Page 198 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Hypercommerc al sm | 1

rationale for the mega-media corporation, because only they can afford the risk
and costs.
Deregulation allowed TV programs to become advertisements. Industry
conglomeration created the synergy needed for transforming the rest of enter-
tainment into merchandise. The economics of media content has influenced
programming and movie design in its favor, but it has also led to a type of
economic censorship of shows and content that advertisers and corporations
object to.

CBs anD viaCom: a CasE oF EConomiC CEnsorshiP

As the summer of 2001 drew to a close, in the hot days of August and net-
work reruns, the New York Times reported that CBS was shelving several epi-
sodes it had planned to rerun of its primetime courtroom drama, Family Law.
The episodes dealt with the death penalty, abortion, gun control, and interfaith
marriage. These are the issues that win or lose presidential elections, they shape
public policy, and have enormous impact on personal life. They all represent
important controversies, unsettled in the minds of the American public, and
the country is in great need of as much public discussion about these matters
as possible, whether it is on a fictional drama or nightly news broadcast. The
shows were pulled because of advertising pressure from Procter & Gamble; the
company deemed the episodes too controversial and threatened to withdraw its
commercials. CBS succumbed to the pressure and shelved the episodes.
This incident illustrates the commercial forces at work that often determine
which programs are made available to the public, and which are not. The deci-
sion to pull the programs was the outcome of these regulatory, economic, and
structural changes within the industry. In May 2001, CBS’s parent company Via-
com signed a $300 million advertising contract with Procter & Gamble (P&G),
the largest advertiser on TV. Conditions of the media buy stipulated that P&G
would spend about one-third of its total advertising budget on ads for prod-
ucts such as Oil of Olay, Pantene, and Tide detergent, most to be aired on CBS.
In securing the huge revenue source for Viacom, CBS agreed to work with the
company on projects suited for its needs. It is common industry knowledge that
P&G is careful about the programs that surround its products, and it employs a
private screening agency to monitor the episodes of TV programs that carry its
commercials.
The contract involving such large sums of advertising dollars was made possi-
ble because of the 1999 merger between Viacom and CBS, creating at the time the
world’s second largest media corporation. The $80 billion merger, made possible
by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, resulted in a vertically integrated com-
pany that was allowed to control two TV networks. For the first time in history,
TV networks were allowed to own cable systems. Viacom, primarily a cable firm
(with a significant library of television classics), could now control TV networks.
In addition, previous regulation limited a single company from owning TV sta-
tions that reached over 25 percent of the national audience, but after 1996 the
maximum audience percentage was raised to 35. Even with the increase the CBS/
Viacom deal was over the limit, yet the FCC allowed the merger to take place.