T I -', y. "V's ‘.\" w "-(u ,wg-H. ‘-,. ,v ".’..‘. . ,_ ':.' -_. . .A. . ’ . , . _.«mmuawmgfls,fl;.;;.;.l.;.;.7;.;.-.y, . .. ; L fl ‘ .-.~ ‘_;.\..‘..‘ ~ "" A "' M" THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY MAGAZINE A SHTFT IN THE MEDIA OF THE POPULAR ARTS Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D. MTCHIGAN STATE-UNIVERSITY. STEPHEN CHARLES HOLDER 1972 (REST! Date This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY MAGAZILE: A SHIFT II"; THE MEDIA OF THE POPULAR ARTS presented by Stephen Charles Holder has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree“! English w ens. Major professor February 22, 1972 LIBRARY Michigan State University ABSTRACT THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY MAGAZINE: A SHIFT IN THE MEDIA OF THE POPULAR ARTS BY Stephen Charles Holder This study offers examinations of the major problems that beset the family magazines, and the problems were many and overlapping. As suggested throughout the paper, the problems were organic; that is, they accrued to the family magazine genre as a whole and to the obligations of the family magazines. None of the problems is alone sufficient explanation for the death of the genre; rather, the problems indicated were synergistic. Basically, the problems of the family magazines fall into the three broad spheres of the magazines' obligations: (l) obligation to readers, (2) obligation to advertisers, and (3) obligation to themselves. The failure of the family magazines to meet reader needs was a result of failure to fulfill the six basic obligations upon which the magazines' formulas were based. Those obligations are: (1) information, (2) entertainment, (3) escape, (4) assistance in opinion formation, (5) rein- forcement of moral values, and (6) provision of a "con- sumers' showcase." In order to be successful, the family Stephen Charles Holder magazines were left behind. Attempts to shift the maga— zines' image, such as Curtis's ill-fated "sophisticated muckraking" program, succeeded only in alienating the ritual readers who demanded that their magazines appear regularly with recognizable form and content. Secondly, the family magazines failed increasingly to meet the needs of advertisers. This failure shows the real impact that television has had. As Marshall McLuhan has pointed out, television brought us out of the linear age and into the spatial age of communications. Television has become the most natural form of mass communication in America; when two media compete for the same market, the one that is most attractive and most accessible will win. TV became the first choice of advertisers for several reasons: (1) it had the inherent advantage of a spatial medium; (2) it had tremendous flexibility in reaching Specialized audiences, both geographically and by interest groups; (3) it gave the advertiser almost complete control over the reSponse of the consumer audience; and (4) it became increasingly inexpensive to use compared with maga- zines. Moreover, advertisers knew that television had attracted the family audience away from magazines. This was true because: (1) TV offered "whole-family" enter- tainment, solving the problems of "Where shall we go?" and "What shall we do?"; (2) TV offered greater "acces- sibility" for consumers than did magazines; (3) TV brought Stephen Charles Holder magazines needed to fill those roles in some way that the other media could not. Originally, family magazines enjoyed a special place based on these roles; that is, they were virtually without competition from other media in their relationship with the American people. But the family magazine formula was unable to adapt to a number of things: the rapid acceleration of an increasingly technological society, the rise of the great youth market, the increas- ingly "throw-away" nature of American society, and severe inroads by other media on what had been family magazine territory. The nature of the magazine formula and the limita- tions of the magazine format were largely responsible for this failure to meet role obligations. Even with greatly improved presses and the use of the I‘fast close," the time between composition and consumption of the magazine was too great in the face of the increased demands for speed. The necessarily general, bland nature of family magazine contents was not suitable for adaptation to the needs of the under-25 reader, who represented an increasingly rich consumer group. The tangibility and comparative permanence of the magazine was a handicap compared with the intangi- bility and flexibility of the contents of radio and tele— vision in meeting consumer needs. Because of this fact, radio was able to make a shift in basic roles that has allowed it to survive and prosper, while the family Stephen Charles Holder with it the illusions of "immediacy and truth"; (4) TV had absorbed the magazines' role of presenting various kinds of short fiction; and (5) TV viewers brought with them far less critical attitudes than did the readers of family magazines. For all of these reasons, advertisers spent more and more on television commercials, less and less on magazine advertisements. The third major area of failure for the family magazines was in their responsibility to themselves. Many writers have pointed out that the slow corporate pace of the family magazines might be symbolized by the electric- powered trucks used by Curtis that moved about Philadelphia at a stodgy ten miles per hour. Repeatedly, the family magazine publishing corporations expanded vertically, fail- ing to seize the brass ring offered by the newer media. Poor economic planning forced the family magazines into the "numbers race" with other media and pushed them into unwise corporate decisions. The inevitable postal in- creases were ill-planned for; the magazines had set too high a point of diminishing returns in terms of subscriber lists. Payrolls were enormous, filled with the names of employees waiting for retirement, serving out their days at the leisurely pace of the magazines. Corporate infight- ing of almost epic proportions brought further chaos into management. POST, for example, went through at least three major changes in image within the last eight or nine years Stephen Charles Holder of its life. All of these factors, coupled with rising costs, interest rates and inflation, added considerably to the pattern of failure presented in this study. The paper also shows the unique value that the family magazines have for the cultural historian. In their pages we can find out practically anything we need to know about the American cultural situation at a given time. Technology, literary tastes, moral standards, fads and current interests all are there. Most important, however, the magazines show us the tempo of American society. They show us how we were in other, simpler days; nostalgia has a certain value, too. Ben Hibbs, the last truly successful editor of