WHEN YOU DIVIDE 30 ROCK BY
15 MINUTES OF FAME - WHAT DO YOU GET?
(THE CALL OF THE WILD IS AN AD REVENUE SHELL GAME OF DUCK, DUCK GOOSE)
THE VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
By John F. McCarthy
Guest Voice
All the world's a stage, but the modern American media business is but a shill
game.
So Tina Dupuy is right to make a distinction between Free Speech and Free
Enterprise.
The two things aren’t related as it turns out (not even kissin' cousins
(if you're watching "Duck Dynasty" or "Honey Boo Boo.")
The reason no one defends Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir and Phil Robertson on
Free Speech is because the Free Market sorts all that out on its own.
Advertising agencies pay big bucks for demographic studies of television
audiences that let them know whether someone who is watching "The Martin
Bashir Show" is more likely to gargle with Scope or Listerine.
Demographic studies allow companies to make more efficient use of their
precious advertising dollars by scientifically pairing a product with a select
"target" audience.
The idea: to maximize the chances that someone watching the show will actually
go out and buy their product once the show is over.
Statistics like age, sex, marital status and household income provide ad
agencies' media buyers with the information they need to more accurately
predict which shows companies should "bet on" to sell more products.
If you make squawking duck whistles in Louisiana - and aren't fond of shaving
implements - have we ever got a show fer you - yee ha! Get 'er done!
The usual suspects: Alec, Martin and Phil were thrilled when MSNBC and A&E
respectively - asked them to host shows on their networks.
At that time, with apologies to Sally Field and The Academy, the networks
"really, really liked them!"
Or so they thought. (It is what their agents told them then.)
But really, really, truth be told, what the networks really wanted from
that fearsome threesome was ratings - because the higher the ratings -
the more the networks can charge for the shows (A)lec, (M)artin and (P)hil
were/are on.
Only, sometimes these hosts, well, ur - get a little full of themselves - and
go on homophobic gay bashing jaunts (as in the cases of Alec and Phil) - or
attempt to give 2016 Republican Presidential candidates lessons in historic
slave punishments - as in the case of Martin.
And that's not what they were hired to do.
What they were hired to do was to get increasingly more audience share for
their respective time slots.
Period.
Get 'er done, as Larry, The Cable Guy, now The purple Prilesec OTC Guy, used to
say.
When A-M-P started yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theaters
nationwide, network execs ran screaming for the exits.
It might take "brass balls to sell real estate," as Alec famously
said in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross," but ShamWow! balls might
have gotten her done just as efficiently for MSNBC.
After all, it's all about branding. Not all about them. The stars, that is.
Only the stars' egos don't always inform them thus and so.
So when the "Hunt for the Red October" star's toxicity level soared
after TMZ started videotaping Alec Argument gay bashing paparazzi nearly every
night live on tape - Mr. Baldwin went the way of Mr. Bashir, before he did.
Bye, bye Bashir. Bet you don't cry for him now, Al-ec-ti-no.
As Ms. Dupuy writes: "Corporations should not have to sponsor people who
say things [that] will hurt their brand."
And so they don't - but in fact - they never have.
Case in point: Andy Warhol and the Campbell's Soup Company.
Arguably, nobody did more (in terms of free advertising) for a product (with as
little effort and as much fanfare) as Drella did for the Campbell's Soup
Company with his then-shocking consumme can paintings in 1962.
The complete set of 32 was ceded to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for a round
$100 million – an individual Campbell's Soup Can painting sold recently for
$11.8 million in 2006.
But three years after Warhol's death, when the paintings were still
reasonably-priced (by corporate-buying standards,) Campbell's Soup Company CEO
Paul R. Charron was asked point blank if the company had ever broken down and
bought one of the paintings to display in their Camden, New Jersey world
headquarters.
Mr. Charron just said "no."
The company did not want to "officially" marry Warhol's image with
their own.
So there you have it.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same," as Yogi Berra
famously said.
The game has never changed, whether it is soap powder and hair tonic advertised
on "Truth or Consequences" - or Hot Pockets & camouflage gatling
guns advertised on "Duck Dynasty" - it's just a shill game.
Under which "rock" is the celebrity hiding?
Go ahead, pick one.
Duck, duck, goose.
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