackcloth, preaching the Armageddon." "You're on TV, man."" "So I thought about it for a moment and then I said, "Okay."" "Close the door, Harry." "Howard, I'm taking you off the air." "I think you're having a breakdown." "Require treatment." "This is not a psychotic episode." "This is a cleansing moment of clarity." "I'm imbued, Max." "I'm imbued with some special spirit." "It's not a religious feeling at all." "It's a shocking eruption of great electrical energy." "I feel vivid and flashing, as if suddenly I'd been plugged into some great electromagnetic field." "I feel connected to all living things." "To flowers birds, all the animals of the world and even to some great unseen living force." "What I think the Hindus call prana." "It is not a breakdown." "I've never felt more orderly in my life." "It is a shattering and beautiful sensation." "It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness." "I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth." "And you will not take me off the air for now, or for any other spaceless time." "MAX:" "Oh, boy." "HARRY:" "Is he okay?" "MAX:" "He's just fainted." "I'd better get him back to my house again tonight." "Help me get him up." "[THUNDER RUMBLING]" "[HOWARD PANTING]" "Everyone's going crazy." "The whole place has gone crazy." "Sitting in their house and they don't do anything about it." "[MUTTERING]" "[ALARM CLOCK BUZZES]" "[ALARM STOPS]" "Wake up, Max, because Howard's gone." "I'll make you some coffee." "FRANK:" "You don't know where he is?" "The son of a bitch is a hit, goddamn it!" "Over 2000 phone calls." "Go down to the mail room." "As of this minute, over 14,000 telegrams!" "The response is sensational!" "Tell him." "Herb's phone hasn't stopped ringing." "Every goddamned affiliate from Albuquerque to Sandusky." "[PHONE BUZZING]" "The response is sensational!" "Yes." "All right." "For you, Herb." "Get back to your office." "Moldanian called me." "Joe Donnelly called me." "We got a goddamn hit, goddamn it." "Diana, show him the Times." "We got an editorial in the holy goddamn New York Times." ""A call to morality."" "I don't know where he is." "That son of a bitch Beale has caught on." "Don't tell me you don't know." "Could be jumping off a roof for all I know." "The man is insane." "He's not responsible for himself." "He needs care and treatment." "And all you grave robbers think about is that he's a hit." "You know, Max, it's just possible that he isn't insane." "That he is, in fact, imbued with some special spirit." "My God, I'm supposed to be the romantic you're the hard-bitten realist." "All right." "Howard Beale obviously fills a void." "The audience out there wants a prophet, even a manufactured one even if he's as mad as Moses." "By tomorrow he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60." "Howard Beale is processed, instant God." "It looks like he may just go bigger than Mary Tyler Moore." "I am not putting Howard back on the air." "It's not your show anymore, Max, it's mine." "FRANK:" "I gave her the show, Schumacher." "I'm putting the Network News show under programming." "Mr. Ruddy has had a mild heart attack and is not taking calls." "In his absence, I'm making all network decisions including one I've been wanting to make a long time." "You're fired." "I want you out of this building by noon." "I'll call the security guards and have you thrown out, if you're still here." "Well, let's say, "Fuck you, Hackett."" "You want me out, you're gonna have to drag me out kicking and screaming and the whole division kicking with me!" "Gonna quit their jobs for you?" "Not in this recession." "When Ruddy gets back he'll have your ass." "I got a hit, Schumacher, and Ruddy doesn't count anymore." "He was hoping I'd fall on my face with this Beale Show, but I didn't." "It's a big, fat, big-titted hit and I don't have to waffle around with Ruddy anymore." "If he wants to take me up before the CCA Board, let him." "Think Ruddy is stupid enough to go to the CCA Board and say:" ""I'm taking our one hit show off the air"?" "And comes November 14, I'm going to be standing up there at the annual CCA management meeting." "I'm gonna announce projected earnings for this network for the first time in five years." "And believe me, Mr. Jensen's going to be sitting there rocking back and forth in his little chair and he's going to say:" ""That's very good, Frank, keep it up."" "Don't have any illusions about who's running this network." "You're fired!" "I want you out of your office before noon or I'll have you thrown out." "You go along with this?" "Max, I told you I didn't want a network hassle on this." "I told you I'd much rather work the Beale Show out just between the two of us." "Well, let's just say, "Fuck you too, honey."" "Howard Beale may be my best friend." "I'll go to court." "I'll put him in a hospital before I'll let you exploit him like a freak." "You get your psychiatrists, I'll get mine." "I'm gonna spread this whole reeking business in every newspaper on every network, group and affiliate in this country." "I'm gonna make a lot of noise about this." "Great." "We need all the press we can get." "Something going on between you and Schumacher?" "Not anymore." "[THUNDER RUMBLING]" "How do you do, Mr. Beale?" "I must make my witness." "Sure thing, Mr. Beale." "Oil ministers of the OPEC nations meeting in Vienna still haven't decided how much more to increase the price of oil." "[PHONE RINGS]" "Ready, VTA?" "Yeah." "Okay." "He came in the building about five minutes ago." "Tell Snowden when he comes in to let him go on." "Did you get that, Paul?" "WOMAN:" "Six, five, four, three, two..." "...one." "MAN:" "VTA?" "REPORTER:" "This has been the most divisive meeting the oil states have ever had." "The 13 nations of OPEC have still not been able to decide by how much to increase the price of oil." "Saudi Arabian...." "MAN:" "How much time we got?" "yesterday for further consultations with his government." "He returned to the Vienna...." "This is Ed Fletcher in Vienna." "Take two, cue Howard." "I don't have to tell you things are bad, everybody knows things are bad." "It's a depression." "Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job." "The dollar buys a nickel's worth." "Banks are going bust." "Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter." "Punks are running wild in the streets." "There's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it." "We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat." "We sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes as if that's the