Back to the Future?

What goes down, comes round.

Who ever said that there's nothing left that's new in television may be right. There's nothing left to innovate, instead just great revolving cycles of approach and execution.

No better is this illustrated than with Wal-Mart's entry into own-it-all television program production.

Back in April … in partnership with Procter and Gamble … the two corporations produced "Secrets of the Mountain" which we can look at as a backdoor pilot. In advertising we used to call this a "time buy" with the corporate pair owning it all, including the essentially pre-sold availabilities. They brought the project to NBC with the two companies controlled ALL ad revenue for the two-hour block program.

And the viewers watched (17.5 million for "Secrets of…") most without even noticing the sponsor's exclusivity.

Now comes "The Jensen Project" on NBC with Wal-Mart and P&G again underwriting the program content and controlling all ad placements in the old two-hour MOW format revival.

Both these family-friendly fare flicks target children and parents alike, the exact demographic to which Wal-Mart and P&G market. Plus the resultant DVDs and soundtrack CDs get pushed in the stores and online, and since it's all theirs, all of the product's profits go directly back into the corporation coffers. Sounds ideal, a media match made in marketing heaven. Total content control.  

And exactly the model existent in the 1950's for network television, inherenting the originallycommercial model forged from the development of network radio -- total program sponsorship.

Advertisers owning outright the entire show, in many cases even taking over the shows title, as with The Chase and Sanborn Hour, starring Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy or The Johnson's Wax Program with Fibber McGee and Molly or The Pepsodent Show with Bob Hope.  The earliest network television hits carried on this model, often with TV stars stopping the weekly storyline to perform in the sponsor's own commercials.

Eventually when these old classic programs reverted to syndication, the crossover sponsorship and content create problems. As with I Love Lucy, The Lone Ranger, Adventures of Superman and others, newly edited or reshot opening and closing credits were necessary to remove the intertwined sponsorship evidence.

And now we've come back around, full circle again, with major advertisers buying not just 30 second ad slots but two-thirds of the entire nightly primetime block, producing it all from opening tease to closing credits. And it's working because there's no financial downside. It's risk-free for NBC because the producers paid for it and guarantee the network won't lose money by airing it.

Talk about an example of classic TV …

Jim Furrer