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[Commercial] television is primarily a marketing medium and secondarily an entertaining medium, but it is primarily a marketing medium. (Sonny Fox, quoted in Klein 1979:36)
The shaping context for the production of Guiding Light and other soaps is the competition for daytime television audiences. This chapter explores how and why Procter and Gamble provides resources for the production of Guiding Light in the competition for that audience. I first discuss the appeals of soaps to advertisers and networks; then I discuss the conflicting interests and changing relationship between Procter and Gamble, which owns Guiding Light, and CBS, the network airing the program. Finally, I interrelate soaps and commercials, giving priority to the commercial to emphasize the economic interests shaping the performances
Soap programming is compatible with, or complementary to, the commercials at their core. The symbolic world of Guiding Light emphasizes domestic romance, while commercials emphasize romanticized domesticity. Taken together, they simultaneously reach viewers, potential markets, and consumers in the context of an advanced capitalist society. From an economic perspective, the never-ending tale that is Guiding Light is paralleled by never-ending viewing and consumption.
THE APPEALS OF SOAPS TO ADVERTISERS AND NETWORKS
The economic interests supporting daytime serials are reflected in the conventional label "soap opera" or "soaps."
Sponsored by soap companies, but more accurately corporations selling home and family care products, soap operas are created to attract a predominantly female audience, often referred to as "the lady of the house" or "the woman in the home" by advertising executives. The close and traditional assoc-
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iation between the programs and sponsors is easily overlooked with the familiarity of the label.
Soaps are created to reach women and to provide a context for advertising products used in the home. They are specifically designed to reach women 25 to 54 years old and, increasingly, to reach women 18 to 49. In both cases, it is women at the lower end of the age scale who are the primary object of the current programming and advertising strategy. While women 25 and over are the largest spenders, garnering younger viewers contributes to higher ratings and may lead to network/program/product loyalty. They will become major consumers as they establish their own households and rear a family. Soaps are appealing to certain advertisers because they largely reach women who buy their products. They are appealing to networks because networks use programming to sell access to markets to advertisers.
The economics of soap production and the fees they bring in from advertising make them very profitable for the networks and attractive to sponsors who wish to reach repeatedly the ideal female market for their products. Soaps are relatively inexpensive to produce, and advertising costs are relatively low compared to prime-time. The profits are enormous.
Daytime dramas have a yearly budget in the range of $30 million and can earn their respective networks upwards of $150 million in profits. In 1981, daytime television accounted for $1.4 of the total $5.6 billion in network advertising
revenues. (Brown 1982a:26)
Soaps are also attractive to the networks because they are carried by almost all the affiliates upon whom the networks rely for distribution of the programming. While no program gets 100 percent clearance, soaps such as General Hospital (ABC) and Guiding Light (CBS) are carried by 99 percent of the affiliates.
For the networks and soap producers such as Procter and Gamble' soaps are attractive because they are inexpensive to make or lease. For example, it costs approximately $500,000 to make one episode of a prime-time situation comedy, the same amount it costs to manufacture five episodes (five hours) of a soap opera (Steinberg 1980:136). While the advertising rates that networks charge are lower during the day than for night prime-time, the total income from advertising is substantial given the low costs of manufacturing
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and/or leasing a show. For instance, although a 30-second commercial brings in only about $15,000 during the daytime hours as compared to $50,000 or more during prime-time . . . the proportion of commercials to production costs for a week of a daytime series more than makes up for the initial cost differences" (Cantor 1979:70).
During a one-hour program, and most soaps are now one hour long, approximately 12 minutes are allotted to advertising. Using a base figure of $15,000 for each 30-second spot, and allowing 12 minutes for advertising, generates advertising revenues of $360,000 for one episode, or $1.85 million for five episodes. The figures make it very clear that daytime television is an important moneymaker and, in fact, supports the costly and risky dynamics of prime-time production.