way it's supposed to be." "We know things are bad." "Worse than bad, they're crazy." "Everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore." "We sit in the house and the world we're living in is getting smaller and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms." "Let me have my toaster and my TV, and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything." "Just leave us alone!"" "Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone." "I want you to get mad!" "I don't want you to protest, to riot." "Don't write to your congressmen." "I wouldn't know what to tell you." "I don't know what to do about the depression and the Russians, and the crime in the street." "All I know is that first, you've got to get mad." "You've got to say, "I'm a human being, goddamn it." "My life has value."" "So I want you to get up now." "I want all of you to get up out of your chairs." "I want you to get up right now and go to the window open it and stick your head out and yell:" ""I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!"" "I want you to get up right now, get up..." "Stay with him." "...go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell:" ""I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"" "Things have got to change...." "How many stations does this go to?" "MAN:" "Sixty-seven." "It goes to Louisville and Atlanta." ""We're not going to take this!"" "Then we'll figure out the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis, but first get up out of your chairs open the window, stick your head out and yell and say it!" ""I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!"" "Who are you talking to, Herb?" "HERB:" "WCGG, Atlanta." "They yelling in Atlanta?" "Are they yelling in Atlanta?" "But first you've got to get mad." "You've gotta say:" ""I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"" "MAN:" "They're yelling in Baton Rouge." "HOWARD:" "Goddamn it." "Get up, get up out of your chairs." "Son of a bitch, we struck the mother lode!" "Stick your head out of the window, stick your head out." "And keep yelling and yell:" ""I'm as mad as hell." "I'm not gonna take this anymore!"" "Just get up from your chairs, right now, go to the window!" "Where you going?" "I wanna see if anybody's yelling." "Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, and keep yelling" "[THUNDER RUMBLING]" "MAN 1:" "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!" "WOMAN 1:" "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" "I'm as mad as hell." "I'm not gonna take it anymore!" "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore." "I'm not gonna take it anymore." "I'm mad as hell!" "I'm mad as hell!" "[NEIGHBORS SHOUTING]" "WOMAN 2:" "I'm mad as hell!" "MAN 2:" "I'm mad as hell!" "I'm mad as hell!" "MAN 3:" "I'm mad as hell!" "I'm mad as hell!" "I'm not gonna take this anymore." "MAN 4:" "I'm mad as hell!" "I'm not gonna take this anymore." "[ALL SHOUTING]" "[THUNDER CRASHING]" "[NEIGHBORS SHOUTING]" "NARRATOR:" "By mid-October the Howard Beale Show had settled in on a 42 share more than equaling all the other network news shows combined." "In the Nielsen ratings, the Howard Beale Show was listed as the fourth highest rated show of the month surpassed only by The Six Million Dollar Man All in the Family and Phyllis." "A phenomenal state of affairs for a news show." "And on October 15, Diana Christensen flew to Los Angeles for what the trade calls powwows and confabs with our West Coast programming execs and to get production rolling on the shows for the coming season." "DIANA:" "Christ." "You brought half the William Morris West Coast office along with you." "Hi, I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles." "I'm Laureen Hobbs, a bad-ass commie nigger." "Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship." "We're gonna need more chairs." "Anybody want coffee?" "MAN:" "I'd love some." "You changed your tailor." "BARBARA:" "Coffee?" "Okay." "Want to come take some coffee orders?" "This is my lawyer, Sam Haywood, and his associate, Merrill Grant." "Ms. Christensen, just what the hell's this all about?" "Because when a national television network in the person of booby here, comes to me and says they want to put the ongoing struggle of the oppressed masses on prime-time television, I have to regard this askance." "What Mr. Haywood was saying, Ms. Christensen, was that our client Ms. Hobbs, wants it up-front that the political content of the show has to be entirely in her control." "She can have it." "I don't give a damn about the political content." "What kind of show did you have in mind?" "I'm interested in a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army." "And I'll tell you right now what the first show has to be:" "a special on Mary Ann Gifford." "Let me tell you what I want." "I want a lot more film like the bank rip-off the Ecumenical sent in." "The way I see the series is each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment." "Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage." "That's your job, Ms. Hobbs." "You gotta get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us." "The network can't deal with them directly." "They are, after all, wanted criminals." "The Ecumenical Liberation Army is an ultra-left sect creating political confusion with wildcat violence and pseudo-insurrectionary acts which the Communist Party does not endorse." "The American masses are not yet ready for open revolt." "We would not want to produce a television show celebrating historically deviational terrorism." "I'm offering an hour of prime-time television every week into which you can stick whatever propaganda." "The Ecumenicals are an undisciplined ultra-left gang whose leader is an eccentric, to say the least." "He calls himself the Great Ahmed Kahn and wears a hussar's shako." "Ms. Hobbs, we're talking about 30 to 50 million people a shot." "It's a lot better than handing out mimeographed pamphlets on ghetto street corners." "I'll have to take this matter to the central Committee and I'd better check it out with the Great Ahmed Kahn." "I'll be in L.A. until Saturday, and I'd like to get it rolling." "MAN:" "Okay?" "LAUREEN:" "Well, Ahmed, you ain't gonna believe this." "But I'm gonna make a TV star out of you." "Just like Archie Bunker." "You gonna be a household word." "What the fuck are you talking about?" "WOMAN:" "Thirty seconds." "MAN 1:" "All right, ready VTA." "One, you have the audience to pan." "Two, you have the window to pull." "WOMAN:" "Twenty-five." "MAN 1:" "Three, you're