Marketing to Generation X by Karen Ritchie

Author:Karen Ritchie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: THE FREE PRESS
Published: 1995-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The situation was so blatantly callous, it eventually attracted the attention of watchdog groups such as the Action for Children’s Television. In response to such pressure groups, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued stringent guidelines for children’s programming in 1974, but by then many of our Xers had already developed a healthy skepticism about advertising and a love/hate relationship with the media.

In order to understand how this came to be, it is necessary to briefly review some of the history of network television and to discuss some of the behind-the-scenes concepts that influenced the development of the industry.

A series of events took place during the late 1950s and early 1960s that set the stage for the changing face of network programming. The first, and most dramatic, of these was the shift in power over programming from the sponsor to the network. Prior to the mid-1960s, most network shows were “sponsored,” that is, controlled by advertisers who paid for both the costs to produce the program and the network time. More powerful sponsors had first crack at the premium prime-time slots. All had a great deal of control over the content of the programming they sponsored.

This changed abruptly in 1959, a result of the infamous “quiz show scandals.” One of the most popular program formats of 1958 was the big-money quiz show. The first was The $64,000 Question. As the name describes, contestants answered very difficult questions on a preselected topic, and the grand prize was $64,000. Since the contestants were required to accomplish this feat over the course of several weekly appearances, many of them became quite well known to the viewing public, and some retained a measure of celebrity long after the show had been canceled. Among the early contenders, for example, was Dr. Joyce Brothers, who won $64,000 by answering a series of questions on the subject of boxing. Dr. Brothers, a psychologist, later published books and became a popular television/radio personality, enjoying a long career in that role.

Then, as now, popular programming invites imitation. Soon there were several such shows, including Twenty-One, The $64,000 Challenge, and Tic, Tac, Dough. The prime-time quiz show format blossomed. New shows were launched, with nervous contestants and larger and larger prizes—until it was revealed that some of the contestants had been supplied with the answers in advance.

Months of rumors, fanned by several magazine articles and fueled by accusations of mal-practice by a former contestant on Twenty-One, Herbert Stempel, led to an investigation early in 1959 by a New York grand jury. The probe of quiz show “rigging” was pursued further in the House of Representatives that fall by the Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, headed by Rep. Oren Harris. On Nov 2 came the confession from the key witness, Charles Van Doren, who had previously denied having any knowledge of cheating on Twenty-One, the program on which he became a national celebrity after defeating Stempel. 1

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