the SATURDAY EVENING POST, put it this way: Yet, after all, the world is not entirely com- posed of hydrogen bombs, juvenile delinquency, race riots, mental institutions, heart disease and Cancer . . . I can remember the time when people thought it fun to read. Why shouldn't we provide our readers with a bit of "escape" to use a dirty word-—from the cares of daily life through the vehicle of a buoyant human-interest article or an absorbing story. It is one of our functions, and a highly worthwhile function, I think. There is nothing incompatible in intellectuality and the love of entertainment--in a man or a magazine. In sum, this is a study of the popular arts, or the ways by which the popular arts get into the hands of the consumer. It analyses forces which drove one medium from the marketplace. It shows the tremendous influence of media trends on the popular arts, and shows the tremendous influence of business interests in the control Stephen Charles Holder of the media. Those interests emerge as having been the decisive factors in the burial of the family magazines. America still has no one medium that fills Americans' needs as well as did the family magazines. Television now has taken over the role-~but its success is due to a com- bination of technological and economic factors, not to a sudden shift in American mass values. 1Joseph C. Goulden, The Curtis Caper (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1965), 90-91. THE DEATH OF THE FAMILY MAGAZINE: A SHIFT IN THE MEDIA OF THE POPULAR ARTS BY Stephen Charles Holder A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1972 ©Copyright by STEPHEN CHARLES HOLDER 1972 ©Copyright by STEPHEN CHARLES HOLDER 1972 LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES INTRODUCTION TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE THREAT OF TELEVISION II. III. IV. V. CONCLUSIONS SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES. MEDIA FINANCING: CORPORATE DECISIONS. ii ADVERTISING THE FAMILY MAGAZINE AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Page iii 10 44 83 116 161 168 173 Table l. 10. ll. 12. 13. 14. 15. LIST OF TABLES Page Heavy interest in television reflects heavy interest in all media. . . . . . . . . 18 Magazine reading time (per issue) in TV and non-TV homes 0 o o o o o o o o o o o 1.9 Time spent reading magazines by owners and non-owners o o o o o o o o o o o o 19 Advertising costs of three media . . . . . 74 Changes in advertising costs . . . . . . 76 Curtis revenue: 1950-1960 . . . . . . . 84 Second-class mai1--regu1ar-rate publications, postal rate history . . . . . . . . . 93 Second-class mail, regular rate outside country, selected indexes . . . . . . . 94 Curtis and Time-Life gross advertising revenues, 1936—1942 . . . . . . . . . 112 Media use by age and education. . . . . . 120 Television in the United States, January, 1969 C I O O O O O O O O O C O O 174 Growth of homes owning radio and television . 180 Changes in the circulation of tOp 30 general magazines 1946-1954 . . . . . . . . . 181 Time spent reading magazines by length of TV ownership. . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Changes in circulation of different magazine categories . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 iii Table Page 16. Average production costs of TV programs. . . 184 17. How advertising expenditures are divided among five major media . . . . . . . . 184 18. Trends in broadcast advertising expenditures, by medium and type. . . . . . . . . . 184 19. National advertisers' expenditures as a pro- portion of total advertising . . . . . . 186 20. How different kinds of advertisers spend their money . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 21. Sources of network television revenues by major industry classifications. . . . . . 188 22. Distribution of each magazine's audience on the economic scale. . . . . . . . . . 189 23. Audiences by economic level. . . . . . . 190 iv 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. LIST OF FIGURES Page Television cuts magazine reading 31.3% . . .~ 75 Time spent with four media . . . . . . . 75 Cooperative media advertisement . . . . . 77 Announcement of LOOK's death . . . . . . 85 Letter from Senator Hart. . . . . . . . 88 Letter from Representative Chamberlain . . . 89 Letter from Executive Assistant to the Postmaster . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Sample POST cartoon . . . . . . . . . 136 Death of THE AMERICAN. . . . . . . . . 148 Growth in television households, 1950-1969. . 175 Growth in television penetration, 1950-1969 . 176 Television in the United States, January, 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Inside and outside standard metropolitan statistical areas, January, 1969 . . . . . 178 Census geographic regions, January, 1969 . . 179 INTRODUCTION The deaths of the big family magazines POST, LOOK and COLLIER'S did not come as major surprises for most of their fans. For years we had watched the gradual decline of our magazines; many of us continued our subscriptions long after they had any but nostalgic uses for us. The magazines slipped away quietly, COLLIER'S in 1956, POST in 1969 and LOOK in 1971. The passing of LOOK, quiet as it was, is of special significance, for it marks the end of a genre; the family magazines are dead. Certainly, this is not to say that magazine pub- lishing is dead. Dozens of publications still appear regularly in the United States; they are serving the roles intended for them, and are being sold at a profit. Many of these magazines, it is true, are family oriented. But each of them is in some way specialized: GOOD HOUSEKEEPING and FAMILY CIRCLE, for example, deal primarily with mothers' problems such as how to prepare food, make clothing, deco— rate bedrooms; JACK AND JILL is for young children; LIFE is essentially a news magazine, etc. Family magazines are different. They may be defined as magazines broad enough in scope and varied enough in content to appeal as popular entertainment to most members of the average American family. This broad concept precludes specialization of the magazine in any one field such as news, literature, "how- to" articles, humor, etc. Yet all of these topics may appear in any given issue. The family magazine must be sufficiently in the center to appeal to the liberalism of some families without offending the conservatism of others. It must offer entertainment for both old and young family members; it must appeal to readers of differing educational levels. This is characteristic of most of the media of popular culture.1 In popular periodicals like TIME, LIFE, LOOK, PICTURE POST, MATCH . . . ESQUIRE, and in dis- tinguished daily newspapers like THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . there is an intermixture of superior, mediocre, and brutal culture which is histori- cally unique. The same can be observed in tele- vision and, of course, in the film: a single network