The television industry is being dramatically transformed by new communications technology that in the coming decade will offer opportunities and dangers limited only by the imagination and wisdom of those producing television's artistic product and those regulating the proliferation of that product. The most dramatic and profoundly important advance in the history of communications has been the invention and improvement of television. Television has developed into a medium, however, where every second means revenue, and television artists face a different set of constraints from artists who communicate in other ways. Those constraints include getting a 30% share of the viewing audience, engaging an audience predisposed to passivity, and dealing with market researchers and network executives whose goals are fundamentally different from those of the artists. It is not the heavy hand of federal regulations, but the hand of a conforming market that today limits television's potential. Television must offer a genuine choice to the artist who seeks to explore new insights and techniques and to the viewer who seeks a program suited to individual needs, tastes, and schedules. (AEA)