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When it comes to audiences, advertisers prefer the captive variety.
Unless you are a man reading the paper and eating breakfast as his wife sits across the table, you are perfectly capable of putting down the newspaper and turning your attention to other matters, thereby perhaps missing a few ads.
So you're not a captive at the moment. Nor are you captivated if you're just watching TV, since you can always turn it off, or perform bathroom or kitchen chores during commercial infestations.
But if it takes some efforts to escape from the brief
message from our sponsor
-- say, you're locked in a
room where the announcement comes from speakers whose
volume you cannot control, and your every action is
monitored by agents of the state -- then you're a captive,
and thus the ideal audience for the go-getters who have
made our free-market private-enterprise system the envy of
the world.
So it shouldn't come as any surprise that Star Broadcasting, a Minnesota company, has made deals with 400 school districts to supply radio programming through school PA systems during class breaks, lunch hours and the like.
Most of this programming is pop music, of course, which only encourages teenagers to buy CDs and stereo equipment. But Star also sells commercials, and the schools get a piece of the proceeds so that they can buy football uniforms, holistic curriculum guidelines, pay raises for the superintendent and other vital educational materials.
We're only doing this to help the schools
in
tight financial times, a Star spokesman explained, adding
that the commercials can built early brand loyalty
for, say, a young man deciding what brand of razor to
use.
Though some idealists might express outrage that any society would herd children into buildings and then make money by using the occasion to build brand loyalty, the fact is that this is merely an extension of current programming practice.
There's Channel One; in participating schools, students are required to watch eight minutes of news and two minutes of commercials. As for the curriculum in the hinterlands, my children have often received crime-prevention material supplied by Wal-Mart, anti-substance-abuse messages from Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut coupons when they read enough books.
So, rather than bemoan this trend, we can reduce taxes and improve school finances by providing more opportunities:
An American history textbook donated by the Automobile
Manufacturers Association: Young JIMMY and his sister
CHEVELLE, like many pioneers heading West during the
LINCOLN administration, had to FORD rivers and DODGE the
DAKOTA, CHEYENNE and CHEROKEE, led by Chief PONTIAC on his
MUSTANG.
Recommended supplemental reading list, compliments of
Focus on the Family: Heather has just one Mommy who
Stays at Home and Bakes Cookies, a Daddy with a Steady Job
at a Responsible Company that Fires Homosexuals and Men
with Beards, a Kitty Named Puff and a Dog Named Spot,
Dad's New Roommate is a Power Saw
and The
Pathetic Children of the Rainbow who Turned Funny Colors
and Had Important Parts of their Body Fall off after
Thinking Impure Thoughts.
Elementary-school conflict-resolution test questions,
graciously provided by the National Rifle Association:
When confronted by a 9-mm semi-auto on the schoolyard,
your best response is: A) Tell the playground monitor, B)
Dive for cover, C) Empty a Streetsweeper, D) Deploy a
low-yield thermonuclear device.
Biology text from People for the West: Large-scale
cyanide heap-leach operations often improve important
environmental habitat by exterminating wolves, coyotes,
grizzly bears, backpackers and other vermin, thereby
insuring that no one is locked out of our public lands.
Reduced predation-control costs and increased livestock
production represent a beneficial by-product of this
wise-use policy.
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