Sposnsored shows

marketing and entertainment have always been allies ,particularly in the United States.From the beginnings of radio,then television,until today,many programmes have been produces or simply financed by major brands.In 1929,more than 55 per cent of radio programmes were financed or directly produced by advertisers or their agencies.15 amoung the famous examples we may note,over the decades,Little Orphan Annie, sponsored on the radio by ovaltine,but also The Kraft Musical Show ,The Lux Radio Theater ,The Texaco Star Theater ,The Philco Television Playhouse,The Colgate Comedy Hour,The Alcoa Hour,Coke Time,Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom,The Dinah Shore Chevy Show,General Electric Theater,The GM All-car Showdown,Nike Training Camp and The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. For each of these sponsored programmes .the boundary between the entertainment itself and the advertising content was(and still is )fragile,even nonexistent.

Televised shows of this type still exist in certain countries,of which the United States is one ,since the explosion in available media has generated such competition that profitability dictates that product and brands cannot always be prevented from appering in the programmes themseleves.

These shows have one considerable advantage:their length,which the 'informercial'sought to re-establish in the late 1980s.In the case of sponsored show, it ispossible to escape the straitjacket of 30 sec advertising spot. Not only are these few seconds of screen time expensive,but also it is sometimes difficult to make the consumer understand how a product is used ,or what its benefits are,in such a short space of time. For technological goods,product placement offers the following advantage:

during a film or a television series,it is possible to place a product in the hands of a character and show explicitly how it is used. For both series and a film,it is also advantageous to be able to use the latest fashionable gadget or to benefit from the latest technological advances,sometimes even before the product has gone on sale,as was the case with every latest Nokia mobile phone used in David R Ellis's Film Cellular(2004); or with the telephonic videos security systems designed and built by Cisco and visible in the television series 24.

In Historical terms,Three elements contributed to the evolution of the system of shows where the sponsor was the only advertiser.First were the manipulations of which various sponsored game shows were accused during the 1950s. Second, there was increasing independence of the major television networks,which allowed them to group the majority of advertising discourse together in specialized commercial breaks. Third came the fact sell spaces of 30 seconds to several advertisers in commercial breaks,rather than one or two hours exclusively to a single advertiser. The all powerful second television spot quickly become the reference of modern advertising communication,and,above all,the principle source of finance for free-to-air television channels