When Articles Become Pop-Up Ads
Advertising is to the culture as water is to a fish; it’s so prevalent, we hardly even notice. Case in point: television. For decades, I thought television shows were for entertainment. It was one of the great mediums where people could share stories, compose visual art, and move the culture.
There is truth in that, of course, but it isn’t the whole truth and it certainly isn’t the first priority. If it were, the greatest television show of all time would still be on the air. Why did it stop? Because it wasn’t generating enough ratings. Not the critic’s ratings, the Nielsen ratings.
Television is first and foremost a delivery system for advertising. The networks bracket the ads with comedies, dramas, sitcoms, and news just as surely as Mary Poppins brackets the medicine with sugar to help it go down. When I really see this for what it is, I get the feeling of mundane epiphany. Behold! I just discovered the obvious! Soap operas were really just operas for soap sellers! Wow!
So the real role of a network executive is finding the right mix of shows and advertising that turns the profits without turning away the viewers. That balance gets tricky. Especially now that Netflix and HBO show the power of subscription models and video-on-demand. It’s a fascinating industry in the midst constant change.
