Frank Hackett quotes from Network (1976)

Frank Hackett

I argued that television was a volatile industry in which success and failure were determined week by week; Mr. Jensen does not like volatile industries and suggested with a certain sinister silkiness that volatility in business usually reflected bad management.

Frank Hackett

I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna impale the son-of-a-bitch with a sharp stick through the heart. I'll take out a contract on him. I'll hire a professional killer; no, I'll do it myself. I'll strangle him with a sash cord.

Frank Hackett

And I've got some GOD DAMN SURPRISES FOR YOU TOO, SCHUMACHER! I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH YOUR CRUDDY DIVISION, AND ITS ANNUAL 33-MILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT!

Frank Hackett

The business of management is management.

Nelson Chaney

All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting.

Frank Hackett

We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get.

Nelson Chaney

Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse.

Frank Hackett

That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly noted; you can always resign tomorrow.

Nelson Chaney

The affiliates won't carry it.

Frank Hackett

The affiliates will kiss your ass if you can hand them a hit show.

Frank Hackett

Well, the issue is: Shall we kill Howard Beale, or not? I'd like to get some more opinions on that.

Diana Christensen

I don't see we have any options, Frank. Let's kill the son-of-a-bitch.

Frank Hackett

Mr. Jensen is unhappy with Howard Beale and wants him discontinued.

Diana Christensen

He may be unhappy, but he isn't stupid enough to withdraw the number one show on television out of pique.

Frank Hackett

Two billion dollars is not pique! That's the Wrath of God! And the Wrath of God wants Howard Beale fired.

Diana Christensen

We just increased our audience by twenty or thirty million people in one night. Now, you're not gonna get something like this dumped in your lap for the rest of your days, and you can't just piss it away. Howard Beale got up there last night and said what every American feels, that he's tired of all the bullshit. He's articulating the popular rage. I want that show, Frank. I can turn that show into the biggest smash on television.

Frank Hackett

What do you mean, you want that show? It's a news show. It's not your department.

Diana Christensen

I see Howard Beale as a latter-day prophet, a magnificent messianic figure, inveighing against the hypocrisies of our times, a strip Savonarola, Monday through Friday. I tell you, Frank, that could just go through the roof. And I'm talking about a six dollar cost per thousand show! I'm talking about a hundred, a hundred thirty thousand dollar minutes! Do you want to figure out the revenues of a strip show that sells for a hundred thousand bucks a minute? One show like that could pull this whole network right out of the hole! Now, Frank, it's being handed to us on a plate. Let's not blow it!