Distinctly Montana Magazine

80 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 5 TESTIMONY & TRANSMISSION Craney's big Mad Men moment didn't hap- pen on a television set, but in front of a Sen- ate committee in 1959. By then, he had al- ready deployed a patchwork of boosters and single-watt translators across the Tri-State region—Montana, Idaho, Wyoming—bring- ing television to rural places that were so remote they didn't even have reliable roads, let alone broadcast towers. The only problem: his one-watt translators, while low-powered and local- ized, sometimes caused interference with national broadcasts, a possible violation of Section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934. This became a concern not just for the FCC, but for con- gressmen representing more populous states and the powerful broadcast lobbies that influenced them. In the first season's finale of Mad Men, titled "The Wheel," Don Draper pitches Kodak's new slide projector to a room of stone- faced executives. As the lights dim and the machine begins to whir, still images from Draper's own life flicker on the screen— moments captured when he was a younger man, a more atten- tive father to his children, Bobby and Sally; a more devoted husband to his young wife, Betty. This is Draper's now-famous pitch: he's not selling Kodak's round slide projector as a piece of new technology, but as something else entirely—a machine of nostal- gia, a way to return and revisit that "twinge in your heart far more pow- erful than memory alone." Craney wasn't pitching for Kodak when he stood before those stone-faced congressmen. He wasn't trying to sell a slightly newer model slide projector or even the idea of nostalgia. He wasn't selling one-watt translators, or television programming. What he offered was something far more powerful: a vision of America itself—the belief that isolated families and communi- ties scattered across the mountainous West were just as much a part of the American story unfolding nightly on television as those living in Chicago or New York. In July 1960, less than a year after Craney's Senate testimony, Congress passed Public Law 86-609, amending the Communi- cations Act to authorize the FCC to license the one-watt trans- lators Craney and others had already been deploying across Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. Call (406) 446-0001 or visit thepollardhotel.com • Built in 1893, National Register of Historic Places • Famous guests: Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane • 38 newly renovated guest rooms and suites • Home to Marli's Restaurant Breakfast, Lunch, & Evening Cocktails • World-class gym with saunas, pickelball and racquetball courts • Historic downtown Red Lodge location • Six miles from Red Lodge Mountain Ski Area 2025 o f BEST M O N TA N A A S V O T E D B Y R E A D E R S O F Best Historic Hotel in Montana BOOK YOUR STAY AT MONTANA'S BEST HISTORIC HOTEL (406) 446-0001 2 Broadway Avenue North Red Lodge, Montana thepollardhotel.com

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