presents a wide variety of levels, and films of genuinely high artistic and intellec— tual merit may be produced in the same studio which produces numerous mediocre and brutal films. lEdward Shils, "Mass Society and Its Culture," in Norman Jacobs, ed., Culture for the Millions? (Toronto: D. Van Nostrand Co. Inc., 1959), 9. The family magazines aimed at the middle ground, the average American. This aim was largely responsible for their popularity with both readers and advertisers. The modern magazine succeeded as a mass medium mainly because of its original role as an adjunct of the marketing system. Like the news- paper, it was able over the years to appeal to an expanding range of tastes and interests. But, unlike other media, most magazines were designed for homogeneous audiences or special-interest groups. And, in contrast to the newspaper, their circulation was nation-wide. Thus, although many were directed to specialized audiences, magazines in general developed as a mass medium in the sense that they appealed to large numbers in a national market which cut across social, economic, and educational class lines.2 2Peterson, Jensen, Rivers, The Mass Media and Modern Society (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1966), 69. Note the close relationship Peterson sees between magazines and marketing. This will be of major significance later in this study. On the surface, it would appear that such a general role is practically impossible to project. Yet COLLIER'S, LOOK and POST did for many years. And they were successful at it; that much is obvious. Their role was, in fact, a difficult one, as is the case with virtually all purveyors of the popular arts. The mass media are cursed by four deadly require- ments: a gargantuan amount of space (in magazines and newspapers) [sic] and time (in television and radio) [sic] has EE—be filled; talent--on every level, in every—{EchfiIque--is scarce; the public votes, i.e., is free to decide what it prefers (and it is the deplorable results of this voting that intellec- tuals might spend more time confronting) [sic]; and a magazine, paper, television or radio progrEfi-is com- mitted to periodic and unalterable publication. Con— tent would be markedly improved if publications or programs appeared only when superior material was available. This applied to academic journals no less than to publications or programs with mass audiences.3 3Leo Rosten, ”The Intellectual and the Mass Media," in Jacobs, 73. Naturally, the close relationship that the mass media have with the business community opens them up to all kinds of negative charges, particularly by students of elitist cul— ture. A typical charge is this: Mass media for inherent reasons must conform to prevailing average canons of taste. They cannot foster art; indeed, they replace it.4 4Ernest van den Haag, "A Dissent from the Consen- sual Society," in Jacobs, 50. The point, it seems, is not that magazines are "great" art in the generally accepted sense, but that they are a dif- ferent form of art, not to be condemned through comparison on the same scale as great" art. The popular arts are on a different scale, one which can frequently equate "good" with "success,' regardless of literary or artistic merit. Naturally, many of the stories in POST and COLLIER'S had considerable literary merit; many did not.5 5For an extended discussion of the role of the popular artist, see Leo Bogart, The Age of Television: A Study of Viewing Habits and the Impact of Television on American Life (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1956), 20-24. Our concern with them here is not with their success in an aesthetic sense, but with their success as commodity. The same is true of all of the elements that went into LOOK, COLLIER'S and POST. The reasoning is this: if enough people liked those elements and paid to have them, the elements were successful; the combined success of those elements consti- tutes magazine popularity. We can better understand our society by understanding those things which are popular within it and by ovserving trends in popularity. The popu- lar arts do have a number of specific advantages over elit- ist arts in reaching the public that make them valuable for study. Oscar Handlin writes, In the first place, popular culture, although un- structured and chaotic (deals) directly with the concrete world intensely familiar to its audience. In the second place, and for similar reasons, popular (art has) a continuing relevance to the situation of the audience that (is) exposed to it. That relevance (is) maintained by a direct rapport between those who create and those who consume this culture. In the third place, popular culture is closely tied to the traditions of those who consume it. Finally, popular culture (has) the capacity for arousing in its audience such sentiments as wonder and awe, and for expressing the sense of irony of their own situation which lent it enormous power. 6Oscar Handlin, "Comments on Mass and Popular Culture,” in Jacobs, 66-67. We should note that these advantages are culturally, not aesthetically oriented. They have more to do with the people themselves than with the people's means of express- ing themselves. They are not indigenous to any one kind of popular expression. Hence, the popular media are valuable for study as vehicles for the popular forms of expression. The family magazines were at the center of our popular culture for many years; if for no other reason, they are worth consideration as cultural phenomena. While the lives of POST, COLLIER'S AND LOOK are fascinating stories, they are similar to many American success stories and are relatively simple. Their deaths, on the other hand, provide a number of speculations about changing trends in popular media and are extremely complex. This study is, in many ways, broader than a study of the family magazines. Such a study would normally focus on magazine contents and on the popular artists represented there. However, while any study of a magazine must con- sider the magazine's contents, that is not the primary consideration here. The fact that the entire family magazine genre died within a space of about fourteen years indicates that con- tent is probably not the central issue. Indeed, other factors seem to have been much more important in their demise. In addition to an examination of content, then, this study will consider such other factors as the role of the magazine as a medium among other media; costs and inflation are extremely useful areas to examine, too, as the physical magazine is ultimately a commodity much as other commodities. As such, the medium is vulnerable to the same forces in our economy which decide the fate of any product. The family magazines were the products of business- men: production experts, financiers, advertising experts, etc., as well as editors. They were not tied to the genius of any artist or group of artists. In this