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Sept/Oct 1999 issue (#41)

Media Beat

Think Of All We'd Miss Without Commercials

By Norman Solomon, Free Press contributor

Features

Free Trade on the Border

Disposable People

Name Game

Speaking in Tongues

Recovering Community Radio

The Soul of a City

Environmental Choices

Prison Medical Mayhem

Eyeing East Timor

Rainbows and Triangles and Films, Oh My

Seattle Strike pt3

The Regulars

First Word

Free Thoughts

Reader Mail

Envirowatch

Media Beat

Rad Videos

Reel Underground

Northwest Books

Nature Doc

 

A new machine is scaring the corporate daylights out of television broadcasters and cable networks. It's called a "personal video recorder," and it can do a lot of things that VCRs can't. One of those technical advances is truly wondrous -- the ability to filter out commercials before they reach TV screens.

Such ad-zapping potential will surely interest millions of Americans. But so far, media coverage of this techno-marvel has been sparse.

Because of its "computer-like hard drive," the personal video recorder can automatically "pause or rewind a live program, record while you play back, and compile only the kind of programs you like," CNN reported on Aug. 18. "And it can do something else that has media companies shivering. It can easily skip every commercial."

This commercial-skipping feature now worries some media conglomerates so much that they're threatening to file a lawsuit to prevent it from going on the market. But the specter of ad-free television will surely delight many Americans.

For the TV industry, a nightmare would become reality if viewers had the option of making commercials disappear. But what would we be missing? If we could turn a television into a commercial-free zone, we'd do without loud and flashy ads that:

Television without commercials? It sounds like a dream come true. But such a turn of events would hardly clear the air. After all, the programs would still remain -- and they, too, deserve close scrutiny. Many of the same values proclaimed by commercials are implicit on TV shows that fill America's homes.

Norman Solomon's latest book is The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. Illustration by Adam W. Griffin.



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