Buoyed by their success with children, over the late 1960s public broadcasters began to reach directly for countercultural audiences with shows like the Public Broadcasting Laboratory, a magazine program produced by Fred Friendly. It debuted with a drama featuring blacks in "white-face," and among PBL's productions was Inside North Vietnam, a fairly sympathetic portrayal of the country under American air attack. Another ambitious effort was The Great American Dream Machine, an antiestablishment, anti-consumerist variety show, if such a thing could exist. "We're trying to show what a great country this could be," said the producers, "if we got rid of the false values sold to us by hucksters and con men who have contempt for the public."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 577