Distorting Demand (Part II)

Corporate Keynesianism

The other flaw in the ‘market freedom’ argument is the likely size of any organisation that can afford prime advertising space. Million pound adverts cost millions. Television advertising is never going to help the smaller producer to grow. In fact it’s one of the key methods used by corporations to bankrupt and absorb smaller rivals.

As standard histories tell, commercial television was introduced to Britain as a means of re-inflating a sluggish post-war economy. By raising the profile of products it was hoped consumer demand would grow, and along with it industry. Successful though this was, it’s important to note which businesses actually benefited. The first advert, after all, was for Gibb’s SR toothpaste. While this multinational may have helped inflate its own coffers, and those of some retailers, the effect would have been deflating for any smaller rival, a drop in demand. Gibb’s was using glossy imagery to squeeze the life out of smaller, rival tubes.

It doesn’t take long to work out who it was pushing for the introduction of commercial television. Certainly big American players like Kellogg’s and Proctor and Gamble must have been delighted at the prospect. A killing to be made. For the first time tried and tested campaigns could play in British homes. A whole nation to make passionate about soap, and negative towards the humble soap they’d always taken for granted.

Clearly the term ‘re-inflating the economy’ is very subjective. Who gets to re-inflate? One person’s boom is always another’s bust. In the case of re-inflating the economy with expensive adverts it’s clear which section of the economy is going to do the growing. It has to be the big fish. Small and medium bourgeois never get a look in. Television adverts are a means for the already powerful to squeeze out smaller producers. They’re a key tool for corporate globalisation, a great way to slash, burn and strip domestic rivals.

Adverts are warps in the fabric of demand-space. Strange then, one might think, that those who push hardest for commercialisation of television are those who most vehemently oppose state intervention in the economy. It’s characteristic monetarist hypocrisy. Like the other form of demand management that dare not speak its name, military Keynesianism, corporate market interference is an exception to all those free market values. Whereas it’s a crime against the freedom of the market for a government to subsidise public transport, it’s an inalienable right of corporations to use psychological trickery to skew markets in their favour.

That’s the monetarist concept of market freedom: Government must not interfere in the economy, but huge unaccountable multinationals must be allowed to skew it anyway that suits. Governmental attempts to manage demand lead to unfair competition and subsidise inefficiency, but private million-dollar brainwashing campaigns are the stuff of free markets. Adam Smith must be spinning.

The victors

Skewing markets and asset-stripping the losers frees-up a lot of money. This can’t all go to the sponsoring corporation of course. Those who assist receive a share of the booty, ad agencies for one. Then there’s also the transmission medium itself, the television company and the accompanying programmes. And of course there’s the actors and celebrities who play in the commercials. Most will have never seen a pay-check a fraction of the size, even for their most celebrated work

It must be very tempting. Just that one advert won’t hurt. But of course if it didn’t hurt someone the sponsors wouldn’t bother. It must hurt someone’s wallet, or someone’s business, if it can free-up those sort of appearance fees. For an ad to pay it must distort demand sufficiently to pay for itself, and some more. Robbie Coltrane, I’m sure, would argue that the sum Barclays offered him was simply irresistible, enough to sort you out for life. Nevertheless, as with the oil company PR, his contribution was to soften the image of a global corporation. After all, how bad can Barclays really be when big cuddly Robbie will do adverts for them, doing Tai Chi? He’s even made the odd left-wing comment in his time.

It’s horrible to say, but unavoidable to conclude, that by helping to paint Barclays in a good light he was helping them to maintain their record of unethical investment, and getting a slice of the spoils in payment. Where else would that sort of money come from, and that sort of desperation for a cuddly make-over? Same for the distressing sight of Run DMC in a GAP commercial. Whichever way you hold it up it’s Run DMC profiting from foreign sweated labour, and anxious western teenagers.

Sainsbury’s PR department announced with glee that it had caused a palpable warp in demand when Jamie Oliver started to feature in their ads. Prunella Scales ably assists Tesco in its plan to take over the world. There are richer Pepsi directors, and fatter children, thanks to Gary Lineker’s crisp adverts. What other conclusion can you draw? None of these seem unkind people, but the money they were paid certainly has a smell about it.

Big companies, such as supermarkets, might argue that they’re only using advertising to put each other out of business. Whatever the ethics of that, it’s obvious who’ll definitely lose in such a rich man’s game. Some adverts might only target large rivals but their attempts to out-gloss and out-bargain each other can’t help but turn us off smaller producers. Adverts show us how bargain filled, cheap, clean and obliging multinationals are, and even make us feel sophisticated for shopping there. Remind you of many independent retailers? How will Arkwright and Granville ever hope to compete with that?

Adverts are creative

Another grounds for defence of adverts is their occasional beauty, ingenuity and creativity. That they can be so attractive, funny and well made can give the impression that they themselves constitute a valuable part of television. Truth is, all that money and talent could have been spent on making the TV programmes.