The producing costs for soaps are kept down in a number of ways. The shows are videotaped rapidly, with minimal rehearsal time. Most of the taping occurs in the studio, and a limited number of sets are used repeatedly. There also were economies of scale when the programs became an hour in length: some of the costs did not increase proportionately. Salaries for performers are lower than they are for prime-time. Stars are not essential to daytime soap opera and, as a result, actors gain less power on soaps than in other forms of production and command smaller salaries. Overall, salaries tend to be lower for many production roles compared to prime-time (Cantor 1979:69-70). Production costs have increased as performers have become aware of the profits from daytime because of the attention given to daytime, and production values have changed given the increased competition for the daytime audience. But the costs remain low relative to the profit they bring in.
Another factor that explains the attractiveness of soaps to sponsors (and therefore networks) is that costs are low for spots--between $7,000 and $30,000 for 30 seconds--and they can reach the same body of women frequently. Many women watch a show more than once during the week, and many watch more than one show. The stable, continuing audience is also a stable, continuing market or potential market. Advertising strategies are based upon a knowledge of viewing habits. Advertisers will place the same commercials on different networks and at different times on the same network as part of their strategy. Procter and Gamble purchases spots during the ABC soaps, particularly All My Children and One Life to Live, which are aired at the same time as Procter and Gamble owned soaps on CBS and NBC. They will also sponsor prime-time programs to reach women who are not home or who do not watch television during the day.
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The number of female television viewers is considerate] and larger than the number of male viewers.
Women from 18 to 49 watch T.V. more hours than men the same age watch. In the fall of 1976, the viewing time of these younger adult women was almost seven hours per week more than that of younger adult men. Their total viewing increased by more than four hours in the last three years, and they remain above the overall average for individual viewing, with over 31 hours a week. (Steinberg 1980: 151)
The general pattern nationwide is one in which the number of women viewers increases during the day. By three p.m., "25 percent of all women 18 to 49 years old are watching T.V." (Steinberg 1980:152). The daytime audience is 70 to 80 percent women, with approximately 50 million women a week regularly watching soaps.
Another consideration is the relative stability of the profits and audience in daytime. Prime-time programming is very costly and extremely risky. Many shows are failures, the programming schedule is constantly being changed, and the initial high costs are covered only if a program lasts long enough to be marketed for syndication. Soaps are an area of relative calm compared to the unpredictability of prime-time.
The increased media attention to daytime television is related to the increasing popularity of prime-time soaps such as Dallas, Dynasty, and Falcon Crest. Among other qualities, soaps attract a continuing audience with greater loyalty to a program than to a game show, for instance. At the same time that prime-time has become increasingly unpredictable for programmers and viewers, the overall audience for network television has been shrinking as the networks compete with cable, videodiscs, cassettes, and other electronic innovations, and changes in the work force and popular tastes. Soaps are increasingly attractive to the networks as competition increases and the overall audience size shrinks since audiences are more loyal to soap programming in comparison to other types of network fare.
It is clear that both serials and series have advantages for programme planners: a time slot as it is significantly called, can be filled for a run of weeks, and in their elements of continuity the series and the
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serial encourage attachment to a given station or channel. (Williams 1975:60)
A soap is a continuing story that ideally creates a continuing audience. The audience member is a consumer of the advertisements, program, and network if again, ideally, a brand loyalty develops to the show, products and network. From another perspective, the continuing audience is a product that is generated to consume shows, advertisements, and products. As Williams notes, a brand loyalty can develop, insuring a stable audience/market. In fact, the soaps on ABC are identified by many viewers as the ABC soaps. ABC's success in creating a brand loyalty to the soaps they owned and the enormous profits from them changed the relationship between Procter and Gamble and CBS.
ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND INTERESTS
Whereas the predominant pattern of program production for network television is one whereby independent producers or the network itself makes the programming, and the network in turn sells spots or time to advertising sponsors, Procter and Gamble continues the older pattern of sponsor ownership and control. Procter and Gamble Productions owned six soaps and now owns five. In addition to Guiding Light, an hour-long show, it also owns As the World Turns, a one-hour show, and Search For Tomorrow, a half-hour program. When I began my study, all appeared on the CBS network, but on March 29, 1982, Search For Tomorrow was moved to NBC. Another World and Texas (now canceled), both hour-long programs, were aired over NBC, and Edge of Night, a half-hour long, aired over ABC. In addition to making these programs, Procter and Gamble Productions also produces various specials for television such as the Miss Universe Contest and series such as Shirley.
