Global Spin by Sharon Beder

Author:Sharon Beder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UIT Cambridge Ltd.

Television: Promoting Consumerism

Although media outlets avoid controversial material, they do not want to bore their audiences. This has brought about an increase in non-news content, or ‘fluff ’, aimed at entertaining consumers and creating “a buying mood as bait for more advertising”. Television shows tend to promote consumerism, portray a positive image of business in general—with bad business people being an obvious deviation from the norm—attract affluent audiences, and aim at light entertainment rather than examination of complex and controversial subjects. Today’s television “projects an ethos of materialism through its programming as well as its advertising”, with images of happy consumers whose problems are solved through their purchases and through “proper social behaviour” as seen on television shows. Programmes that appeal to people who don’t buy much, the poor and the old, don’t tend to last long. Nor do those that promote social awareness.50

James Twitchell, Professor of English and author of Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in America predicts that cable and remote control mean that “commercials will disappear. They will become the programming.”51 Already channels such as MTV and home-shopping channels are made up of programmes that are little more than advertisements. This tendency has meant increased competition for advertising dollars from cable television. One advertising executive rejoiced at the ability this influence gave advertisers to “create programming environments that heighten our clients’ messages.”52

There is also an increasing creep of advertising materials into regular programmes, especially games and talk shows. In the 1980s a new marketing strategy was introduced: the programme-length commercial or ‘infomercial’, which is dressed up to look like a regular television show with theme music, credits, paid studio audiences and celebrity hosts, and is listed in television guides as a regular programme. An example is McDonalds’ The Mac Report, which has all the appearance of a business news programme.53

In the US today ninety per cent of television stations show infomercials, generating $400 million per year for those stations and providing relatively cheap advertising for the sponsors. “Knowing that consumers view ads with skepticism, marketers sneak through our defenses by blurring the lines between advertising, news, and entertainment.” A version of the infomercial aimed at children is the television show whose main characters are modelled after toys. By 1988 sixty-four per cent of television toy advertisements were for toys related to children’s television programmes. Often cartoon characters would be launched as movies, be followed up by television series and then be merchandised on hundreds of products from t-shirts to toys.54 The head of Disney explained to Advertising Age in 1989 how the Disney Corporation’s activities all reinforced each other: “The Disney Stores promote the consumer products which promote the [theme] parks which promote the television shows. The television shows promote the company.”55

One particularly successful marketing venture has been the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was dreamed up in an advertising agency and has spawned various television programmes, movies, a range of toys and accessories and a billion-dollar industry in licensed products which feature the creatures. Toy

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