Huh. There Was an "F- You" on "Gilligan's Island"

[Tuckerfan]

The S. S. Minnow was named in response to FCC chairman Minow’s “vast wasteland” comment.

According to the show’s creator and cast the name “S.S. Minnow” was actually named after Newton Minow, who was chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission in 1961. In a much-publicized speech, he called television a “vast wasteland.” The boat was named after the man who, Gilligan’s Island producer Sherwood Schwartz insists, “ruined television.” Minow gave networks authority and placed the power of programming in the hands of the networks. He did this after Gilligan’s Island was started.

Of course, Schwartz’s work seems to have more than proven Minow right.

[SSG_Schwartz]

I’ve never proven anything right. I am the example of proven wrong.

SSG Schwartz

[Tuckerfan]

@SSG Schwartz

I’ve never proven anything right. I am the example of proven wrong.

SSG Schwartz

Here. Maybe this will cheer you up.

[RealityChuck]

The networks took over programming even before Minow made his “vast wasteland” speech.

Or, to be more precise, the networks always were in charge of programming. However, individual shows had particular sponsors who paid for their production costs. The networks realized they could make more money with the “magazine” format, where advertisers were like advertisers in a magazine – they just bought airtime.

The unintended consequence of this was to make ratings more important than they were. A sponsor might be happy with a low rated show, feeling that even the relatively low number of viewers were fine for their advertising purposes. But a low-rated show meant that the networks didn’t make as much money, so they had to dump low rated shows much sooner.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@RealityChuck

The networks took over programming even before Minnow made his “vast wasteland” speech.

Quite right.

Moving Image Research Center (National Audio-Visual Conservation Center,...

NBC executive Sylvester L. “Pat” Weaver advanced the networks’ answer to the problem: participation advertising, dubbed the “magazine concept.” Under this arrangement, advertisers purchased discrete segments of shows (typically one- or two-minute blocks) rather than entire programs. Like magazines, which featured ads for a variety of products, the participation show might carry commercials from up to four different sponsors. Similarly, just as a magazine’s editorial practice was presumably divorced from its advertising content, the presence of multiple sponsors meant that no one advertiser could control the program. By Weaver’s reckoning, the network would assume that responsibility.

While participation advertising met with some initial resistance on Madison Avenue, many agencies saw that it was the ideal promotional vehicle for packaged-goods companies manufacturing a cornucopia of brand names, such as Procter and Gamble with such disparate products as Tide (laundry detergent), Crest (toothpaste), and Jif (peanut butter). By 1960, the magazine concept dominated television advertising, as it has ever since. Instead of relying on audience identification with a specific show, sponsors now spread their messages across the schedule in an effort to reach as many consumers (or at least as many of those within a specified demographic) as possible. There is no denying that as an instrument of mass communication conveying information and entertainment to the general American public, as an instrument of mass merchandising and advertising for the business community, and as a source of massive profits for the networks, American commercial television is eminently successful.

Peoples’ memories are notoriously unreliable. Schwartz may have named the Minnow after Newton, but even that is suspect since Minnow had left the FCC in 1963 and Gilligan’s Island didn’t debut until 1964. Even if true, Minnow’s legacy was one of no change at all (except possibly for the introduction of UHF channels). His speech may still be quoted but it made no difference in the real world of television. You could make a good case that television got much worse in the years after his speech.