The networks aired thirteen soaps throughout 1981. A half-hour program called Capitol, owned by John Conboy Productions, replaced Search For Tomorrow when it moved from CBS to NBC, making the total fourteen as of March 29, 1982. The other soaps included four very successful ABC-owned shows: All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital, all an hour long, and Ryan's Hope, a half-hour long. CBS also broadcast The Young and the Restless, co-owned by Corday Productions, Columbia, and Bill Bell. NBC aired Days of Our Lives and The Doctors (which is now also canceled. [8]
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Guiding Light is owned by Procter and Gamble Productions, Incorporated, which is part of General Advertising Services, a division of Procter and Gamble, Incorporated. Procter and Gamble Productions contracts with and through Compton Advertising to carry out the actual production, a practice dating from 1937. The producers, actors, directors, and other staff members of the program are paid by Compton. Compton also contracts with CBS for facilities, technicians, and other personnel necessary for making the program.
Procter and Gamble Productions leases the programs to the networks. It leased three, and eventually two, programs to CBS. CBS pays Procter and Gamble and, in turn, CBS sells time during a program to Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble retains not less than half the time allotted to advertising and retains some control over the time periods they do not use. Originally, this meant that other soap manufacturers could not advertise on the Procter and Gamble owned shows. As Procter and Gamble has extended the range of products it manufactures and markets--paper products such as toilet paper and paper towels, tampons, nationally distributed coffee, and others--it has negotiated with CBS on the conditions limiting the use of the non-Procter and Gamble time. For example, a limiting condition might stipulate that a competing manufacturer and advertiser such as a tampon manufacturer could not advertise on a particular show more than once or twice a week. Another consequence was that competitors such as Colgate-Palmolive Peet and Lever Brothers had corporate policies against buying time on the Procter and Gamble owned soaps. Procter and Gamble's continued involvement in soap production demonstrates the importance of soaps as an environment or domain, to use Barnouw's phrase (1979), for commercials to reach a particular audience/market.
Procter and Gamble's daytime serials have been and continue to be an important part of our overall marketing efforts. They provide an effective and highly economical way to deliver product messages to current or potential customers in the home environment, where Procter and Gamble's products are mostly used. (Procter and Gamble Customer Services)
Procter and Gamble's primary interest is in the cost of reaching the market, their cost per thousand viewers. The lower the costs, the better. CBS, on the other hand, is interested in selling spots to advertisers. The higher the
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costs for the spots, the greater its potential profit. The ratings and demographics of the audience directly affect the advertising rates or cost of the spots. Whereas CBS and Procter and Gamble once dominated daytime television, this is no longer the case. ABC is very successful in reaching a larger and younger female audience with soaps it owns directly. It not only controls the programming and establishes higher rates for the advertising, it also controls all the advertising time itself and makes larger profits.
The importance of ratings to networks, the differing interests of the networks and Procter and Gamble, as well as the uncertainty in media production, which I discuss later, are illustrated in the following comments of the headwaiter of Guiding Light. He had previously written General Hospital and discussed what occurred at a meeting immediately after General Hospital rose to the number-one position in the ratings for the first time.
I remember meeting Agnes Nixon downstairs at the elevator because Agnes was a consultant for all the shows on ABC and it was the week that General Hospital hit number one solid-we wiped everything else out. The fact that this poor pathetic show was the solid number one show was like victory--this was the first story meeting I haven't dreaded.Agnes said, "Don't be too sure." I said, "What can they say, we're number one?" Jackie Smith came in and said, her opening remarks, she was a half-hour late, and said, "We're in terrible trouble." I couldn't believe it. Her maid that morning had said that
the Laura, Bobbie, Scatty thing was boring, she didn't like it --all our eggs are in that basket. I said, "It was the basket that brought us here." She said, "Yes, now we have to find ways to stay there." "We can't go on telling the same story." I said, "The story isn't even over yet." I couldn't believe it. Agnes was totally right. She winked at me from across the room. There is an incredible instinct to panic. I have not found that at all with P & G. [Emphasis mine]
ABC had the three highest rated programs throughout the period I researched. The following are representative figures from January and February of 1982. General Hospital had a rating of 11.4; All My Children, 9.7, and One Life To
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Live, 9.4. Guiding Light had a rating of 8.7 in direct competition with General Hospital. This translates into 13.07 million viewers tuned to General Hospital and 9.89 million tuned to Guiding Light. The other major demographic factor is the size of the female audience from 18 to 49.
