Network

Hackett sighs, enters –

INT. SECRETARY'S OFFICE

– where Herb Thackeray and Joe Donnelly are lounging. Everybody follows Hackett into –

INT. HACKETT'S OFFICE (ONCE RUDDY'S OFFICE)

Nighttime outside, the crepuscular grandeur of Manhattan glittering below us. Waiting in the office, seated here and there, are Walter Amundsen and Diana. Hackett sits behind his desk. The others all find places around the room.

HACKETT

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.

Nobody has anything to say to this.

HACKETT

Mr. Jensen feels we are being 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 really care if Howard Beale was the number one show in television or the fiftieth. He didn't really care if the Beale Show lost money. The network should be stabilized so that it can carry a losing show and still maintain an overall profit. Mr. Jensen has an important message he wants conveyed to the American people, and Howard Beale is conveying it. 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?

DIANA

(taking papers out of her attaché case)

That puts us in the shithouse, that's where that puts us.

(holds up her sheaf of papers)

Do you want me to go through this?

HACKETT

Yes.

DIANA

I have an advance TVQ report here. The Beale show Q score, which was forty-seven in the May book, is down to thirty-three and falling. Most of this loss occurred in the child and teen and eighteen-thirty-four categories, which were our core markets. NBC Nightly News, by contrast, has gone up to a twenty-nine Q, and, at this rate, will pass us by the end of July. Everybody here knows the Neilsen and share-trend scores. Let me just capsulate our own AR demographic reports which have been extensive. It is the AR department's carefully considered judgment – and mine – that if we get rid of Beale, we should be able to maintain a very respectable share in the high twenties, possibly thirty, with a comparable Q level. The other segments on the Beale show – Sybil the Soothsayer, Jim Webbing, the Vox Populi – have all developed their own audiences. Our AR reports show without exception that it is Howard Beale that's the destructive force here. Minimally, we are talking about a ten point differential in shares. I think Joe ought to spell it out for us. Joe?

DONNELLY

A twenty-eight share is eighty-thousand dollar minutes, and I think we could sell complete positions on the whole. As a matter of fact, we're just getting into the pre-Christmas gift-sellers, and I'll tell you the agencies are coming back to me with four dollar CPMs. If that's any indication, we're talking forty, forty-five million dollar loss in annual revenues.

THACKERAY

You guys want to hear all the flak I'm getting from the affiliates?

HACKETT

We know all about it, Herb.

AMUNDSEN

And you would describe Mr. Jensen's position on Beale as inflexible?

HACKETT

Intractable and adamantine.

CHANEY

So what're we going to do about this Beale son of a bitch?

A sad silence settles over the top management of UBS-TV as they lounge about the enormous room.

HACKETT

(sighs)

I suppose we'll have to kill him.

Another long contemplative silence.

HACKETT

I don't suppose you have any ideas on that, Diana.

DIANA

Well, what would you fellows say to an assassination? –

INT. THE LOBBY – UBS BUILDING – A FEW DAYS LATER – 6:00 P.M.

Bustling and crowded. Long lines of PEOPLE, four abreast, roped off and waiting to get into the Howard Beale show. Uniformed USHERS here and there, occasionally chatting with the waiting CROWD. OVER THIS, the VOICES of the network meeting just interrupted CONTINUE:

DIANA'S VOICE

– I think I can get the Mao Tse Tung people to kill Beale for us. As one of their programs. In fact, it'll make a hell of a kick-off show for the season. We're facing heavy opposition from the other networks on Wednesday nights, and the Mao Tse Tung Hour could use a sensational show for an opener. The whole thing would be done right on camera in the studio. We ought to get a fantastic look-in audience with the assassination of Howard Beale as our opening show –

INT. THE LOBBY – UBS BUILDING – ELEVATOR AREA

– as the waiting AUDIENCE is herded into the elevators. OVER THIS, the VOICES of the meeting CONTINUE:

AMUNDSEN'S VOICE

Well, if Beale dies, what would be our continuing obligation to the Beale corporation? I know our contract with Beale contains a buy-out clause triggered by his death or incapacity –