on the announcer." "WOMAN:" "Twenty." "MAN 2:" "Stand by, VTA." "WOMAN:" "Fifteen, 14, 13, 12..." "...eleven, 10, nine, eight, seven..." "MAN 1:" "Roll VTA." "WOMAN:" "...six, five, four, three..." "...two, one." "MAN 1:" "Three, cue announcer." "Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it." "How do you feel?" "ALL:" "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore!" "Ladies and gentlemen, the Network News Hour with Sibyl the Soothsayer!" "[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]" "ANNOUNCER:" "Jim Webbing and his It's-the-Emes Truth Department." "[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]" "ANNOUNCER:" "Ms. Mata Hari and her Skeletons in the Closet." "And tonight, another segment of Vox Populi." "[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]" "And starring the Mad Prophet of the Airways, Howard Beale!" "[ALL CHEERING]" "Edward George Ruddy died today." "Edward George Ruddy was the chairman of the board of the Union Broadcasting Systems and he died at 11:00 this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us, we're in a lot of trouble." "So a rich little man with white hair died." "What has that got to do with the price of rice, right?" "And why is that woe to us?" "Because you people and 62 million other Americans are listening to me right now." "Because less than 3 percent of you people read books." "Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers." "Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube." "Right now, there is a whole and entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube." "This tube is the Gospel." "The ultimate revelation." "This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers!" "This tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world!" "And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people." "And that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died." "Because this company is now in the hands of CCA the Communication Corporation of America." "There's a new chairman." "A man called Frank Hackett sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor!" "And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome, goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network." "So you listen to me." "Listen to me!" "Television is not the truth." "Television's a goddamned amusement park." "Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion-tamers and football players." "We're in the boredom-killing business." "So if you want the truth, go to God." "Go to your gurus." "Go to yourselves." "Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth." "[LAUGHS]" "But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us." "We'll tell you anything you want to hear." "We lie like hell." "We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house." "No matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry just look at your watch, at the end of the hour he's gonna win!" "We'll tell you any shit you want to hear." "We deal in illusions, man." "None of it is true." "But you people sit there, day after day, night after night all ages, colors, creeds." "We're all you know." "You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here." "You're beginning to think the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal." "You do whatever the tube tells you." "Dress like the tube, you eat like the tube raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube." "This is mass madness, you maniacs." "In God's name, you people are the real thing." "We are the illusion." "So turn off your television sets." "Turn them off now." "Turn them off right now." "Turn them off and leave them off." "Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now." "Turn them off!" "[THEME MUSIC PLAYING AND AUDIENCE CHEERING]" "UBS was running at a cash flow break-even point after taking into account $110 million of negative cash flow from the network." "It was clear the fat on the network had to be flitched off." "Please note an increase in projected initial programming revenues in the amount of $21 million due to the phenomenal success of the Howard Beale Show." "I expect a positive cash flow for the entire complex of 45 million achievable in this fiscal year, a year, in short, ahead of schedule." "I go beyond that." "This network may well be the most significant profit center of the communications complex." "And based upon the projected rate of return on invested capital and if merger is eventually accomplished the communications complex may well become the towering and most profitable center in the entire CCA empire." "I await your questions and comments." "Mr. Jensen?" "Very good, Frank." "Exemplary." "Keep it up." "Buy you a cup of coffee?" "Hell, yes." "Do you have to get back to the office?" "Nothing that can't wait." "I...." "I drop down to the news studios every now and then and ask Howard Beale about you, and he says you're doing fine." "Are you?" "No." "Are you keeping busy?" "Oh, in a fashion." "This is the, uh, third funeral I've been to in two weeks." "I have two other friends in the hospital whom I visit regularly and, uh, been to a couple of christenings." "All my friends seem to be dying or having grandchildren." "You should be a grandfather yourself about now." "You have a pregnant daughter in Seattle, don't you?" "Any day now." "My wife's out there for the occasion." "I've thought many times of calling you." "I wish you had." "You know, I bumped into Sibyl the Soothsayer in the elevator last week." "I said, "You know, Sibyl, about four months ago you predicted I would get involved with a craggy, middle-aged man and so far, all that's happened has been one many-splendored night." "I don't call that 'getting involved."'" "And she said, "Don't worry, you will."" "It was a many-splendored night, wasn't it, Max?" "Yes, it was." "Are we going to get involved, Max?" "Yes." "I need to become involved very much." "How about you?" "I've reached for the phone to call you a hundred times." "I was sure you hated me for my part in taking your news show away." "I probably did." "I don't know anymore." "All I know is, I can't get you out of my mind." "Marty." "Marty, I know what NBC offered them so I'm saying go to 3.5 and I want an option for a third run on all of them." "Marty, I'm in a big hurry and you and Charlie are supposed to be negotiating this so goodbye, good luck, I'll see you Monday." "MAN:" "Jimmy Caan's agent just called and says absolutely nix." "DIANA:" "Can't win them all." "Where can I reach you later?" "DIANA:" "You can't." "I'll