ABC execs also pointed to the daytime roster's sex appeal among the all-important women 18 to 49. The latest demographic data, covering January and February, shows General Hospital as the favorite with an average of 5,790,000 women per show in that age bracket out of a total viewership of 13,070,000. ABC also had the three other demographic biggies --All My
Children with 5,230,000 women 18 to 49 out of 10,750,000 viewers; One Life to Live with 5,000,000 women 18 to 49; and Ryan's Hope with 3,200,000.Their closest rivals for the women's affections were CBS's Guiding Light and Young and the Restless, ties for fifth with slightly more than 3,000,000 18 to 49 per episode. Guiding Light had 3,120,000 fewer total viewers than General Hospital in the same 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. time period. (Forkan 1982:1)
The differences between the costs for spots on General Hospital and Guiding Light are considerable. For example, in the second quarter of 1982, advertising time during General Hospital cost $27,800 for a 30-second spot. Guiding Light could charge only $16,500 (Flax 1982:66). Not only were the advertising rates on General Hospital nearly double those of Guiding Light, but ABC controlled all the advertising time itself, controlled the program content, and made the profits directly.
One Guiding Light producer frankly commented on the changing relationship between CBS and Procter and Gamble:
As the World Turns (a P & G show on CBS) was the undisputed number one show for so many years, and all the shows after it. They had the top six shows and sort of "ruled the roost" but that isn't the case anymore with ABC's success. Actually, CBS, if they had their druthers, would like to get P & G off their network and force them into simply buying minutes. As you know, P & G gets a big
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write-up by owning the shows. Half the commercial minutes CBS is able to sell, but the other half P & G gets a tremendous discount. This is why they can take Capitol, force out Search For Tomorrow and put Capitol in, knowing that Capitol will come in at a lesser rating than Search, but they'll make more money off it.
CBS was particularly frustrated because Procter and Gamble shows consistently attracted an older audience. Added frustration followed from the loss of the younger audience that the initial CBS daytime soap attracted. The Young and the Restless, a CBS owned show, was followed by As the World Turns, a Procter and Gamble soap.
Figures from the Nielsen Second Report for November 1981 make the change in audience composition readily apparent. The figures represent the season average for each age category for both shows as well as for All My Children, which airs on ABC (see Table 4-1). As the World Turns lost many younger viewers and picked up older viewers. In comparison, ABC's All My Children had even larger numbers of younger viewers, even fewer older viewers than either CBS show. [9]
The same executive also emphasized the long-term importance of attracting a larger younger audience. While gaining a younger audience, particularly at the beginning of summer, was helpful in the ratings competition, long-term demographics were of even greater importance.
M.I.: Are you interested in the younger viewers--teenagers--in terms of what they'll do to the ratings?
Producer: Sure. In the summer, yes. Going for younger viewers--by that I mean kids, teenagers, college kids--people think we are out for some big number we are going to get right away. What a lot of older viewers fail to understand is they started watching the CBS shows 25 years ago when they were that age--either teens or young marrieds, college kids--people we think are out for some big number we are going to get right away. What a lot of older viewers fail to understand is they started watching the CBS shows 25 years ago when they were that age--either as teens or young marrieds, college. If we don't hook those viewers now we are going to lose them. Now ABC made a concerted effort over the last 15 years to go for a younger audience and that audience grew up on ABC and that audience is the middle of the baby boom. That baby boom grew up and went
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Table 4.1
Age Distribution of Women Viewers
(Viewer per thousand viewing households)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Young and the Restless | ||||||
| CBS | ||||||
| 12:30 - 1:30 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| As the World Turns | ||||||
| CBS | ||||||
| 1:30 - 2:40 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| All My Children | ||||||
| ABC | ||||||
| 1:00 - 2:00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
*Minus (-) and plus (+) indicate change in audience size in various categories for The Young and the Restless and As The World Turns.
