My son, Chester...

What with TiVo and DVRs and being able to download shows off the internet and watch them on your iPod or just waiting till they come out on DVD and renting them at Blockbuster, it's becoming more and more of a challenge to get people to watch commercials.  People can just fast forward through the ads or skip them entirely.

This is a problem for TV networks who need ad money to stay on the air.  NBC has come up with an idea.  If audiences aren't going to watch the commercials that interrupt the shows, they're going to make shows that ads never interrupt because the shows are the ads.

From the New York Times:

AS NBC looks to the future of its prime-time programming — shifting to a 52-week schedule from a calendar that runs from September through May — the network is borrowing a page from the past in asking advertisers to become involved sponsors of shows.

At a presentation on Wednesday afternoon,  senior executives of NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, will describe how they are seeking to make advertisers into long-term partners rather than just sell them 30-second commercials.

One example is a new deal with the Liberty Mutual Group insurance company that is centered on a pair of two-hour TV movies to be broadcast under the banner of the company — “Liberty Mutual Presents,” for example.

The movie plots are intended to complement a campaign for Liberty Mutual that was introduced in 2006 by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, which carries the theme, “Responsibility. What’s your policy?” The scripts, which Liberty Mutual will help develop, will discuss subjects like taking responsibility for one’s actions and deciding how to do the right thing.

Gee, I wonder why an insurance company wants to promote a show about "taking resposnibility for one's own actions"?  Couldn't be Liberty's hoping to teach an up and coming generation of potential clients not to be surprised when their insurance company refuses to pay up on a policy they've been paying into for years.

You were in a car crash?  Sorry, you had the wrong brand of steel-belted radials.  You should have taken responsibility.

Your house burned down?  Sorry, you only had five smoke detectors.  The fine print on your policy says you have to have six.  Your own fault.  You should have taken responsibility.

Your spouse died of cancer?  Sorry, he/she missed that required checkup two years ago.  You should have taken responsibility.

Whoops. I'm being cynical again, aren't I?

The Times story points out that this is in a way a giant leap backwards in time to the early days of television and radio when shows routinely had a single sponsor and suits from the sponsor's home office vetted scripts and sat in on rehearsals and tapings.

Which reminds me of something Pop Mannion told me once upon a time.  I don't know if it's true but it sounds like the kind of thing he would have done.  He being W.C. Fields.

Fields' radio show was sponsored by Lucky Strikes cigarettes.  On the air, Fields would often tell stories about the son he most definitely did not have...Chester.

Chester Fields.

I'm presuming the ghost of Fields lives on in the hearts of many a television writer and if single-sponsor shows catch on the game in town is going to be to see who can get the most number of references to the sponsor's competitors into a script.

So shows sponsored by Liberty Mutual will feature a character named Edna other characters are always glad to have met.

Think about it.

Comments

[bob]

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: "A program length COMMERCIAL??????? Oh, BOY!!!!!!!!"

[Linkmeister]

I don't remember whether single-company sponsorship of television programs included promotion of their products during the 1950s, but take a look at the names of the shows in this lineup in 1954:

One instance of such a programming pattern occurred on Thursday nights during the 1954-55, TV season. Here, in one single evening viewers could choose between Kraft Television Theater (ABC, 1953-55), Four Star Playhouse (CBS, 1952-56), Ford Theater (NBC, 1952-56) and Lux Video Theater (NBC, 1954-57).

I occasionally see the same thing on ABC's World News Tonight, of all places. Charlie Gibson will proudly tell the viewers that the program will have expanded news because there's a single sponsor picking up all the (slightly-reduced) commercials during the half-hour.

It's alarming but not surprising.

[Lawrence Fechtenberger]

So far as I am aware, FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE did not take its name from its sponsor. The name referred to its alternating leads: Charles Boyer, Dick Powell, David Niven, and Ida Lupino.

[Linkmeister]

Lawrence, the larger point remains valid.

[Samuel]

What is Edna?

[Linkmeister]

Homonym for Aetna.

[KC45s]

Charles Boyer, Dick Powell, David Niven, and Ida Lupino.

Good super-hero team.

From what I see, a lot of pro TV writers can't write entertaining programs. I can only imagine the comedy/drama chops to be found in the average insurance executive.

I give NBC five years.

[weepingsam]

Well, those damn cavemen had a show. And liberty's ads were getting serious reviews - David Bordwell reviewed them! So....

Anyway, companies have been paying for TV shows forever - liberty pays for a good part of The American Experience, I think... I'm not sure how the story of Kit Carson or the Lobotomist promotes responsibility though. It's the bald faced admission that these shows are going to be advertisements that makes it all so wonderful. Advertisements for "responsibility" too! Nothing sez "quality television" like an edifying morality tale from an insurance company.

Though maybe they'll make like Shrek and have the villain of the show be a rampaging Gekko, or Little Richard.

[Sunny Jim]

Wasn't it the Fowler-led FCC of the Reagan years that threw out the limits on the number of commercials? Its buzzword was 'deregulation', freeing everyone's stooped backs from the burdensome weight of government.

Follow the career paths and money trails of FCC appointees past and present.

Who owns the airwaves?

[Samuel]

Thanks.