be gone all weekend." "NBC's offering $3.25 mil per package of five James Bond movies and I think I'm gonna steal them for $3.5 million with a third run." "DIANA:" "And I'm gonna stick The Mao Tse-Tung Hour in at 8 because we're having a lot of trouble selling The Mao Tse-Tung Hour." "This way...." "[PIANO PLAYING SOFT MUSIC]" "That Mao Tse-Tung Hour's turning into one big pain in the ass." "We're having heavy legal problems with the federal government right now." "Two FBI guys turned up in Hackett's office last week and served us with a subpoena." "They heard about our Flagstaff bank rip-off film and they want it." "Hackett told the FBI to fuck off." "[DIANA LAUGHS]" "DIANA:" "No, but we're getting around the FBI by doing the show in collaboration with the news division." "We're standing on the First Amendment, Freedom of the Press and the right to protect our sources." "Walter thinks we can knock out the misprision of felony charge." "Ha, ha." "[DIANA LAUGHING]" "But he says absolutely nix on going to series." "They'll hit us with conspiracy and inducement to commit a crime." "Christ, it's cold in here." "See, we're paying these nuts from the Ecumenical Liberation Army $10,000 a week in order to turn in authentic film footage of their revolutionary activities and that can constitute inducement to commit a crime." "And Walter says we'll all wind up in federal prison." "I said, "Walter, let the government sue us." "Let the federal government sue us." "We'll take them to the Supreme Court." "We'll be front page, mm, for months." "The New York Times and The Washington Post will be writing two editorials a week about us." "We'll be front page for months." "We'll have more press than Watergate."" "All I need is six weeks' federal litigation and The Mao Tse-Tung Hour can start carrying its own time slot." "[DIANA SHRIEKS]" "[PANTING]" "[DIANA SIGHS]" "What's really bugging me now is my daytime programming." "NBC's got a lock on daytime with their lousy game shows and I'd like to bust them." "I'm thinking of doing a homosexual soap opera." "The Dykes." "The heart-rendering saga about a woman hopelessly in love with her husband's mistress." "What do you think?" "How long has it been going on?" "A month." "I thought it was a transient thing, blow over in a week." "And I still pray to God it's just a menopausal infatuation." "But it is an infatuation, Louise." "There's no sense in my saying I won't see her again, because I will." "Do you want me to leave?" "Check into a hotel?" "Do you love her?" "I don't know how I feel." "I'm grateful I can feel anything." "I know I'm obsessed with her." "Then say it." "Don't keep telling me that you're obsessed, that you're infatuated." "Say that you're in love with her." "I'm in love with her." "Then get out!" "Go anywhere you want." "Go to a hotel, go live with her, but don't come back." "Because after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm gonna stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else." "Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it?" "Or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze." "This is your great winter romance, isn't it?" "Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years." "Is that what's left for me?" "Is that my share?" "She gets the winter passion and I get the dotage." "What am I supposed to do?" "Am I supposed to sit home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk?" "I'm your wife, damn it." "If you can't work up a winter passion for me the least I require is respect and allegiance." "[SOBBING]" "LOUISE:" "I hurt, don't you understand that?" "I hurt badly." "[SOBBING]" "Oh, say something, for God's sake." "I've got nothing to say." "I won't give you up easily, Max." "I think perhaps it is better if you move out." "Does she love you, Max?" "I'm not sure she's capable of any real feelings." "She's television generation." "She learned life from Bugs Bunny." "The only reality she knows comes to her over the TV set." "She's very carefully devised a number of scenarios for all of us to play, like the Movie of the Week." "My God, look at us, Louise." "Here we are going through the obligatory middle of Act 2 scorned-wife-throws peccant-husband-out scene." "But don't worry, I'll come back to you in the end." "All of her plot outlines have me leaving her and coming back to you, because the audience won't buy a rejection of the happy American family." "She does have one script in which I kill myself." "An adapted for television version of Anna Karenina where she's Count Vronsky and I'm Anna." "[LAUGHS]" "You're in for some dreadful grief, Max." "I know." "NARRATOR:" "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour went on the air March 14." "It received a 47 share." "The network promptly committed to 15 shows with an option for 10 more." "There were the usual contractual difficulties." ""Equal to 20 percent, 20, except that such percentages shall be 30 percent, 30 for 90-minute or longer television programs."" "Have we settled that sublicensing thing?" "No." "We want a clear definition here." ""Gross proceeds should consist of all funds the sublicensee receives not merely the net amount remitted after payment to the sublicensee or distributor."" "We're not sitting still for overhead charges as a cost prior to distribution." "Don't fuck with my distribution costs." "I'm making a lousy 215 per segment." "I'm already deficiting $25,000 a week with Metro!" "I'm paying William Morris 10 percent off the top!" "I'm giving this turkey $10,000 and another five to this fruitcake." "Don't start no shit with me about a piece." "I'm paying Metro 20 percent for all foreign and Canadian distribution after recoupment." "The Communist Party's not gonna see a nickel until we go into syndication!" "Come on, Laureen." "The Party's in for 7500 a week production expenses." "I'm not giving this pseudo-insurrectionary sectarian a piece of my show." "I'm not giving him script approval." "I'm not cutting him in on my distribution charges." "GIFFORD:" "You fucking fascist!" "Did you see the film we made of San Marino jail breakout demonstrating the rising up of the seminal prisoner-class infrastructure?" "You can blow the seminal prisoner-class infrastructure out your ass!" "I'm not knocking down my goddamn distribution charges." "Man, give her the fucking overhead clause." "How did I get here?" "Who's gonna believe this?" "I'm sitting here in a goddamn farmhouse in Encino...." "Let's get back to Page 22, 5, small "A", Subsidiary Rights." "Where are we now?" "Page 22, middle