Source: Nielsen Report, November 1981
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home to have kids and they are sitting number one, a lot for that reason. At CBS we are very alone and some of our soaps have less younger viewers than NBC with a lower rating. What we have to do is get some of those younger viewers into the pipe line so that the person sitting at this desk ten years from now doesn't commit hari-kari. What's going to happen is if we don't get younger viewers now, our hunk of audience which is over 55 (which is the bulk of our viewers) they are going to be over 65. I don't mean it to sound terrible, but people pass away. I think we have to bring more people in at the bottom of the demographic scale or we are going to have problems.
CBS and Procter and Gamble had similar interests in long-term viewing habits and demographics. The comments of one Procter and Gamble producer reflected the point.
M.I.: Are you going after a younger audience because that audience is so important in terms of ratings? Or is it because they will be future consumers?
Producer: Both. They are going to be buying our product.
M.I.: You hope that if they are loyal the show, they will be loyal to the product?
P: That's why these shows exist in the first place. It's a phenomenal thing that nobody understands in the first place. . . . And it is a fact that the audience that watches a soap opera is intensely loyal to that show and some of the audience loyalty certainly spills over to the products.
So while CBS and Procter and Gamble had conflicting interests in capturing the daytime audience/market, they both shared a concern for long-term audience loyalty; in the one case, loyalty to network; in the other, loyalty to products. Both interests are mediated by the soap performances and the commercials at their heart.
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The commercial works as a kind of organic connector--linking together consumers, imagemakers, producers, networks, sponsors, corporations, economic systems--and contributes more to the mediating of ideas than any other type of programming. (Goethals 1981:137)
Whereas we tend to distinguish programming from commercials, and consider commercials as inserts in programming, it is revealing to consider both as part of one process and give priority to the commercial. Soaps exist to provide a context for commercials just as news exists to fill the advertising spaces in newspapers.
[News] is news because it is necessary to have something to fill the space between the advertisements which are slotted en masse in advance, into each day's projected paper. (Schiller 1980:89)
The economic or commercial basis to the communication process generates soaps that are compatible or complementary to the commercials. I distinguish two broad categories of commercials that appear with soap programming. One category advertises products that make household chores potentially easier and less time consuming--laundry detergents, floor polish, cleanser, paper towels, and others. Such commercials appeal to a sense of identity that values, or is reflected in, happy children and husbands, approving friends and neighbors. As many manufacturers have found out, commercials for products that claim to save women time or that appeal to their desire to make domestic responsibilities easier, are very successful.
The second major category of commercials has to do with personal attractiveness for women. Deodorants, hair spray, panty hose, facial creams, for example, are presented as contributing to social approval in general, but more importantly, to romantic success or appreciation. As many people have observed, what commercials sell, in effect, is an idealized self-image. Both home and family care products tend to emphasize a romanticized domesticity. The first category of commercials makes household chores important to domestic relationships; the second category directly emphasizes social approval and romantic appreciation.
The following representative sample of commercials for the March 29, 1982, air show (script/episode 8865) illus-
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trates the general themes. The commercials primarily romanticize domesticity and largely portray women as superior to men in the domestic arena. A young girl shows a male that Bounce is the right softener to use; Rosie shows the cost-conscious male that Bounty is more effective, thus cheaper; a woman tells her male companion that Crisco oil is light. Similarly there are the triumphs of using Coast soap and being refreshed and of using Ivory dishwashing liquid and having hands that stay young looking. Finally, many commercials begin with a problem and disapproval but, through the use of the advertised product, the problem disappears and social approval is regained. A woman finds "suds in her closet" but is redeemed through the use of Dash; another woman is redeemed by the use of Downy softener which "rinses in April freshness." Part I of the show is presented by Dash, "the detergent that rinses dirt and suds out of your wash," and Ivory, "Mild Ivory liquid, it helps your hands stay young looking."
1. Ivory dishwashing liquid: Commercial shows two women at ski lodge; they say they are 30, but one is really 44 and the mother of three. Ivory is described as helping her hands "stay young looking" and as getting her dishes "really clean."