“The adverts are better than the programs!” It’s a cliché, but a painfully accurate one. Many programmes do look shabby in contrast to the ads. This is not something to congratulate the ad industry on, it just shows had bad we have allowed things to become. Adverts outshine programs because corporations have gained a stranglehold on the industry. However pretty commercials might seem, they remain parasitic upon the medium of television. We shouldn’t celebrate the fact that a parasite is prospering.

Contrary to common belief not all parasitic growths are ugly and misshapen. Some actually beautify their host. The peacock’s fan is a beautiful thing, but in an important sense the genes that give rise to it are parasitic. Outside a sexual context it’s a huge liability. Extremely wasteful in terms of growth and maintenance, and an asset to predators. It only exists because the genes for big fans in peacocks, and the genes for fancying big fans in peahens, drove each other into orbit. If you could somehow magically erase the genes for peacock’s tail feathers and the genes that make peahens select flamboyant males, the species would make a net gain. They’d be faster, more agile, and have a much smaller dietary requirement.

Like peacocks’ fans, some adverts are highly attractive. However if television is to serve public rather than corporate needs, this is a dire state of affairs. If TV is the host to advertising it is being sucked dry. The parasite grows plumper and more lavish as it suckles. The host becomes the deferent party, modifying its patterns of behaviour to suit the parasite’s demands. Which brings us to the last misconception.

Advertising provides free television

I remember the first time I saw an advert for an advert. In fact the chain was longer. It was an advert for a TV programme which itself was only being shown to get people to sit still long enough to watch other adverts. From the side of a New York city bus smiling anchors invited drivers to tune-in to that night’s news. Although commonplace now, at the time it seemed odd, mistaken, inefficient in the extreme. A commercial station, one which relied solely upon the revenue of advertisers, was itself running advertisements for its own programs. Adverts to make you watch programmes to make you watch adverts.

It was my father, again, who was the first to point out to me the real cost of commercial television. There’s no such thing as free lunch, and commercial television is not charity work. The cost of producing television programmes must be met by the consumer at some point. In the main it is at the point of sale. We pay for commercial television in increased cost of goods. However, the structure of commercial TV being what it is we pay a great deal more for it. Commercial television is a criminally wasteful means of making programmes.

If we pay for television directly, say from a licence scheme or income tax, the money can all be targeted at making programmes, uninterrupted by commercial clutter. Instead, we pay for commercial television by an invisible sales tax, one that has countless other costs to cover before anything can go toward program making. Executive salaries for ad agencies, focus groups and opinion pollsters; technical staff to make the adverts and a host of creatives to dream them up; actors, make-up, caterers, location filming; promotional fees, magazine and billboard adverts to encourage people to watch a program, to watch the adverts. Moreover, there’s the whole array of shareholders, every step of the way, all demanding a return on their investment. After all that, what’s left over can be spent on making programmes. Wonder why the adverts look superior?

What’s wrong with TV is the adverts

In the current climate, bald statements like “Television is bad for you” are quite understandable, but you have to be clear about your meaning of ‘television’. The physical medium, as in two-dimensional images accompanied by sound, is not something intrinsically destructive, no more pernicious than writing or painting. In fact it’s no more, or less, pernicious than those who control its output. Differing forms of ownership give rise to different kinds of television, and what the viewer considers the medium of television to be. Depending where you’re from, television means different things. In the USSR it was state owned and so produced formal state propaganda. In the USA, state licensing and corporate ownership means commercialism and state-corporate propaganda. Neither output is intrinsic to broadcast television, it’s all just historical happenstance. You can’t blame a screen and a loudspeaker for the signals they receive.

One valid objection, regarding my claim that all the money that goes on advertising could be spent on the programs: In truth of course, without corporate sponsorship that money wouldn’t even be on the table. The television industry would be a fraction of the size it is, and would produce a fraction of the programs. Perfectly true, but then would that be a bad thing? It would certainly mean no Big Brother, Topless Darts or thirteenth season of Friends. The only reason such desperate programs get made is because they yield sizeable audiences who then can be made to sit through adverts. Instead TV could return to what it used to be. One or two channels broadcasting for a few hours each day. Perhaps people could rediscover life again. What a frightening thought.

Once again however, it’s the problem of loving your enemy. Commercial TV has eaten its way into our lives. Twenty-four hour junk has become something many would fight to the death to maintain. I overheard an interesting discussion between an American couple on a train out of London. They’d just landed, she for the first time, and he was having difficulty explaining the TV licence system to her. She found it unbelievable that TV could be restricted, let alone that you could end up in prison for not paying: “My Gahd! If they tried that in the States there’d be riots!”, which is probably true.

The fact that television has slipped into corporate hands makes it all but impossible to wrestle back. Corporations own it and they aren’t about to let go. Limitless sex, glamour, romance, violence and the occasional worthy programme are at their disposal, at no visible cost to the viewer. Asking people to pay a new charge to receive only a fraction of current output is a doomed sales pitch. Commercial television has the medium of television by the balls. Before any change can occur corporate power itself will have to be challenged.