of the page." "Subsidiary Rights." ""'Subsidiary rights' means without limitation any and all rights...."" "[ALL CHATTERING]" "Over the past two days, you've all had opportunity to meet Diana Christensen our vice president in charge of programming." "This afternoon, you all saw some of the stuff she's set up for the new season." "[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]" "You all know that she is the woman behind the Howard Beale Show." "[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]" "We all know she's beautiful." "We all know she's brainy." "I was thinking, before we start digging into our Chateaubriands let's show her how we feel about her." "[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]" "We have the number-one show in television!" "[ALL CHEER]" "At next year's affiliates' meeting I'll be standing here telling you we've got the top five." "[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]" "Last year, we were the number-four network next year we're number one!" "MAN:" "We're number one!" "We're number one!" "ALL [CHANTING]:" "We're number one!" "We're number one!" "We're number one!" "We're number one!" "It is exactly 7:00 here in Los Angeles." "And right now, over a million homes using television in this city are turning their dials to Channel 3 and that's our channel!" "[WHISPERS INDISTINCTLY]" "ANNOUNCER:" "Howard Beale!" "[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]" "Stop it, stop it!" "Now you listen to me." "And listen carefully because this is your goddamn life I'm talking about today." "In this country, when one company wants to take over another company they buy up a controlling share of the stock but first they have to file notice with the government." "That's how CCA took over the company that owns this network." "But now, somebody's buying up CCA." "Somebody called the Western World Funding Corporation." "They filed the notice this morning." "Well, just who in the hell is the Western World Funding Corporation?" "It is a consortium of banks and insurance companies who are not buying CCA for themselves, but as agents for somebody else." "Who is this somebody else?" "They won't tell you." "They won't tell you, they won't tell the Senate they won't tell the SEC, the FTC, they won't tell the Justice Department...." "This is Mr. Hackett." "Do you have a New York call for me?" "HOWARD:" "The hell it ain't!" "Do you wanna turn that down, please?" "I will tell you who they're buying CCA for." "[LOWERS VOLUME]" "They're buying it for the Saudi Arabian Investment Corporation." "They're buying it for the Arabs!" "Clarence?" "Frank Hackett here." "How's everything back in New York?" "How's the good lady?" "All right, Clarence, take it easy." "I don't know what you're talking about." "When?" "Tonight's show?" "Clarence, take it easy." "The Howard Beale Show is just going on out here." "You guys get it three hours earlier in New York." "Clarence, take it easy." "How the hell could I see it?" "It's just going on now!" "HOWARD:" "And there's not a single law in the books to stop them." "When did Mr. Jensen call?" "We all know that the Arabs control $16 billion in this country." "They own a chunk of 5th Avenue twenty downtown pieces of Boston." "A part of the port of New Orleans." "An industrial park in Salt Lake City." "They own big hunks of the Atlanta Hilton, the Arizona Land and Cattle Company part of a bank in California the Bank of the Commonwealth in Detroit." "They control Aramco, so that puts them into Exxon, Texaco and Mobil Oil." "They're all over!" "New Jersey, Louisville, St. Louis, Missouri and that's only what we know about." "There's a hell of a lot more we don't know about." "Because all of those Arab petrol dollars are washed through Switzerland and Canada and the biggest banks in this country." "For example, what we don't know about is this CCA deal and all the other CCA deals." "Right now the Arabs have screwed us out of enough American dollars to come right back and, with our own money, buy General Motors IBM, ITT, ATT, Dupont, U.S. Steel and 20 other American companies." "Hell, they already own half of England." "So listen to me." "Listen to me, goddamn it." "The Arabs are simply buying us." "There's only one thing that can stop them." "You!" "You!" "So I want you to get up now." "I want you to get up out of your chairs." "I want you to get up right now and go to the phone." "I want you to get up from your chairs, go to the phone, get in your cars drive into the Western Union offices in town." "I want you to send a telegram to the White House." "Oh, my God." "By midnight tonight I want a million telegrams in the White House." "I want them wading knee-deep in telegrams at the White House." "I want you to get up right now and write a telegram to President Ford saying:" ""I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore." "I don't want the banks selling my country to the Arabs." "I want the CCA deal stopped now." "I want the CCA deal stopped now." "Come on." "AUDIENCE:" "I want the CCA deal stopped now!" "I want the CCA deal stopped now!" "I want the CCA deal stopped now!" "I want the CCA deal stopped now!" "[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]" "[TONE DRONING]" "Look, could we have the room?" "MAN:" "Sure." "Well, I'd like to see a typescript and run through a couple more times." "But as for this whole CCA deal with the Saudis you'd know a lot more about that, Frank, than I would." "Is it true?" "The CCA has 2 billion in loans with the Saudis and they hold every pledge we've got." "We need that Saudi money bad." "Disaster." "The show is a disaster." "[SIGHS]" "Unmitigated disaster." "The death knell." "[SIGHS]" "I'm ruined." "I'm dead." "Finished." "Maybe we're overstating Beale's clout with the public." "An hour ago, Clarence McElheny called me from New York." "It was 10:00 in the east and our people in the White House report they were already knee-deep in telegrams." "By tomorrow morning, they'll be suffocating in telegrams." "Can the government stop the deal?" "They can hold it up." "The SEC could hold this deal up for 20 years, if they wanted to." "I'm finished." "Any second that phone's gonna ring and Clarence McElheny is gonna tell me Mr. Jensen wants me in his office tomorrow morning so he can personally chop my head off." "Four hours ago, I was the sun god at CCA." "Mr. Jensen's hand-picked golden boy, the heir apparent." "Now, ha, ha, I'm a man without a corporation." "DIANA:" "Let's get back to Howard Beale." "You're not seriously gonna pull Beale off the