A review of the contributions of evaluation to school television is presented, and some policy suggestions for evaluation programs are offered. The purpose is to assist the Agency for Instructional Television (AIT) in determining how to utilize evaluative research in conducting its projects and the focus is upon decision-making related to the production of television programs. Four categories of decision-oriented research are identified--background, formative, summative, and policy. Major recommendations include: 1) Each AIT activity should have a research and evaluation component; 2) AIT should focus upon decision-oriented and product-specific research and evaluation; 3) Background and in-house policy research should be an integral part of AIT; 4) Formative research should be conducted by an in-house staff and be organizationally subordinate to production; 5) Top priority for research resources should go to formative research; 6) Summative research, while necessary, is less important than formative research; 7) Utility to the decision-making process is the chief criterion by which research and evaluation is to be judged; 8) Summative research for outside consumption should be assigned to outside agencies; and 9) Original instruments should be used whenever possible for formative and summative research. (Author/PB)