Transcript
The Rukeyser Shuffle
April 13, 2002
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When CNBC announced this week that it had hired Louis Rukeyser to host a program essentially identical to PBS's Wall Street Week from which he was recently eliminated after 32 years, there was a surprise twist. In addition to its slot on CNBC, Rukeyser's new show will be distributed free of charge to public TV stations. To accommodate the dual distribution, CNBC won't run standard commercials within the show but instead will air it with sponsor messages in the format of public broadcasting underwriting announcements. Bob wondered what that arrangement may tell us about the strange animal called "enhanced underwriting."
BOB GARFIELD: Okay, listen. Here's a piece of a TV commercial for Archer Daniels Midland Corporation. [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER: Our crowded planet has something to say. ADM believes that for every problem, nature has an answer. So....
BOB GARFIELD: Now here, from a PBS show is what they call an "enhanced underwriting credit." [MUSIC UNDER]
SALLY KIRKLAND VOICEOVER:Imagine a world where no child begs for food. While some will look on that as a dream, others will look long and hard -- and get to work. ADM -- the nature of what's to come.
BOB GARFIELD:You didn't see the eye-catching animation, but it's there. The striking similarity between enhanced underwriting and naked advertising has fueled controversy ever since 1995. That's when public broadcasters, their federal funding threatened by Republicans in Congress, loosened restrictions on underwriters' messages. They're still limited to 15 seconds; they can't interrupt programming, and they can't directly solicit consumer action, but in other respects they are indistinguishable. Furthermore, critics of public broadcasting commercialization are fearful of what enhanced underwriting represents -- namely the temptation to abandon public broadcasting's mission for the sake of ever-larger audiences and the lucrative sponsorships that come with them. Andrew Jay Schwartzman is a lawyer with a telecommunications public interest group called The Media Access Project.
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZ We should care because public broadcasting exists to fill needs that are not met on the commercial side. But the incentives are driving public broadcasters to look for ways to serve audiences that are already adequately served that advertisers can reach. Unfortunately, we should be looking to serve the niche audiences.
BOB GARFIELD: So along comes CNBC's announcement about Rukeyser's double-duty underwriting messages, and the critics go ah-ha!
ANDREW JAY SCHWARTZThe fact that CNBC is willing to accept what passes as enhanced underwriting on public television is - as being sufficient as a commercial for its own viewers offers a lot of insight into what CNBC thinks a commercial is.
BOB GARFIELD:In other words if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and commercial advertisers are ordering duck -- maybe it's a duck!
TERREL CAST: [LAUGHS] No, I don't think it's a duck.
BOB GARFIELD: Terrel Cast is general manager of WLIW-TV, the Long Island station that's distributing Rukeyser's CNBC show to PBS stations. Cast says he has a very duck-sensitive audience that would be running into the fields with shotguns if they heard a threat to public broadcasting's mission flying overhead.
TERREL CASS: I've honestly never gotten a letter -- I get a lot of letters for different complaints -- but I've never received one on enhanced en--underwriting.
BOB GARFIELD:Over at CNBC they're actually wondering about the flip side of the question -- if underwriting credits can satisfy advertisers even with all their restrictions, there may be a commercial potential to less commercialism.
BRUNO COHEN: It just might work!
BOB GARFIELD: Bruno Cohen is executive vice president for business programming at CNBC.
BRUNO COHEN: If programs can be produced by creating a different kind of viewing experience, one that isn't interrupted periodically by commercials and other kinds of messages -- if those interruptions can be limited -- if that gives a more enhanced viewing experience which may enhance viewership, it may mean that advertisers and sponsors and underwriters may see themselves as willing to pay premiums to be one of a few products or services associated with a program that, that's in their interest. I think all the better! It'll make television better for everybody.
BOB GARFIELD:Mainly, though, CNBC is banking on the quacks-like-a-duck quality of the enhanced underwriting credit to attract enough commercial advertisers to make a satisfactory profit on the Rukeyser deal. And the network doesn't much care what you call the 50-second [sic] spots that fund it.
BRUNO COHEN: That form has evolved over time on PBS, so it's not as though they don't have interesting video that supports sort of, you know, showing the products and services of the company and they -- 15 seconds of copy that they get, gets to describe the attributes of the company. If you want to call that a commercial, you're into semantics.
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