sense, the magazines were larger than any one art form; in fact, they encompassed almost all of the silent art forms: non- fiction, fiction, poetry, photography, painting and illus- tration. They became a unique popular art form, an excep- tional genre. The creative genius behind the family magazines was the genius of selection, arrangement and pro- duction. It was the skill required for financing, market- ing and distributing a product for which there was great public demand. Accordingly, a study of the family magazines must be conducted in terms of that kind of ability. This kind of study is also valid in the field of popular culture for, without business and production men, we would have no popular culture. The technological ad- vances of the past twenty years, especially, have forced speed and skill on the production of the pOpular arts. Those advances are considered in this study, as well as the ways in which the magazines responded to the technological challenge. The most obvious of those challenges is tele- vision. Because it has had such an impact on our society, television is the subject of the entire first section of this study. The Specific areas in which it rivaled the family magazines in the consumer market are detailed. We shall see that, in almost every instance, television had a marked advantage over them in reaching the American peOple. We shall also see, however, that from the consumer's point of View, television had relatively little to do with the death of the family magazines. The real threat of television lay in the area of media financing. The second section of this paper shows the nature of that threat, detailing the specific damage that TV did to the family magazines--and the damage was great indeed. That alone, however, does not explain what happened to LOOK, COLLIER'S and POST. All three lived healthy lives for some years after television had gained broad acceptance. TV did, on the other hand, have much to do with the shaping of a new generation of Americans and their basic media orientation. They, in turn, influenced the media choices of advertisers. The big publishers should have been in a position to anticipate this kind of shift, but were not. Instead, most of the magazine industry was controlled by editors, not businessmen. (Note that Time-Life, a company run chiefly by advertising experts, is still very much alive.) The publishers made a number of unfortunate decisions in the areas of expansion and circulation. These decisions occurred during times of rising costs and inflation, compounding the errors. This is the subject of the third chapter. Finally, many people have ascribed the deaths of the family magazines to changing times, explaining that these magazines simply outlived their utility for the con- sumer. The fourth chapter is devoted to an analysis of the unique relationship the family magazines had with the American people-—and at least one publisher misread this relationship, with severe consequences. We shall see that, while our society and technology have changed greatly, our basic values have not. Other things being equal, despite such changes the family magazines would still be on solid ground with the American public if our basic values were the determining factor. In sum, this is a study of the pOpular media, of the ways by which the popular arts get into the hands of the consumer. It analyses the forces which drove one medium from the marketplace, and it shows the tremendous influence of media trends on the popular arts. As the popular arts are understood to represent mass culture in America, an appreciation of this shift in media is par- ticularly important for an understanding of the conditions under which those arts are produced and appreciated. THE THREAT OF TELEVISION , "Whatever happened to the old family magazines? Where have they all gone?" The obvious, simplistic answer is, of course, "Television.” The one who asked the ques— tion is apt to nod his head in agreement, a little sadly, perhaps, and chalk up the deaths of the family magazines as another instance of "progress in the modern age." And there the matter ends, or seems to, for most people are well aware that television has had some sort of major impact on their world. This chapter is an examination of the impact TV has had on our society, and its consequences for the family magazines. Advertising is discussed in a later section, as its importance for this study is more financial than theoretical. Certainly, the rise of television in the United States has been Spectacular; it is a success story in the best American tradition, and it has all happened in the past twenty years. Before 1950, the Bureau of the Census didn't even concern itself with the number of TV house- holds. At first count, in 1950, they learned that only about 12% of American homes did have receivers. Five years later, 10 11 . . . in homes with television sets—-three quarters of all the families in the country-~more total time was spent watching television than in any other single activity except sleep. That includes the business of making a living: A.C. Nielsen Co., marketing research organization, comes up with the startling figure of 2.6 billion person-hours spent every week watching the screen, 1.9 billion hours in all economic pursuits.7 7William Y. Elliott, Television's Impact on Ameri- can Culture (East Lansing, Mich.: Mich. State UnIVersity Press, 1956), 341. Fourteen years later, in 1969, the figures showed that: . . . 95 percent of all U.S. households have tele- vision sets, and three of every ten of these house- holds have more than one set. The number of sets in these households is almost 80 million, or 30 percent more than the total number of households. In the last ten years multi-set households increased ten times as fast as television house- holds. From May 1959 to January 1969 total house- holds rose from 51.5 to 61.3 million (a 20 percent increase); television households from 44.5 to 58.3 million (a 30 percent increase); and multi-set households from 4.4 to 18.0 million (a 300 percent increase).8 8Advertising Research Foundation, Inc., National Survey of Televisipprets in U.S. Households-—January, 1969 (New York: Advertising Research Foundation, Inc., I969), 2. Many of the reasons for this remarkable increase will have definite bearing on the story of the family magazines. Television had a number of specific advantages over other media at the outset. The first of these, and one of the most important, was simple novelty. New experiences, regardless of category, have traditionally attracted the American people. Novelty does not, of course, account for 12 the continuing popularity of television as a communicative channel, but it does offer one explanation for the initial impetus for TV sales. The makers of television sets were on firm ground with their first efforts, and they knew it. As early as 1944, TV industry people were enthusiastic: There