2. Bounce clothes softener: A sister shows her brother that Bounce is the right softener to use.
3. Dash: A woman is advised she has "suds in her closet," and, disturbed by the charge, she rinses her washed clothes to find that they do contain suds. A child remarks, "Icky suds." The mother says, "I don't want this stuff in my family's laundry." Commercial ends after Dash is used, wash is free of suds, and child looks on approvingly.
4. Bounty paper towels: "Rosie" demonstrates to cost-conscious male that Bounty is a better buy than bargain brand paper towels since they absorb much more per sheet. Commercial ends with her joking about her fee to the cost-conscious male.
5. Pringle's potato chips: Chorus shown with a music teacher. The children break into song, "We've got the fever for the flavor of a Pringle." She joins children after tasting a Pringle in singing the praises of the potato chip.
6. Coast deodorant soap--"The
Eye Opener": A tired mother is awakened by two
children and reminded it is the day of the Chipmunk camp-out.
She is shown in shower coming back to life with Coast, and at
the end of the commercial she is shown hitting children with pillows,
playfully and energetically.
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7. Doxidan laxative: A man is shown holding a capsule for a "unique laxative called Doxidan. The pill contains a laxative for constipation and a stool softener for discomfort. The commercial ends with the fact that the product has been "recommended by doctors and pharmacists for years."
8. Secret deodorant: A husband and wife are shown preparing to go fishing in the morning. The woman doesn't want to use her husband's deodorant and insists she wants to use Secret which is "made for a woman, but strong enough for a man." The husband says the fish won't care if she uses his, but she says she does since it will keep her "fresh and dry."
9. Crisco oil: A male is shown holding a salad, and a woman suggests he use Crisco oil since it is light and not oily. He tastes salad and says there is "no heavy oily taste." Commercial ends with woman remarking that she was glad there was room for the oil after salad ingredients fall out of man's over-filled bowl.
At mid-break there are promotional pieces, public service ads, program identification, and commercials for Kleenex Huggies disposable diapers and Thrift Drug - Theragran.
Part II of Guiding Light is presented by Downy clothes softener, which "makes your clothes smell April fresh," and Oxydol laundry detergent "for sparkling whites.'
1. Oxydol: Against the backdrop of a crowd at a ballgame, a woman stands in a white dress which reflects the improvement in Oxydol that makes for a "whiter white."
2. Duncan Hines cake mix: A woman is shown in her kitchen with husband and family. She "tickles their noses" with blueberry muffin mix from Duncan Hines. Also, a farm setting and kitchen are shown.
3. Downy softener: A younger woman, the mother of the baby in the scene, hears an older woman say that the baby's clothes don't smell fresh. It is suggested by another voice that the clothes are not fresh because Downy, which "rinses in April freshness," was not used.
4. Charmin toilet paper: A man is shown displaying bargain brand products that his family did and didn't like. As he puts it, "what good is a bargain if they don't like it?" Charmin is approvingly displayed as a product they do like. Scene takes place in a kitchen.
5. Dawn dishwashing liquid:
Dawn is demonstrated to cut grease in washing dishes as glasses
are compared. A glass done later with the same dish-water compares
favorably with the one done earlier.
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6. Folger's coffee: Mrs. Olsen is shown in a kitchen. She praises Folger's coffee and says, "Good coffee is like good cooking, you can taste the difference."
7. Ruffles Brand potato chips: A high school student decides that Ruffles Brand potato chips are best and that they win 2 to 1 and are the "champion chip."
8. Baby Fresh: Wipes are shown being effective with mother cleaning child. There are shots of a happy family and happy mother and child.
9. Aquafresh tooth paste: Aquafresh is shown to offer triple protection in the approving company of mother, child, and pharmacist.
10. 9-Lives cat food: Morris, the finicky cat, is shown.
11. Total cereal: Total is shown to have 100 percent of nine recommended vitamins and also to taste better than other cereals mentioned.
12. Nestle Toll House chocolate chips: Taste test--chocolate chip cookies made with Nestle chocolate chips are shown to taste best.
In a fundamental way, the products and the commercials for the products help form both the audience for the soap and the market for the product. The advertised products create the possibility of giving the viewer more free time, or they cultivate the viewer's sense of efficiency concerning household chores. They may do both, but soaps and commercials from this perspective certainly create their own audience.