air?" "[FRANK SIGHS]" "Mr. Jensen's unhappy with Howard Beale and wants him discontinued." "But he may be unhappy, but he isn't stupid enough to withdraw the number-one show on television out of pique." "Two billion dollars isn't pique!" "That's the wrath of God!" "And the wrath of God wants Howard Beale fired!" "Every other network will grab him the minute he walks." "He'll be back on the air for ABC and we'll lose 20 points" "I'm gonna impale the son of a bitch with a sharp stick!" "DIANA:" "Forty million loss in revenues." "I'll take out a contract." "Let's not discount federal action...." "I'll hire professional killers." "No, I'll do it myself." "I'll strangle him with a sash cord!" "and a breach of the consent decree." "I don't think Jensen's gonna fire anybody." "[PHONE RINGING]" "Hackett." "Yes, Clarence." "I've already booked my flight." "Uh, well, can you give me a little more time than that?" "I've got the red-eye flight, I won't be back in New York till 6 tomorrow morning." "That'll be just fine." "I'll see you then." "Mr. Jensen wants to meet Howard Beale personally." "He wants Mr. Beale in his office at 10:00 tomorrow morning." "The final revelation is at hand." "I have seen the shattering fulgurations of ultimate clarity." "The light is impending." "I bear witness to the light!" "JENSEN:" "Good morning, Mr. Beale." "They tell me you're a madman." "Only desultorily." "How are you now?" "I'm as mad as a hatter." "Who isn't?" "I'm going to take you into our conference room." "Seems more seemly a setting for what I have to say to you." "I started as a salesman, Mr. Beale." "I sold sewing machines and automobile parts hairbrushes and electronic equipment." "They say I can sell anything." "I'd like to try to sell something to you." "Valhalla, Mr. Beale." "Please, sit down." "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale." "And I won't have it!" "Is that clear?" "You think you've merely stopped a business deal." "That is not the case." "The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country and now they must put it back!" "It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance." "You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples." "There are no nations, there are no peoples." "There are no Russians." "There are no Arabs." "There are no Third Worlds." "There is no West!" "There is only one holistic system of systems." "One vast and immane interwoven, interacting, multi-variate multinational dominion of dollars." "Petrol dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars." "Reichsmarks, rins, rubles, pounds and shekels." "It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet." "That is the natural order of things today." "That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today." "And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature!" "And you will atone." "Am I getting it through to you, Mr. Beale?" "You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy." "There is no America." "There is no democracy." "There is only IBM and ITT and ATT and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon." "Those are the nations of the world today." "What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state?" "Karl Marx?" "They get out their linear programming charts statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute price-cost probabilities of transactions and investments just like we do." "We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale." "The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business." "The world is a business, Mr. Beale." "It has been since man crawled out of the slime." "And our children will live, Mr. Beale to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine oppression or brutality." "One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all men will work to serve a common profit in which all men will hold a share of stock all necessities provided all anxieties tranquillized all boredom amused." "And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale to preach this evangel." "Why me?" "Because you're on television, dummy." "Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday." "I have seen the face of God." "You just might be right, Mr. Beale." "NARRATOR:" "That evening, Howard Beale went on the air to preach the corporate cosmology of Arthur Jensen." "Last night I got up here and asked you people to stand up and fight for your heritage, and you did, and it was beautiful." "Six million telegrams were received at the White House." "The Arab takeover of CCA has been stopped." "The people spoke, the people won." "It was a radiant eruption of democracy." "But I think that was it, fellas." "That sort of thing is not likely to happen again." "Because at the bottom of all our terrified souls we know that democracy is a dying giant a sick, sick, dying, decaying, political concept writhing in its final pain." "I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power." "The States is the richest and most powerful the most advanced country, light years ahead of any country." "I don't mean the communists are gonna take over the world." "The communists are deader than we are." "What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it." "It's the individual that's finished." "It's the single, solitary, human being that's finished." "It's every single one of you out there that's finished." "Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals." "It's a nation of some 200-odd million transistorized, deodorized whiter than white steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods." "Well, the time has come to say is "dehumanization" such a bad word?" "Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so." "The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren't." "The whole world, not just us." "We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first." "The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed numbered insensate things." "NARRATOR:" "It was a perfectly admissible argument that Howard Beale advanced in the days that followed." "It was, however, also a very depressing one." "Nobody particularly cared to hear his life was utterly valueless." "By the end of the first week in June the Howard Beale Show dropped one point in the ratings and its trend of shares dipped under 48 for the first time since last November." "You're his goddamn agent." "I'm counting on you to talk some sense into the lunatic." "Nobody wants to hear about dying democracy and dehumanization." "I'm sorry I'm late." "We're starting to get