What if commercials were banned from TV in 2002?

Narnia

Banned
This really is ASB. For local stations, advertising revenue is what keeps them on the air and it is their only real source of income. Take that away and every local station closes up shop. You also have a small constitutional issue in the US as commercial speech, while not as protected as some, still has some protection. I'm not sure an outright ban would be viewed as constitutional, though, to be fair, bans on cigarette ads on TV and other media have been upheld.

On the other hand, this would immensely improve the quality of US political campaigns and dramatically lower their costs, as broadcast advertising is easily half or more of the budget of a major campaign and a source of constant irritation come election time.

That's why I figured that the only way for this could work would be for the country in question to adopt a Soviet-style command economy. This just won't work in a free market. Maybe a few premium channels will survive, but that way TV will be something only the rich could have. Also, the OP never said that this was in the USA. It could be in Canada, China, Iran or any other country.
 
That's why I figured that the only way for this could work would be for the country in question to adopt a Soviet-style command economy. This just won't work in a free market. Maybe a few premium channels will survive, but that way TV will be something only the rich could have. Also, the OP never said that this was in the USA. It could be in Canada, China, Iran or any other country.

I could be wrong, but I believe the Vatican Television Centre probably has a policy (or "tradition") against any advertising income, and am pretty sure they at least don't show any advertising on their channels. So, currently, the Vatican City does not air any commercials.
 

Flubber

Banned
That's why I figured that the only way for this could work would be for the country in question to adopt a Soviet-style command economy. This just won't work in a free market.


I take it you've never been to the UK then? :rolleyes:

Television broadcasting in the UK began with and is still primarily commercial free. Commercial broadcasting only began in the mid-50s, didn't cover the entire nation until the early 60s, was split up into over a dozen regional broadcast companies, and consisted of one channel. There being one channel available meant that different broadcasters often split the week between themselves with one using the channel during the week and the other during the weekend.

Meanwhile, non-commercial television, aka The BBC, was and still is mostly funded by a yearly television license.

While some might want to argue whether the UK enjoys a free market economy, I believe it does and the system I described above has worked since 1946.

As an aside, imagine if you will attempting to collect television license fees in Cabrini-Green, an Alabama trailer park, or rural Nevada. ;)
 
many European countries have "public" TV - its still not commercial free, but its low on commercials.

We are used to pay our fees and don not notice them more than paying insurances, taxes or the like (but we keep bizching about them too ;))

At leas tin Austria (Germany) those public stations do ads only between shows and not during shows.

A few days ago I watched a movie that ran 90 minutes in the publich channel and 130 (including ads) - guess which of both I followed.

And if you think the ad make for free TVprogrammes, guess who pays for teh commercials - of course the companies, and they pay with the money they earn from you buying their product, so you might say you pay for the commercials you hate to watch :D

Commercial free might work with (as mentioned by others) either tax financed or even by fee financed TV-programmes. I think fee financed is the better opion because you vote with your fees while tax finaced means you pay and the money goes to the TV stations even if they bring only crap...

A last thing to think about - ad and fee financed television means at least a degree of free journalism and free opinion building while tax financed schemes might be abused by the ruling "class" (party whatever...)
 

Flubber

Banned
A last thing to think about - ad and fee financed television means at least a degree of free journalism and free opinion building...

As has already been seen, ad and fee financed journalism means that people will only pay for what they want to hear instead of hearing what they need to know.
 
That's why I figured that the only way for this could work would be for the country in question to adopt a Soviet-style command economy. This just won't work in a free market. Maybe a few premium channels will survive, but that way TV will be something only the rich could have. Also, the OP never said that this was in the USA. It could be in Canada, China, Iran or any other country.

many European countries have "public" TV - its still not commercial free, but its low on commercials.

We are used to pay our fees and don not notice them more than paying insurances, taxes or the like (but we keep bizching about them too ;))

At leas tin Austria (Germany) those public stations do ads only between shows and not during shows.

A few days ago I watched a movie that ran 90 minutes in the publich channel and 130 (including ads) - guess which of both I followed.

And if you think the ad make for free TVprogrammes, guess who pays for teh commercials - of course the companies, and they pay with the money they earn from you buying their product, so you might say you pay for the commercials you hate to watch :D

Commercial free might work with (as mentioned by others) either tax financed or even by fee financed TV-programmes. I think fee financed is the better opion because you vote with your fees while tax finaced means you pay and the money goes to the TV stations even if they bring only crap...

A last thing to think about - ad and fee financed television means at least a degree of free journalism and free opinion building while tax financed schemes might be abused by the ruling "class" (party whatever...)

According to your thinking, we in Germany and Austria would thus have a "Soviet-style command economy"...
 
The people paying for the shows. It is really a communist system.

Da, comrade! I look forward to the state taking my money at gunpoint to pay for Question Time, The Tweenies and Strictly Come Dancing!

- Sent from the Central Committee of the BBCCCP

(The joke is that Britain and some other countries have systems like that which you describe, and it doesn't feel particularly communist)
 
I take it you've never been to the UK then? :rolleyes:

Television broadcasting in the UK began with and is still primarily commercial free. Commercial broadcasting only began in the mid-50s, didn't cover the entire nation until the early 60s, was split up into over a dozen regional broadcast companies, and consisted of one channel. There being one channel available meant that different broadcasters often split the week between themselves with one using the channel during the week and the other during the weekend.

Meanwhile, non-commercial television, aka The BBC, was and still is mostly funded by a yearly television license.

While some might want to argue whether the UK enjoys a free market economy, I believe it does and the system I described above has worked since 1946.

As an aside, imagine if you will attempting to collect television license fees in Cabrini-Green, an Alabama trailer park, or rural Nevada. ;)

Yes, but that is only for the BBC. All of the other broadcasters are commercial funded, subscription funded, or both.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Without commercials TV is dead with the coming of Internet entertainment where commercials are allowed. Huge TV networks would migrate to the net.
 
Back to the United States, I can't imagine it happening in 2002, but back when TV was in its infancy and shows were done live, you had a lot more people breaking into ads on the spot, I think. You could possibly have the networks start a policy of ad inserts in programs that allowed for things to flow very nicely and not seem as annoying. Like his parents encouraging Little Ricky to brush his teeth by extolling the virtues of Colgate toothpaste in one episode.

(You don't think parents try to sell their kids on the joys of brushing teeth and other things? Maybe not as common in some homes, but in our family it was, and there's not a big leap between an excited mom saying, "Oh, look at all those yummy vegetables. Eat up!" and inserting "Green Giant" in there.)

The problem, as stated by others, is that it could go too far. Such inserts aren't annoying to me when it's only a brief mention. But, TV shows used to be about 26 minutes with 4 of ads, and by the '90s it was 22 and 8; I shudder to think what it is now. And, it's very easy to see certain TV parents rambling about their favorite product for 3-4 minutes. "Eat your delicious Campbell's Soup" - becomes a long sales pitch that's likely to lead to the cute little one saying, "Daddy, if I clean my plate will you stop talking?":D

(And, as the above poster ninja's, it would probably go down to the level of PBS once the Internet came along if that "no ads" compact was still in place.)
 
PBS would have to persuade viewers for a lot of money.
Channel 5 would go bankrupt. ITV and Channel 4 would rely on product placement.
 
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