isn't one person in the United States who won't be affected by television. It's going to change our living habits, what we do with our evenings, how we keep in touch with the rest of the world.9 9Robert E. Lee, Television: The Revolution (New York: Essential Books, 1944), 6. No doubt, one of the effects of World War II was to increase the global awareness of the average American. Under the aegis of the armed forces our men traveled to all parts of Europe, Asia and North Africa, as well as to the South Seas. Back home, anxious families followed their men via newspapers, radio and newsreels. Men returning to the U.S. in the mid~40s brought with them tales of the new things and places they had seen. As part of this increasing global awareness among Americans, the need for visual experiences grew rapidly. Witness the phenomenal growth and development of the movie industry . . . as well as the rapid growth of related visual forms: the home movie and the slide projector. Early television sets were far from perfect--big, veneered boxes with tiny, yellow screens--but their magic was enough 13 to draw every child in the neighborhood, whenever parents would allow them to intrude on the neighbors' privacy. TV was better than the Saturday afternoon serials at the local theater! Youngsters watched Buffalo Bob do his routines with Howdy Doody with the same rapture they had formerly given the cliffhangers that followed the regular matinee features. And television was (or seemed to be) free! The same was true for adults: . . . maybe you don't have any connections with the new industry. Maybe you happen to be a school— teacher, or a tool maker, or a business man. Or a housewife, or a Clark Gable fan. Life will never be the same after that Saturday afternoon when your radio serviceman pokes his head in the side-door and says: "The antenna's all rigged up now. Just snap on the switch and adjust that brightness con- trol. This little receiver will bring 'em in like a Rembrandt painting!" That day the world will move into your living room. You're Mohammed. The mountain comes to you.10 10Lee, 8. To be sure, it mattered little what came across the air waves; it was enough to have this miracle in the home. The technically minded (and those especially taken with the miracle) even spent hours fiddling with the controls while the screen held no more than a test pattern. Some channels, in an effort to insure the consumer's conversion from radio, even broadcast music with their test patterns. Moreover, television bore no resemblance, linear or otherwise, to the drudgery that most middle—class Americans and their children were forced to perform in their 14 occupations and schools during working hours. Until tele- vision, our basic environment was linear; it was . . . the environment imposed by the medium of print itself: one word after the other, one sentence after another, one paragraph after another, one page after another; one thing at a time in a logical, connected line. The effects of this linear thinking are deep and influence every facet of a literate society such as our own. 1 llHoward Luck Gossage, "You Can See Why the Mighty Would Be Curious,” in Gerald Emanuel Stearn, MuLuhan: Hot & Cool (New York: The Dial Press, Inc., 1967), 22. For many viewers, perhaps subconsciously, early television offered a dual form of escapism. Viewers were escaping the mundane, everyday world via the diversions presented on the screen. More importantly, they were escaping their linear world and its connotations by means of the screen itself. By later standards, many of the things presented on early television were shoddy, but peOple liked them as much for how they were presented as for what they were. . . . McLuhan does not think that the program con- tent of television has anything to do with the real changes TV has produced; no more than whether a book is trashy or a classic has anything to do with the process of reading it. The basic message of television is television itself, the process, just as the basic message of a book is print. As McLuhan says, "The medium is the message."12 12Gossage, 23. What viewers saw was probably not as important as the fact that viewers were able to see it. This is still 15 true; the content of television programs depends very heavily on the audial, not the visual presentation. If one had to choose, during most of the hours in which television stations broadcast, and cer— tainly during most of the daylight hours, between having the sound on one's set turned off and having the picture turned off, it would somehow make more sense, be more useful, more intelligible, to have the picture off, because what you have so much of the time on television is static (almost still) pictures of people sitting down and talking. Some- times they are seated in front of a quiz-show con- test board, sometimes around a table, interviewing each other, or telling amusing stories of their early careers in show business, or of why it's important to have a manned—bomber program, or of cold fronts coming in from Canada. Even the soap operas, which stretch on for hours, seem to con— sist mostly of people sitting down and talking to one another. "George, you're trying to tell me something? . . . Yes, Beth. It's about Harry and Jane . . . You mean, Ingrid knows? . . . Not every— thing. But when I saw Malcolm outside the plane- tarium, he said--Ma1colm? I thought you were going to meet Fred.” Et cetera.l 13Michael J. Arlen, Living Room War (New York: The Viking Press, 1966), 23-24. Another big impetus for television's popularity came from the traditional American fascination with pos— sessions, and the status that possessions bring with them. Thus, as soon as television became at all dependable, it was a ”must” for every middle—class American household. This was true despite the typically high initial investment (somewhere over $300), the frequency of mechanical failure (both in the set and on the part of the broadcaster) and the difficulties and expenses entailed by repairs (TV servicemen, although frequently inept, were scarce). Just 16 as is generally the case with new-model automobiles, men debated the pros and cons of Motorola sets or Sylvania "halolight." The point of such debates, of course, was to let one's neighbors know that one was in possession of a new receiver. There grew a whole psychology involved with the matter of having the children go next door to watch TV because they didn't have one at home. Certainly, no one ever went next door to read magazines! And, of course, the arrival of the set (for whatever reason), carried an obli- gation to use it. Definite family behavior patterns are a result of this obligation, at least in terms of the uses to which leisure time is put. Television has so firmly established itself over the past decade that it can now be considered a ritual experience. A most important characteristic of any ritual is that it be performed always