rumbles from the agencies." "Another couple of weeks and the sponsors will be bailing out!" "This is a breach of contract." "This isn't the Howard Beale we signed." "Get him off that corporate universe kick, or so help me, I'll pull it off the air!" "I told him, Lou!" "I've been telling him every day for a week!" "I'm sick of telling him." "Now you tell him!" "[SIGHS]" "Jesus Christ." "You could help me out with Howard if you wanted to." "He listens to you." "You're his best friend." "I'm tired of all this hysteria about Howard Beale." "Every time you come from seeing somebody in your family you come back in one of these middle-aged moods." "I'm tired of finding you on the telephone every time I turn around." "I'm tired of being an accessory in your life." "And I'm tired of pretending to write this dumb book about my maverick days in the great early years of television." "Every goddamned executive fired from a network in the last 20 years has written this dumb book about the great early years of television." "And nobody wants a dumb, damn, goddamn book about the early days of television." "Terrific, Max!" "Maybe you can start a whole new career as an actor." "MAX:" "It's the truth." "After living with you for six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts." "Well, this is not a script, Diana." "There's some real, actual life going on here." "I went to visit my wife today because she's in a state of depression so depressed that my daughter flew all the way from Seattle to be with her." "And I feel lousy about that." "I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused my wife and my kids." "I feel guilty and conscience-stricken and all of those things that you think sentimental but which my generation calls simple, human decency." "And I miss my home because I'm beginning to get scared shitless." "Because all of a sudden it's closer to the end than it is to the beginning." "And death is suddenly a perceptible thing to me with definable features." "You're dealing with a man that has primal doubts, Diana and you've got to cope with it." "I'm not some guy discussing male menopause on the Barbara Walters Show." "I'm the man that you presumably love." "I'm part of your life." "I live here." "I'm real." "You can't switch to another station." "What exactly is it you want me to do?" "I just want you to love me." "I just want you to love me, primal doubts and all." "You understand that, don't you?" "I don't know how to do that." "[PHONE RINGING]" "I'll be with you in a minute, Max." "NARRATOR:" "By the first week in July the Howard Beale Show was down 11 points." "Hysteria swept through the network." "He's a plague." "He's smallpox." "He's typhoid." "I don't wanna follow his goddamn show." "I want out of that 8:00 spot." "I've got enough troubles without Howard Beale as a lead-in!" "Scheduled me against Tony Orlando and Dawn." "NBC's got Little House on the Prairie." "ABC's got The Bionic Woman." "Do something!" "You gotta do something about Howard Beale!" "Get him off the air!" "Get him off!" "Do something!" "Do anything!" "We're trying to find a replacement for him!" "I'm going to look at audition footage now!" "MAN [ON SCREEN]:" "And how when the sicks heal man, I tell you I saw it!" "It was heavy, baby." "I saw the earth quake." "And I saw the moon became like blood." "And every mountain and island was moved from its place." "No, no, no." "Damn it." "If we wanted hellfire we'd get Billy Graham!" "Don't want faith healers, evangelists or Oberammergau passion players!" "What about that messiah that ABC was supposed to have signed up..." "...as our competition for next year?" "MAN:" "That's him." "The bottomless pit is here." "DIANA:" "That's him?" "His ass ending." "Jesus." "Turn him off!" "I've got three more, but you've already seen the best ones." "I've got a guru from Spokane and two more hellfires who see visions of the Virgin Mary." "We're not gonna find a replacement for Howard Beale." "Let's stop kidding ourselves." "Fully fledged messiahs don't come in bunches." "We either go with Howard Beale or we go without him." "My reports say we'll do better without him." "It would be disaster to let this situation go on another week." "By then, he'll be down 16 points and the trend irreversible, if it isn't already." "I think we should fire Howard." "Arthur Jensen has taken a strong personal interest in the Howard Beale Show." "I'm having dinner with him tonight." "Let me have another crack at Jensen and then let's meet in my office at 10:00 tonight." "Diana, give me copies of all your audience research reports." "I may need them for Jensen." "Is 10:00 convenient for everyone?" "[DIANA CHUCKLES]" "I think the time has come to re-evaluate our relationship, Max." "So I see." "I don't like the way this script of ours is turning out." "It's turning into a seedy little drama." "Middle-aged man leaves wife and family for young heartless woman, goes to pot." "The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings." "I don't like it." "So you're gonna cancel the show." "Right." "Here, let me do that." "The simple fact is, Max, that you're a family man." "You like a home and kids." "That's beautiful." "I'm incapable of any such commitment." "All you'll get from me is a couple months of intermittent sex and recriminate and ugly little scenes like the one we had last night." "I'm sorry for all those things I said to you last night." "You're not the worst fuck I've ever had." "Believe me, I've had worse." "You don't puff or snorkle and make death-like rattles." "As a matter of fact, you're rather serene in the sack." "Why is it that a woman always thinks that the most savage thing she can say to a man is to impugn his cocksmanship?" "Well, I'm sorry I impugned your cocksmanship." "I gave up comparing genitals back in the schoolyard." "You're being docile as hell about this." "Oh, hell, Diana, I knew it was over with us weeks ago." "Will you go back to your wife?" "I'll give it a try, but I don't think she'll jump at it." "But don't worry about me." "I'll manage." "I always have, I always will." "I'm more concerned about you." "You're not the boozer type." "So I figure a year, maybe two, before you crack up." "Or jump out of your 14th floor office window." "Stop selling, Max." "I don't need you." "I don't want your pain." "I don't want your menopausal decay and death!" "I don't need you, Max." "Now get out of here!" "You need me!" "You need me badly." "Because I'm your last contact with human reality." "I love you." "And that painful, decaying love is the only thing