My summer reading rec #1 is a compelling walk through TV regulatory history with a dash of First Amendment. In the early 1970s, white men in Congress wanted to curb progressive television content, created by show runners like Norman Lear and Stephen Cannell. Their tactics threatened elimination of funding for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). 

If you find  this as fascinating as I do, you’ll like Geoffrey Cowan’s (1979) See No Evil: The  Backstage Battle Over Sex and Violence in Television. As an attorney in the entertainment industry, Cowan had a front row  seat and wrote this accessible, enthralling, 300 page read. 

Cowan describes how the FCC demanded that the then-major ABC, NBC and CBS somehow reduce sex and violence on prime-time TV. In fact, the FCC has little power over content. But The Family Viewing Hour, was the compromise. Cowan explains its development, life and abrupt death, which remains an influential blip in television history.

Viewed with 21st century lenses, this as an obvious attempt by the conservative movement to flex its muscle, both regulatory and economic, against the right of free speech. Television executives and writers who also wielded incredible power, were up for the fight.