in exactly the same way: variation is contrary to the whole idea of controlling processes or participating in rites by observing systematic regularities. TV, of course, labors under the delusion that it is supposed to offer some originality along with the familiar formulas, so that it is less than effi- cacious as pure ritual. But it has discovered that too much originality loses audience, directly contrary to what might be expected if the primary appeal of the programs was to our delight in what is different. And as a consequence, writers, pro- ducers, and actors are properly wary of straying too far afield. Far-out programs appeal only to the small fringe of the intelligentsia, the minute proportion of the public who watch the educational channels. Ritualized quiz shows, comedy hours, and the perennial encounter of the hero with the 17 forces of evil are always "safer" . . . that is, they appeal more steadily to more people.14 l4Richard Carpenter, "Ritual, Aesthetics, and TV," Journal of Popular Culture (Fall, 1969), 253. For all of these reasons television became firmly en- trenched in the average, middle-class, American home. What specific effect did the new arrival have on the magazine reading habits of the family? Many surveys have been conducted, with varying results. A look at some and at their conclusions does not yield what one might expect. The first thing to consider is the television buyer and his characteristics. In all probability, he was a man comfortably well-off, for early TV receivers were far more expensive than they are today. He was probably above average in education, and a fairly heavy reader, since most of the surveys taken in the 1950s show that the early TV buyer also utilized other media. For example, a study made in Atlanta, Georgia in 1951, . . . showed the TV owners to be heavy readers. About half read three magazines or more; only a third of the non-television group read as many.15 15Leo Bogart, The Age of Television: A Study of Viewing Habits and the Impact of Television on American Life (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1956), (Stewart Study), 133. In fact, the TV buyer was probably a magazine subscriber. One survey, taken in 1950, showed that ". . . 69% of the 18 television owners were subscribing to four magazines or more, compared with 52% of the non-owners."l6 l6BOgart, 132. Another source, sponsored by the National Broadcasting Company and conducted by Thomas Coffin in 1952, showed the "all or none" tendency in media decisions by consumers: TABLE l.--Heavy interest in television reflects heavy interest in all media.* Number of Non-TV Media Per Cent of TV Owners in to Which There is Each Group Who Are Heavy Exposure Heavy Viewers None 35% One ' 40 Two 43 Three 46 Source: NBC MetrOpolitan New York Survey, 1952. *Bogart, 63. Chances were also good that the new TV buyer was the head of a household, a family man, had a telephone, and had more appliances in his home than did those without TV. This brief profile of the early TV buyer is necessary to put into perspective the following tables dealing with the effect of TV ownership on reading habits. TABLE 2.-—Magazine read 19 ing time (per issue) in TV and non-TV homes.* Magazine TV Owners Non-Owners Collier's 1 hr. 24 min. hr. 34 min. Life , 1 hr. 8 min. hr. 24 min. Post 1 hr. 25 min. hr. 58 min. Look 1 hr. 4 min. hr. 13 min. Average 1 hr. 12 min. hr. 29 min. Source: W. R. Simmons National Survey, *Bogart, 134. TABLE 3.--Time spent reading magazines by owners and non— owners.* Minutes per Person per Day TV Owners Non-Owners Age l8~29 30-39 40-49 50+ Income $ 100-3,000 $3,001-4,000 $4,001—5,000 $5,001+ Education Grammar School Some High School Completed High School College 12 12 10 8 7 10 11 15 5 8 12 18 17 15 15 13 12 12 17 22 13 17 24 Source: NBC Metropolit *Bogart, 135. an New York Survey, 1952. 20 We should note several things about these statistics. The actual reading time difference between owners and non- owners is not very large; it averages seventeen minutes. Secondly, seventeen minutes is only slightly more than half the time it takes to watch a typical television program . . and it is reasonable to assume that early TV owners watched more than one thirty—minute program a day. Coffin also learned that reading time among upper-income TV owners tended to increase after the novelty of set ownership had worn off.17 This was not true with lower-income l7Bogart, 135. owners, perhaps because they were not as accustomed to reading.18 Notice, too, that the magazine that suffered 18Bogart, 136. the most (33 minutes), THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, was the magazine that carried the highest percentage of fiction. This suggests that the reading of fiction was affected more by TV than the reading of other kinds of material. According to Bogart, There are two noteworthy changes: (1) There is a striking decrease in the amount of fiction carried by all types of publications. This parallels the developments in the book field. . . . (2) Magazines with a special informational character or function, like farming publications, homemaking magazines, or POPULAR SCIENCE and its competitors, are be- coming more specialized. They all appear to be devoting less space to extraneous matters and more to their central editorial subjects. 21 Television, like radio or the movies, competes directly with magazines and books as a source of fantasy and of dramatic identification and excite- ment. It is no wonder that, since the war, maga- zines have steadily reduced the amount of fiction which they carry. This is only in part due to the strong diet of TV drama on which the magazine— reading public daily feeds. It also reflects the increased popularity of the inexpensive paper-bound book. To meet both these threats, magazines have become more and more specialized. Yet taken altogether the changes in content parallel the trends in circulation for magazines of different types and they are exactly the sort of changes which the competition might have influenced.19 19Bogart, 140-141. We can see, then, that television's intrusion on consumers' use of leisure time cut directly into the amount of time devoted to reading family magazines. 