A two-word phrase from a 1961 speech might be the most durable two words in the history of television.

“Vast wasteland” is the descriptive phrase, and it was uttered by Newton Minow, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in a speech in which he admonished the TV industry for failing to live up to the medium’s potential (as he saw it) for improving people’s lives.

Minow died Saturday at his home in the Chicago area. He was 97.

He was FCC chairman from March 1961 to June 1963, and then went on to a distinguished career as a telecommunications lawyer.

Among other achievements, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by President Obama.

Years before, Minow gave a summer job at his law firm to a young Barack Obama, and it was there that Barack met his future wife, Michelle.

Minow’s “vast wasteland” speech dates back 62 years, but the phrase endured -- so much so that it was in the lead paragraph of every obituary on Minow that was published over the weekend.

The phrase is famous, but the context in which it was delivered is not.

The two words were plucked from a speech that was nearly 5,500 words in length and ran for 40 minutes.

It was delivered on May 9, 1961, to an audience of network executives and TV station managers gathered at the annual convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington. 

“When television is bad, nothing is worse,” said Minow, newly installed as FCC chairman in the fledgling administration of President John F. Kennedy.

“I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit-and-loss sheet or a rating book to distract you,” Minow suggested.

“Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

“You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.

“And endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.

“True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.”

With all due respect to Chairman Minow, if we had the quaint procession of “mayhem, violence, sadism [and] murder” that he observed in 1961, we would all be marveling at the miraculous chastity of television.

Dated though it surely is, Minow’s speech gave TV critics (and anyone else) a handy, accurate phrase -- “a vast wasteland” -- for describing television in virtually any era. 

But it is doubtful the speech persuaded any members of Minow’s audience to actually engage in the exercise of self-evaluation that he suggested, much less come to personal epiphanies about the woeful state of television that Minow was sure they would experience. 

Those who heard the FCC chairman’s speech likely saw no way in which they could profit from keeping their eyes “glued” to their sets.

They also likely felt, if they bothered to contemplate it at all, that watching television in such a marathon fashion -- from sign-on to sign-off, as the old broadcasters once referred to the broadcast day -- was not a realistic reflection of the way most people watched TV.

Over the years, Minow graciously agreed to be interviewed countless times on the state of TV in whatever year or era the interviews were being conducted. 

“In 1961, I worried that my children would not benefit much from television,” he said in a 1991 interview with the Associated Press. “But in 1991, I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it.”