Books in Brief: The Sponsor

The Sponsor, by Erik Barnouw (Oxford,’ 220 pp., $10). August 28, 1922. The Queensboro Corporation pays radio station WEAF fifty dollars for ten minutes of air time to promote the virtues of suburban apartment living in a housing complex in Jackson Heights, Long Island. Subsequently, ecstatic corporation executives attribute sales in the amount of $127,000 to this pioneer venture in electronic advertising. Thus the era of commercial broadcasting was launched upon a nation that had no inkling of the eventual impact of the electronic media. Professor Barnouw is distressed by the extent to which the insidious sponsor has contrived to dominate the airways, and thus our lives. Not content to reap huge profits by influencing consumers’ habits, advertisers seek to fashion a culture along lines that often run contrary to the public interest. Let us grant that there is much to criticize in the prevalent forms of commercial mendacity; but when Barnouw indicts Madison Avenue for a long list of socio-politico-economic maladies, his thesis begins to groan beneath the burden of ideological overkill. P. T. Barnum aptly observed that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Barnouw has apparently never noticed that, stupid and embarrassing as the commercials are, the prime-time shows are even worse.

AM

About the Author

Alan L. Miller

Featured Tags

The Sponsor, by Erik Barnouw (Oxford,’ 220 pp., $10). August 28, 1922. The Queensboro Corporation pays radio station WEAF fifty dollars for ten minutes of air time to promote the virtues of suburban apartment living in a housing complex in Jackson Heights, Long Island. Subsequently, ecstatic corporation executives attribute sales in the amount of $127,000 to this pioneer venture in electronic advertising. Thus the era of commercial broadcasting was launched upon a nation that had no inkling of the eventual impact of the electronic media. Professor Barnouw is distressed by the extent to which the insidious sponsor has contrived to dominate the airways, and thus our lives. Not content to reap huge profits by influencing consumers’ habits, advertisers seek to fashion a culture along lines that often run contrary to the public interest. Let us grant that there is much to criticize in the prevalent forms of commercial mendacity; but when Barnouw indicts Madison Avenue for a long list of socio-politico-economic maladies, his thesis begins to groan beneath the burden of ideological overkill. P. T. Barnum aptly observed that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Barnouw has apparently never noticed that, stupid and embarrassing as the commercials are, the prime-time shows are even worse.