Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
email topstorylive % at # gmail + dot = com

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Pledge break: What PBS calls its commercials

You gotta understand. I like public television. Even now that I know its content can be swayed by a sponsor threatening to pull funding. (Read Eric Burns's Broadcast Blues.) What I just love (almost sarcastically, or negatively) about Channel 36 in Rhode Island, now known as Rhode Island PBS, is that they evidently don't have enough money to get full studio production crews and producers in the house to produce a full month's worth of pledge breaks, like Oregon Public Broadcasting does. So, somehow, there's a cottage industry that's grown up apparently for those tiny PBS stations around the country who want to do the pledge break-style callins but just want to pop in a videotape and watch the money roll in because it's so much cheaper.

I first noticed this when I started watching a program on Channel 36 a couple of years ago. It was the history of Blenko Glass, which apparently was big in the earlier half of the 20th century, around the 50's. They made beautiful glass pitchers, bowls, vases, and so on. However, once the program threw to the pledge break, I started getting suspicious.

Okay, yes, Public Television likes to give people an incentive for sending more money. Why not? "For your membership of $35, you'll get our member card and the monthly magazine with all our program listings, and interesting articles. But if you pledge $100, you'll get all that plus a fabulous tote bag with our name on it." That sort of thing.

The incentive being pushed during the Blenko Glass program... have you guessed it yet?... WAS BLENKO GLASS ITSELF. It's being made again, apparently. You could in effect buy any Blenko Glass piece, or a multiple of them, if you paid a tithe or bribe to your Public TV station.

And apparently this seems to work. Why wouldn't it? Home Shopping Network works so well that it's got like three or four imitators (Shop at Home, ACN, QVC, ShopNBC, are there others?).

Today, for example, I'm now watching a pledge break where the product is a system to learn how to play the piano. It includes a fakebook with only about a hundred songs, but each leadsheet does include chord charts. It makes me think I could even start playing the piano. Just do the chord with my left hand, and the tune with my right. Right? (Years ago I bought a cheap book on how to learn how to play piano in like 10 minutes a day or something like that but never got anywhere with it.)

Hmm. They sure have taken a long time with this break. I do wonder if they're going to ever get back to the actual program. Which might just be some of those shows showing us how to play the piano. Or is there a program at all? Very suspicious.

...Okay, apparently the pledge break ended when the time slot did. Maybe there was no actual "program" since the pledge break itself was about half pitch for public television (NOT WSBE Channel 36, this sort of program always refers to "Your Local Public Television Station") and half a host with the artist/expert/inventor getting lessons in the system while they talked about how great the system and its mindset was. Hmph.

Well, you get what I'm getting at. PBS and affiliates are now conspiring with low-key artists to produce thickly disguised informercials in order to bring in the operating dough, and get the artists' products out there. Perhaps this is what PBS has come to now that the US government threw the NEA and CPB out on their ears.

And don't get me wrong. Rhode Island PBS also does the PBS on-air auction-type fundraiser, which I've seen done on WGBH Boston too, but that's usually in prime time only.

Some impresarios are even doing the reverse of the PBS "infopledge". I also love this one infomercial for, of all things, Clorox. Yes, a product as simple and as well-known as your basic clothing bleach can indeed be sold in half an hour's worth of purchased time. The world of infomercials is not all host and expert-inventor-guest introducing the next big thing.

Clorox's infomercial basically told the history of the Clorox company, and also featured every possible use they've come up with for Clorox Bleach and all its permutations (Clorox 2, the Bleach Pen, etc.).

But they did also take "commercial breaks" as infomercials do. Usually the host-guest-demo format has to break off to say "Here's how to order," and in say 60 seconds do a quick wrap of everything you get for calling the 800 number and giving your credit card info. Clorox decided to do that too, but their product is already in your local store. They decided to give you a free incentive to buy it and thusly get switched over to their brand: a free coupon for your basic bottle of Clorox if you call the 800 number. God only knows what mailing list you'd be on once you called and signed up.

The other infomercial I loved I saw several years ago. It was for the Discover Card, and was a sort of dramady-ish narrative of a family on vacation, and how many cool ways they can use their Discover Card to make purchases and make their lives better.

....Oh, and speaking of shilling, somebody just convinced Penelope Keith to flog "The Funny Ladies Of British Comedy, Here On PBS." A little WSBE spot just featured a generic tease from her with that text and a graphic to say when they're on (Tuesday at 7 pm). So funny.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 8/07/2004 12:15:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
...
..........