833 two of the magazines under consideration, POST and LOOK, survived more than a decade after television became wide-spread. Therefore, the time factor alone does not explain the deaths of the family magazine. The family magazines were, however, the hardest hit of all the magazines, largely because of their lack of specialization. Since television is primarily an entertainment medium, with most of its programming time devoted to drama of one sort of another, it might be ex- pected that those magazines which would suffer most from its inroads would be those which are primarily entertaining rather than informational in character. A breakdown of circulation figures for magazines of various types indicates that this is indeed so. The smallest gains were recorded by the great general weeklies and bi-weeklies and the general monthlies, whose fiction, picture stories, human interest 22 articles and other features of broad appeal bear a generic resemblance to much television programming. The greatest gains in circulation were made by magazines which offer information more than enter- tainment, and particularly those with a definitely specialized character, which cater to tastes, interests and needs which television, because of its very massive character, cannot possibly provide.20 20Bogart, 139. It seems that TV capitalized on the experiences of the family magazines in this area. Many of the traditional POST favorites, for example, appeared in one form or another on the TV screen. Situation comedies, travelogues, family dramas, all in their stock form, still fill most of the "prime time" hours. Just as the mass magazines had supplanted the Novel of Manners as escapist fare, television began to supply an endless stream of situation comedies, horse operas, and detective stories to entertain the audience the POST claimed as its own. Indeed, even "Hazel" became a TV show.21 21Michael Mooney, "The Death of the Saturday Evening_Post," Atlantic (November, 1969), 73. Even the most cursory examination of such TV shows as "Mayberry, R.F.D.,” "Green Acres" or "Gunsmoke" would demonstrate the sameness in content from week to week. This repetition of basic format is essentially the same formula that worked so well for POST with such continuing stories as William Hazlitt Upson's "Alexander Botts" series or Norman Reilly Rains's "Tugboat Annie." 23 Long before television became popular, its pro- ducers knew what TV fare would be. The short-story packs the maximum wallop in the smallest space. It's the hand—grenade of literature. It's based on a straight-line plot, driving to a single dramatic kicker. Short- story structure no doubt will be the basis of the television play. Out of it may come a literature for electronics whose potency compares with the best of the world's best drama.22 22Lee, 120-121. Intentional or not, this was a genuine usurpation of one of the roles held by the family magazines. The same thing happened, in time, to much other material of general interest that formerly reached the public through the family magazines. Of course, TV management's predictions were not always right: The idea that the public can ever become "saturated" with the talents of a genuinely popular entertainer is an exploded fallacy. On the contrary, the more the people get of a good article, the more they want. The saturation bug-a-boo vanishes. Studios and stars need not be afraid to display their talents before the iconoscope. For if those talents are great, they will be even more in demand after the broadcast is over.23 23Lee, 200. Eventually, even the charms of Sid Caesar's "Show of Shows" and Milton Berle paled, as did Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners" and "The Ed Sullivan Show." 24 The problem was not so much that television was a new medium, but that it was a new competitor in the field of family entertainment. According to Waples and Tyler, The more easily available a medium is, the more peOple will expose themselves to it. We know, for example that people are more likely to read the books within easy reach than they are to spend any time or effort searching for books in which they might be more interested.24 24D. Waples and R. W. Tyler, What People Want to Read About: A Study of Group Interests and a Survey of Problems in Adult Reading (Chicago: American Library Association and the University of Chicago Press, 1931), as quoted in Lazarsfeld and Kendall, Radio Listening in America (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1948), 13. This can be applied to the situation of the family maga- zines and the other media. Television is always readily available, once a set is purchased and maintained in Operating condition. On the contrary, a magazine must be obtained either through the mails or through newsstand purchase. A weekly magazine, once read, is usually of no real value to the subscriber; he is forced to wait for the next issue before he can read more in that medium. This reinforces the TV habit. Moreover, television is more accessible to more people at a time than a magazine. TV solves the problem of entertaining a whole family at once. Magazines did little to solve the age-old family problem of what to do with evenings and weekends. They did not answer the 25 questions, "Where shall we go?" and "What shall we do?" Television did. . . . the family who lived across the alley behind us acquired their Aladdin's treasure-trove, a Philco with a ten-inch screen. For weeks we re- sisted their invitations. But finally the lure of Milton Berle overcame us. We had to see for ourselves if what we had heard about that maniac was true. Just before Milton Berle entered their home, Pete, Jessie and Harlow performed their evening rituals. Pete put on a fresh shirt, Jessie put on a fresh pot of coffee and Harlow put his home- work out of sight under the sofa. They were ex- cellent hosts. They gave us the most comfortable seats, they turned off any lamp which dared to be reflected by their magic screen and midway through the show they served vanilla ice cream topped with Pete's favorite plum preserves.2 25Tedd Thomey, The Glorious Decade (New York: Ace Books, 1971), 9. Not only was television family entertainment, it was a special occasion! Now, twenty years later, it is hard to imagine anyone putting on a clean shirt to watch televi— sion. 4 Perhaps one of the things that eased the shock for the family magazines was the relatively limited programming in the early days of TV. At first, there were large blocks of time in the middle of the day when nothing was broadcast except an occasional test pattern. And, for about three years at the end of the 405, the government placed a ban on new station licenses. Many experts, in fact, were con- vinced that TV could share in the market without hurting other media. Alfred Sanford, Director of the Bureau of 26 Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers Associa- tion, had this to say: If radio was considered a "dead" medium with the arrival of television, so were newspapers when radio bloomed on the horizon. After fifteen years of falling revenues, the newspaper medium was suddenly rediscovered, just as this survey (Politz) may contribute to the rediscovery of radio. What appears to be true is a rather fundamental law that should not have to be proved again in our business lives. Rather than one medium being displaced or eclipsed by another, a medium that enjoys a special and exclusive usefulness can never die. 6 26Alfred Sanford, as quoted in Max Wylie, Clear Channels (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1955), 83. Some observers of the media remained convinced that there was no real