The rise of cable television has led to a multitude of channels that extend far beyond ABC, CBS, & NBC. Today there are hundred of channels and so the amount of marketing and advertising that is spent on television has also increased tremendously. However this advertising not only became more specially placed in certain programming to entice consumers who were likely to be watching that programming. Must Carry is the policy that requires cable cocmpanies to carry local broadcast signals, and this has also allowed local companiees to advertise small business commecials and to promote local economies. That arrangment was designed to make it beneficial for both large and small affiliates.
However after deregulation changed the telecommunication industry, it has led to large television conglomerates, which has in turn lead to a small, elite number of advertising agencies. I believe this has led to the demise of the artitistic nature of television and print advertising that was designed to entertain the consumer, not prey on the their primal instinct of the product being advertised. I think that as we move forward in the informational age the FCC will face tremendous challenges in controlling advertising content, and valuable promotion time that is distributed between few network companies that control many network channels. What happens when large conglomerates and fortune 100 companies start making large deals with the few ad agencies? The negative is that it leads to control and it allows for companies to have the power to design products that are unecessary to the consumer. The positive however is that it will allow for new and innovative boutique firms to capitalize on this ad space, and provide commercials that influenced our pop culture like Apple's "1984", and Got Milk's "Aaron Burr." Hopefully it will provide synergy between in the influential artistic minded graphic designer, and the innovative and illusive products who are desperate for an identity these savvy consumers will like. And so they follow. They follow visionaries like Steve Jobs, and they aspire to have the integrity of Warren Buffet hoping that they can devise some formula to make their product "the next great thing." Well that is hard when the consumer is treated like an object, and the social population can not see the fabric that is holding them together anymore. Hopefully my generation will clear the fog from their eyes, remember the "1984s" and "Just Do It's", and believe once again that greatness is now, not kicking the can so far down the road that we forgot the way Andy Warhol made us feel about a piece of tin filled with tomato soup.
