A What-If Question: How would TV be different if there were few/no infomercials?

[SixtiesGuy]

Answer: 100 percent better.

But the truth is without infomericals cable companies would lose revenue.

As repulsive as they may be, infomercials exist for one simple reason: they work. That means there are lots of viewers out there spending their money on the snake oil and other junk products being hawked. What a sad thought.

I have to admit, however, the sole exception to my automatic avoidance of infomercials is some of the Time-Life music ads. I've never bought their discs (they tend to be overpriced) but I do enjoy the nice quality snippets of old performances. I thought the one hosted by Peter Fonda was hilarious.

 

[formeraa]

I think you would have seen a lot of indies go dark or sell and go either a language other than English, if viable in their market, or religion.

michael is right here. Inevitably, during the Great Recession, many indie stations would have gone dark. Even religious organizations were suffering with a lack of donations, so they wouldn't have been able to fill the slack. Whether we like it or not, the informercials have kept the lights on.

 

[LKellerIII]

If there were no infomercials, local indy stations would run more repeats of judge shows, and even more daily repeats of their off-network reruns. And they wouldn't have any money to continue to produce the few decent local shows they currently produce.

 

[michael hagerty]

If there were no infomercials, local indy stations would run more repeats of judge shows, and even more daily repeats of their off-network reruns. And they wouldn't have any money to continue to produce the few decent local shows they currently produce.

Caveat: Each play of those syndicated shows costs money, unless there's an agreement in advance that allows additional play.

 

[Markxxx]

Infomercials are cash cows because the production companies do everything. They research, they make the shows, they research air time, pay for the telephone numbers and monitor the response. They can tell right after an infomercial airs if it's gonna sell and pull it if it doesn't and throw in another kind.

All a station does is provide the airwaves.

I recall during the brief period when the FCC said you could only air one 30 minute infomercial per hour was a great compromise. You would get infomercial than a sitcom that no one had seen in ages (like Nanny & The Professor), then a sit com and so forth.

 

[michael hagerty]

I recall during the brief period when the FCC said you could only air one 30 minute infomercial per hour was a great compromise. You would get infomercial than a sitcom that no one had seen in ages (like Nanny & The Professor), then a sit com and so forth.

Okay. Now, be the Program Director or GM of that station for a minute.

You run info #1, then air "Nanny And The Professor". It costs you $150 to play it. You have zero lead-in from the infomercial. Your 7 minutes of commercial avails in "Nanny" are essentially worthless. Maybe there are one or two sponsors who'll take a spot at a fire-sale rate of $25. You fill the remainder with promos and PSAs. You just lost $100 in 30 minutes on the program cost alone. Operating costs for that half hour are on top of that.

Time for info #2. Whatever audience accidentally stumbled across "Nanny" leaves. And when the info's over, you've once again got no lead-in for "Mork & Mindy". And you lose another $100 in program costs alone.

As you ping-pong through the afternoon, you frustrate viewers who arrive late for the sitcom and find an infomercial comes after. They come back later...and it happens again.

It not only wasn't a great compromise, it was no compromise at all. Far better to create an info block for 2 or 3 hours and follow that with 2 or 3 hours of sitcoms, which would (hopefully) build an audience you could sell to advertisers by the second half-hour (they'll shy away from or demand deep discounts on anything that follows an infomercial).