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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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081489
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08148900.057
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1990-09-17
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VIDEO, Page 76And Now for the Hard SellThe networks turn to games and gimmicks to hawk their waresBy Richard Zoglin
Attention K mart shoppers! If you are wondering where to spin
your TV dial this September, drop by any of the discount retailer's
2,200 stores. You will be regaled with signs and posters trumpeting
CBS shows. Every TV set in the store will be tuned to CBS as well.
The chain and the network are even teaming up to promote the CBS/K
mart Get Ready Giveaway. The contest, to be advertised on the air
and in K mart newspaper supplements, will offer viewers the lure
of big prizes if they can match numbers on a card with figures
flashed during commercial breaks for certain shows.
And there's more for your life at Sears -- at least, if you are
an NBC fan. Along with posters, banners and in-store videos
flogging the peacock network, the department-store chain and NBC
have concocted a contest pegged to the fall season. Unlike the CBS
game, however, you do not have to watch NBC shows to win; you just
answer a few questions about them to vie for prizes like a new car
or a guest appearance on an NBC show.
TV viewers have grown accustomed to the annual late-summer
promotional blitz for the networks' fall premieres. But this year
the hucksterism has gone far beyond the usual "ABC's the One" and
"Come Home to NBC" sloganeering on-screen. Ads for network shows
will turn up everywhere from billboards to women's hosiery
departments. Besides CBS and NBC linkups with major retailers, a
third network, Fox, has teamed with Coca-Cola to promote an Isle
of Dreams Treasure Hunt. Only ABC is sitting on the sidelines.
For the first time, the networks are even turning to erstwhile
competitors for help with the hype. ABC is running commercials for
its fall shows in movie theaters. CBS is stuffing brochures inside
boxes of blank Maxell videocassettes. NBC is doing the same with
Scotch cassettes. ABC is targeting the VCR user with a more
high-tech gimmick: a special bar code in the network's November TV
Guide ads will enable owners of specially equipped models of
Panasonic VCRs to record certain ABC shows automatically.
The burst of promotional activity reflects the networks'
growing concern over competition from cable, VCRs and independent
stations. The erosion was quickened by the writers' strike last
year, which delayed the fall season and neutralized kickoff-week
hoopla. "We're trying to find much more aggressive and interesting
ways to wave to people, to grab them and interest them in our
programs," says George Schweitzer, senior vice president of
communications for third-place CBS, which increased its advertising
budget by 25% this year.
The odd coupling of CBS, once the "Tiffany of networks," and
the mass-market K mart chain strikes some as tacky. Resorting to
contest giveaways, moreover, smacks of desperation: watch our shows
not because they are good but because you may win a prize. Some
network executives are skeptical about the tactic's effectiveness.
"Let's say 20% or 30% want to play the game," says Mark Zakarin,
marketing vice president for ABC Entertainment. "The other 70% will
be irritated by all the promos." Yet if the lure of loot ends up
boosting the ratings, contest mania will undoubtedly spread. Anyone
for Roseanne bingo?
-- William Tynan/New York