For some odd reason, I've recently been TiVoing/watching episodes of the old series Adam 12 on MeTV. They hold up fairly well as stories, especially when they don't try to get preachy, lecturing people on the essential goodness of the police department or the horrors of hippiedom. I also like the range of character actors who turn up on the show, as well as all the early seventies' Los Angeles scenery. They seem to go up and down Riverside Drive and Lankershim a lot. I'll write something about the series one of these days.
What I've gotten to noticing a lot are the commercials. Here's what they were selling on the episode I recorded the other day…
- Promo for Welcome Back, Kotter on MeTV
- Promo for Gilligan's Island on MeTV
- Commercial (a very long one) for non-insulin Victoza for people with Diabetes
- Commercial for AT&T U-Verse High Speed Internet
- Commercial from law firm looking for patients who had metal hip implants to join a class-action suit
- Commercial to enroll in Le Cordon Bleu cooking school so you can get a great job as a restaurant chef
- Commercial for Humana Dental Plan
- Commercial for new kind of catheter
- Commercial to enroll you in Everest College to find and be trained for a new career
- Commercial for American Dental Care service plan
Leaving aside the promos for other shows on the same channel, the AT&T U-Verse one was the only commercial designed to reach people who were not in serious need. Watching other shows on MeTV, I see that almost every commercial assumes one of these four things…
- You need to get affordable insurance of some kind.
- You need a career.
- You've been injured or otherwise harmed and you need a lawyer who will represent you without up-front costs.
- You have a serious medical condition (primarily the kind that impacts the elderly) and you need equipment that will aid you in day-to-day living.
No one who watches this channel needs a car or a videogame or a place to get a good hamburger or a personal grooming aid to make them look better or a vacation or a beer. I don't even see commercials for Coca-friggin'-Cola. Someone kind of presumes that if you're watching their channel, you must be ill, injured or unemployed.
There are a number of channels like this — and some which get that way during certain hours — and it makes me wonder: What kind of Demographic breakdown do they have to offer advertisers? Do their advertising sales people go to potential sponsors and say, "You want to buy time on our channel. We have more sick and out-of-work viewers than anyone else"? And when they select the programming they offer, do they have that on their minds? Do they say, "No, sick and out-of-work people won't like that show"?
Years ago, one of the major advertising agencies put out a list of the best network TV shows on which to sell beer. As I recall, Saturday Night Live was at the top of the list and David Letterman's old show — the one on NBC — was second or maybe third. Cute women and "frat-boy" humor were elements that seemed conducive to beer ads, they said. So what elements make a TV show more appealing to people who are out of work? What kind of viewing attracts the incontinent? The people who need catheters? Based on watching MeTV, it seems that guest appearances by Burt Mustin and Alice Ghostley must do something.
(And a side thing I've been wondering: Those commercials from lawyers who'll fight for you if you're in an auto accident…are they any more effective when they air during Perry Mason reruns?)
This is not a huge issue to me. My TiVo skips me over most of it. But it does seem that some channels and/or advertisers have a very precise image of the person who's watching…and that image is kind of sad.