Reversing conventional priorities, soaps are carefully crafted to fit commercials. This process helps explain the criticism that soaps are unrealistic since there are no dirty dishes, unmade beds, and so on in the programming. Presenting such a symbolic setting, in conjunction with commercials that idealize domestic routines and their significance, would be extremely disturbing. A story with scenes reflecting domestic pressures--dirty dishes and misbehaving children--would contradict the aims of the commercials and threaten, from the sponsor's viewpoint, to distance the viewer. It might allow or force the viewer to step back from the program and critically relate commercial and program content. One of the characteristics of soaps is that they are constructed to be engrossing and engaging and, while they primarily deal with the drama of everyday life, they are inherently spectacular alternatives to everyday life. Commercials and programs are to be kept separate, not call each other into question, and yet work to create a context for each other.
Commercials seem to fit into soaps in a way that makes them seem less obtrusive than in other forms of programming
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There is a ritualized character to the interruptions throughout commercial television, but the fit between program, commercials, and context of viewing for soaps is unlike any other in that they are all related to the domestic world. Soaps and commercials are largely viewed in the home, and the products advertised are largely used in the home or by family members.
Braudy's observations on the centrality of the family in television and the domestic-viewing context apply to soaps, although he fails to mention them:
The television image is only one of many visual items claiming our attention in the room, as opposed to the single focus on the movie screen. The continuity of television is not only within its own elements, but also with all the other objects surrounding it. The problem of attracting and keeping attention in television is, therefore, a much greater aesthetic-thematic problem than it is in the normal film. Since the television attention span is usually much shorter than that in any other art, an emphasis on family becomes very important--from situation comedies, to the variety shows with a continuous host and supporting actors, to the talk shows--because then the images on the screen can form a link with the people in the room. (1977:6)
Another way programs and commercials fit together is that both promote a life of high consumption and ease. The programming's alternative to ordinary reality is glamorous and spectacular, largely concentrating on the upper-middle class and upper-class people. The world of work is largely absent from soaps, and people have a great deal of time for each other. Commercials promote a life of ease through consumption, which at the same time promotes a sense of caring in the viewer. Viewers could see themselves being seen as concerned and caring persons.
Porter insightfully comments on the relationships of program and commercials:
The price the viewer pays for pleasure is the ad, but the ad is tolerated, even enjoyed on different levels for its own sake, because it functions like the formal device of retardation. More importantly, however, the ad is ac-
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cepted because it interrupts without necessarily breaking the spell. But in order for this to occur, it is essential that the unfolding drama and its interpolated "messages" be kept separate. 1979:94)
One way the messages are kept separate is through the visual or storytelling conventions employed. In the soaps I observed, different visual conventions were used at the beginning and end of acts, versus scenes within the acts. "Fades" are used to come out of commercials, and to lead into commercials; "cuts" occur between acts. In most commercials, the participants look directly at the viewers and/or speak directly to them. This contrasts with the conventions used in soaps. Commercials also provide a form of dramatic counterpoint. Many commercials begin with a problem--a dirty collar or a dirty floor, for example--and end with the problem solved and harmony restored in a matter of seconds. This is in marked contrast to the never-ending problems of the programs themselves. The simplicity and speed with which the problem in each commercial is solved is quite different from the slower and more complex resolving of the problems providing the dramatic conflicts of the program.
There are a number of policies or practices designed to keep programs and commercials separate. Actors who appear on a Procter and Gamble soap are not permitted, by contract, to appear in ads for their products or in ads for competitors' products. There are a number of reasons for this policy.
We don't want an actor on the show to represent our product when that product will appear in the context of the show. We go to great pains to keep that from happening--the reason being that if . . . Ed Bauer were to represent Pepto Bismol, if Peter Simon were to say . . "This is Pepto Bismol. Drink it. It tastes good, and you should use it to cure your sour belly," the audience would see that. They would know intellectually that he is not Ed Bauer, that he is Peter Simon and he is saying words that were written for him by whoever owns that product to sell that product. They would be identifying that back to the show, which would imply an endorsement of the product, because the show is in some way related to the use of the product, which we don't want.
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We don't want the characters, the actors, to be identifiable with the product. We don't want to identify a product with the show, or an actor with a product. That would be taking unfair advantage of the audience.