between you and the shrieking nothingness you live the rest of the day." "Then don't leave me." "It's too late, Diana." "There's nothing left in you that I can live with." "You're one of Howard's humanoids and if I stay with you, I'll be destroyed." "Like Howard Beale was destroyed." "Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed." "Like everything that you and the institution of television touch is destroyed." "You're television incarnate, Diana." "Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy." "All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality." "War, murder, death all the same to you as bottles of beer." "And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy." "You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays." "You're madness, Diana." "Virulent madness." "And everything you touch dies with you." "But not me." "Not as long as I can feel pleasure and pain and love." "And it's a happy ending." "Wayward husband comes to his senses returns to his wife with whom he's established a long and sustaining love." "Heartless young woman left alone in her arctic desolation." "Music up with a swell." "Final commercial." "And here are a few scenes from next week's show." "[DOOR CLOSES]" "How did it go?" "FRANK:" "Mr. Jensen was unhappy at the idea of taking Howard Beale off the air." "Mr. Jensen thinks Howard Beale is bringing a very important message to the American people." "So he wants Howard Beale on the air and he wants him kept on." "Mr. Jensen feels we're too catastrophic in our thinking." "I argued that television was a volatile industry in which success and failure were determined week by week." "Mr. Jensen said he did not like volatile industries and suggested with a certain sinister silkiness that volatility in business usually reflected bad management." "He didn't care if Howard Beale was the number-one show or the 50th." "He didn't really care if the Beale Show lost money." "He wants Howard Beale on the air and he wants him kept on." "I would describe his position on this as inflexible." "Where does that put us, Diana?" "That puts us in the shithouse, that's where that puts us." "Do you want me to go through this?" "FRANK:" "Yes." "The Beale Show Q score's down to 33." "Most of this loss occurred in the child and teen and 18-34 categories which were our key core markets." "And as the AR department's carefully considered judgment and mine that if we get rid of Beale, we should maintain a respectable share in the high 20s, possibly 30, with a comparable Q level." "The other segments of the show, Sibyl the Soothsayer Jim Webbing, the Vox Populi, have all developed their own audiences." "Our AR reports show that it is Howard Beale that is the destructive force here." "Minimally, we're talking about a 10-point differential in shares." "I think Joe ought to spell it out for us." "Joe?" "A 28 share is 80,000-dollar minutes." "I think we can sell complete positions on the whole." "We're just getting into the pre-Christmas gift sellers and I'll tell you the agencies are coming back to me with $4 CPM's." "If that's any indication, we're talking 40-, 45 million-dollar loss in annual revenues." "Wanna hear the flak from the affiliates?" "FRANK:" "We know all about it, Herb." "And you would describe Mr. Jensen's position on Beale as inflexible?" "Intractable and adamantine." "So, what do we do about this Beale son of a bitch?" "I suppose we'll have to kill him." "I don't suppose you have any ideas on that, Diana?" "Well, what would you fellows say to an assassination?" "I think I can get the Mao Tse-Tung people to kill Beale for us as one of their shows." "In fact, it'll make a hell of a kickoff show for the season." "We're facing heavy opposition on the other networks for Wednesday nights and The Mao Tse-Tung Hour could use a sensational opener." "It could be done right on camera in the studio." "We ought to get a fantastic look-in audience for the assassination of Howard Beale as our opening show." "MAN:" "Well, if Beale dies, what would our continuing obligation to the Beale corporation be?" "I know our contract with Beale contains a buy-out clause triggered by his death or incapacity." "There must be a formula for the computation of the purchase price." "Offhand, I think it was based on a multiple 1975 earnings with the base period in 1975." "I think it was 50 percent of salary plus 25 percent of the first year's profit multiplied by the unexpired portion of the contract." "I don't think the show has any substantial syndication value would you say, Diana?" "Syndication profits are minimal." "We're talking about a capital crime here." "The network can't be implicated." "[AUDIENCE CHATTERING]" "I hope you don't have any hidden tape machines in this office, Frank." "FRANK:" "Well, the issue is, shall we kill Howard Beale or not?" "I'd like to hear some more opinions on that." "I don't see we have any option, Frank." "Let's kill the son of a bitch." "Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it." "How do you feel?" "ALL:" "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore!" "ANNOUNCER:" "Ladies and gentlemen, the Network News Hour with Sibyl the Soothsayer." "[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]" "Jim Webbing and his It's-the-Emes Truth Department." "Ms. Mata Hari and her Skeletons in the Closet." "And tonight, another segment of Vox Populi." "And starring the Mad Prophet of the Airways, Howard Beale!" "ANCHOR:" "The Network News anchorman on the UBS Network News show known to millions as the Mad Prophet of the Airways was shot to death tonight in a fusillade of automatic-rifle fire just as he began this evening's broadcast." "ANNOUNCER:" "We never compromise, so why should you?" "Canada Dry mixers, why compromise?" "ANCHOR: --identified themselves as the group responsible for the killing." "Ahmed Kahn, a massive man of well over 6 feet, carrying an automatic weapon." "BOY 1:" "supposed to be good for you." "Did you try it?" "BOY 2:" "I'm not gonna try it, you try it." "I'm not gonna try it." "Let's get Mikey." "BOY 1:" "Yeah." "He won't eat it." "He hates everything." "ANCHOR:" "The extraordinary incident occurred in full view of his millions of viewers." "The assassins were members of a terrorist group called the Ecumenical Liberation Army, two of whom were apprehended." "The leader of the group, known as the Great Ahmed Kahn, escaped." "NARRATOR:" "This was the story of Howard Beale the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings." "[OVERLAPPING TV CHATTER]" "[ENGLISH" " US" " SDH]"