American entertainment television, transmitted coast-to-coast, is the product of a fierce battle for profits between the big three networks. How do these pressures operate, and how do they affect the programmes - and the audience? With Mike Dann, Herminio Traviesas, Norman Lear, George Gerbner, Don Roberts, Bob Liebert and two American families

When Gordon Newman's four-part police drama Law and Order was broadcast last year, some critics saluted it as a particularly truthful account of the realities of police work, but senior police officers denounced it on the grounds that its distortions would mislead the public. The truth is rarely plain or simple. But how far are people's views of the real world determined or influenced by TV drama? In this programme we present the results of a specially commissioned research study on the impact of Law and Order on a chosen group of viewers.