Having Peter Simon/Dr. Ed Bauer promoting a product would imply that since he is a doctor, he must know what he is talking about. One example of the practice alluded to occurred when Robert Young, who was well established as a television doctor, Marcus Welby, advertised a decaffeinated coffee, citing doctors' recommendations for the product. The advertisers made use of Young's persona as Dr. Welby by association in the commercial. There are other factors behind the separation of commercial and show.
We are also concerned that if you see Peter Simon in a commercial selling a product, and the next second he is talking to Rita (his promiscuous wife), that also reflects on the product--possibly negatively. More important, it also interferes with your ability to say that an actor in the commercial is that actor on the show and it creates a violation of that "willing suspension of disbelief."
The aims of creating good will between Procter and Gamble and the audience would be undermined, as might the dramatic hold of the programming. Procter and Gamble associates itself with the programming by announcing at the beginning and mid-point of each episode that "Guiding Light is presented by Downy clothes softener, which makes your clothes smell April fresh, and by Oxydol laundry detergent for sparkling whites" or two other products (thereby also gaining free mention of their products). The ultimate intent is the same for show and commercials, which also helps explain the complementarily or fit between show and commercials, as well as the practices that keep the messages separate. As one producer noted, "The intent is the same--to make you feel good about character/show, character/product in an opposite context."
The processes of production and consumption of soaps, commercials, and products are all interrelated. There are parallel or simultaneous processes involved in the production and distribution of the programming, the commercials, and the products the commercials advertise as shown in Table 4-2.
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TABLE 4-2 PRODUCTION/PERFORMANCE/CONSUMPTION
|
Distribution |
|
|
| Manufacture & distribution of program |
Programming Context for domestic romance |
Audience as consumer of show |
| Manufacture & distribution of commericals |
Commericals Romanticizing domesticity and romance to promote |
Audience as comsumer of commerical and potential market of product advertised |
| Manufacture & distribution of products |
Products Purchase of products used in home for family care |
Consumer of products and self-image associated with use of product |
Source: Compiled by the author.
From a somewhat different perspective, the audience itself is a product generated to support the overall interrelated system of entertainment/advertising/production. Dallas Smythe forcefully argues that commercial mass media, particularly in North America, have important functions that include producing "people in audiences who work at learning the theory and practice of consumership for civilian goods and who support the military demand management system . . . [and] audiences whose theory and practice confirms the ideology of monopoly capitalism (1977:20).
My research on the practices generating soap programming, the fit between the programming and commercials, and the nature of the symbolic world supports Smythe's characterization of commercial mass media. His characterization gains even more force from a historical perspective on the creation of soaps and soap audiences. What we now take as a given did not exist 50 years ago. James Thurber proves to be an unlikely supporter of such a position in a series of articles he wrote on soaps for the New Yorker in the 1940s:
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Hummert and Mrs. Ashencraft [two individuals in advertising who were to become major writers and producers of soaps] figured the largely fallow daytime air of twenty years ago could be transformed into a valuable advertising time.
Things moved slowly at first. Advertisers favored evening hours, because they were convinced that radio entertainment would not be popular during the day. Most men, and many women, they pointed out, worked from eight or nine in the morning until five in the afternoon. They admitted that the millions of American housewives acted as purchasing agents for the home, but they did not see how the peripatetic mass of busy women could be made into an attentive audience. The housewife was notoriously all over the place, upstairs and down, indoors and out . . . Hummert and his assistant decided to invent a daytime program first and then try to adjust it to the nature of the housewife. (1970:201)
The effort clearly succeeded.
Soap operas as an art or entertainment form were virtually developed
to help create an audience and, thus, support the larger pattern
of economic, social, and ideological relationships. Changes over
the past several years in the competitive context changed the
relationship between Procter and Gamble and CBS and generated
considerable pressure to alter the Procter and Gamble formula
for soaps in order to attract and hold the ideal audience. Just
as Hummert and his assistant developed and adjusted early programming
to the nature of the housewife, so Procter and Gamble, with CBS's
nudging, was seeking to change the storytelling to recapture the
(younger) woman in the home.
Proceed to Chapter 5