After that disturbing blow up on air, you’d think that UBS executives would be thinking “we messed up letting Howard go back on the air, now we need to send him away, get him some professional help, and not let him back in.”

Well, that’s only partly how they responded. Yes, they are upset and yes, they don’t want him back on the air again. But the way this is executed is surprisingly casual.

We are now introduced to Frank Hackett, played by the incomparable Robert Duval, who is described by Chayefsky in the script as “Executive Senior Vice President of UBS, 41 years old, of the new cool young breed of management/merchandizing executives.” Hackett is the character who seems most familiar in today’s world—just your typical MBA looking to make a clearly chaotic network more profitable.

To Chayefsky, this guy is the devil incarnate, which just tells us how much business management theories and language have permeated American culture over the past 50 years. He seems too normal now.

As he walks into the news division’s common area between offices, we hear another character named Zangwill say “so far, over 900 fucking phone calls complaining about the foul language.” Hackett replies “shit.” This is another cultural change since the mid-70s, we take casual cursing for granted. But it was serious business on television in those days, enough to lead to significant fines from the FCC.

A meeting begins in Max Schumacher’s office. Nelson Chaney, the President of UBS, is also in attendance along with Schumacher, Hackett, several other executives, and Howard Beale, who is sitting morosely on the couch. Hackett tells Beale that he’s off the air. But again, no steps to throw him out of the building are taken.

They turn on three televisions to see how the other networks handled the event on local New York City 10 p.m. newscasts. Beale led all three local newscasts. Schumacher informs everyone that a replacement anchor is traveling up from Washington and will take over the show tomorrow. He will make a statement noting that “Howard has been under a great deal of personal stress.”

That’s the closest we get to concern about Howard’s condition. Hackett now gets off a call and changes subject: there’s a stockholder’s meeting the next day, and he wants answers prepared for them. Hackett then tells Schumacher that he has surprised in store for him. “I’ve had it up to here with your cruddy division and its annual thirty-three million dollar deficit.”

This was common in the broadcasting business for much of its history. Television news wasn’t expected to be profitable, it was considered a form of public service that the major networks performed in exchange for having a federal license. This began to change in the 1980s, just as “Network” predicted, and the 1988 film “Broadcast News” did an excellent job of detailing the repercussions of the mass budget cuts that followed.

Schumacher responded to Hackett’s threat by saying “keep your hands of my news division, Frank. We’re responsible to corporate level, not you.” This will become another major conflict in the film in the scenes ahead. For now, UBS President Chaney tries to soothe the disagreement.

Before we forget that Howard is still there, Max tells him that he will be staying at his house tonight. But just so we know this isn’t about showing personal concern for a friend, Schumacher adds “there’s bound to be press around yours.”