reason to regard television as a threat. Perhaps the best proof that the effect of broadcasting on other media has mostly been in- direct is that newsmen in the different media feel very little competition between each other. True there is the occasional "row" over the grant- ing of facilities to television or radio or news— papers that the others are, for that moment, denied. But on the whole there is the awareness that the ”customers" look to their newspapers or their television for different kinds of service. The realisation that people will continue to buy newspapers even if they have seen the first film of the occasion the previous evening on television is no more than the realisation that the two media are different, each with their own advantages and digadvantages in information transfer. Indeed there are now many small, daily signs that televi- sion and radio and the newspapers are reaching a state of symbiosis, each increasing the interest of their audience in the other media.27 27David Wilson, The Communicators and Society (Oxford: Pergamon Press, Ltd., 1968), 69-70. 27 This argument, however, applied only to news coverage, and said nothing about entertainment. The same attitude, how- ever, was prevalent among the family magazines. The follow— ing COLLIER'S editorial, written in the very early days of television, is indicative: Entertainment Is Here to Stay SOMETIMES WE SUSPECT that we may be a little bit old-fashioned. For instance, when people ask us, "What do you think of television?" we have to answer that we think about television a good deal the way we did ten years ago. On March 18, 1939, Collier's published an article which foretold what television entertain— ment would be like and forecast television's troubles with remarkable accuracy. By changing future tenses to present we could use most of it today. The forecast of troubles didn't keep us from predicting a bright future for video. We called it "a brand—new form of entertainment . . . that will take its place among the lively arts." That's where it seems to have arrived today. A year after this article Collier's asked in an editorial, "Who Is Public Enemy No. 1?" On the evidence then at hand we nominated the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC at that time was sticking a long nose into television and piously warning the public not to buy any sets just yet. Wait until they're better, said the FCC, the present ones may become obsolete. The editorial speculated on what might have happened to the automobile and radio industries if some federal busybody had touted the public off their early products. It hazarded a guess that maybe 1,000,000 instead of 30,000,000 Ameri- cans would have owned cars in 1940, while a corporal's guard would be picking up bad programs on primitive radio sets. We hope that this editorial in Collier's may have contributed something toward as healthy and unhampered a growth of television as the war per- mitted. 28 Since 1940 we have published several more articles on the various aSpects of television. But nothing, including the advent of Howdy Doody, has altered our basic opinion of this still-new medium, from what it was ten years ago. We still think that television has its own place among the lively arts, and we don't hold with the dire warnings of what it is going to do to the rest of them. We recall other such gloomy prophecies. But we notice that people are still listening to live music and phono- graphs and radios. ‘They're still going to plays and movies and baseball games. They're still reading books and magazines and neWSpapers. Even with television to look at, we believe they will keep on doing all these things. America's capacity to absorb varied enter- tainment seems to be limitless. And the peOple who are doing a good job in their own branch of entertainment always seem to be too busy to com- plain that some new competitor is going to des- troy them.28 28COLLIER'S editorial, July 2, 1949, 74. Unfortunately for the family magazines, it suddenly appeared that they no longer enjoyed "a Special and ex- clusive usefulness." A generalization becomes clear: when two media compete for the same market, the one that is most attractive and most accessible will win. Television competed with the family magazines in still another way. TV entered the market as a major con- sumer of short stories, plays and general-interest scripts. Maintaining an "average" (level of program content) is something of a trick in itself, when a major station must program almost 5,000 hours a year. (In New York, with seven stations, that means some 30,000 hours of different programming.) [gig] Contrast that with radio, which has a similar time problem but a vast library of recorded music to fall back on, and a pattern of year-in-year-out 29 formulas. Or better, with movies or the stage, which must come up with products similar to TV's. Hollywood needs to create only 600 hours of finished film a year; the stage only 150 hours. TV chews up material at an incredible rate. The story department of one network goes through each year over 15,000 books, plays, magazine stories, scripts and outlines. In search for material, TV is branching out directly into many of the arts it encompasses-~video programers see it becoming "unquestionably the greatest patron of the arts in history."29 29Elliott, 343. At least one of the family magazines, the SATURDAY EVENING POST, considered capitalizing on the new medium in these terms. Stuart Rose, longtime fiction editor of the SEP [sic], had extensive talks with the William Morris AgEHcy, and worked up tentative plans for a 26-week television series dramatizing POST short stories. The format called for the author to appear first and explain how he came to write the story, and what he meant. Morris liked the idea because it would bring name writers to television, both in person and through their works. The POST fiction vaults held enough material to keep all three networks running indefinitely. Rose saw the idea as a triple-header: a way to make money for Curtis, and Curtis sorely needed money at the time; a means of promoting the magazine's fiction content, traditionally its strong— est selling point; and (not least) [sic], a definite way of improving television programmihg, which was an infant wasteland rapidly growing to vastness. "Morris, a top agency, agreed to produce the pilot film at no cost to us," Rose said. “Of course, they wanted a share of the profits, but it was still a hell of a good idea. "I took the idea to the president (MacNeal). He said, in effect, 'Why split with Morris? They are OUR stories. Let's take all the money.‘ So manage— ment handed the project to some obscure Washington producer and spent a million bucks for something we could have had for free, from a top agency. What 3O happened? The whole thing flopped, and Curtis received nothing. It died. Not a dime."30 30Joseph C. Goulden, The Curtis Caper (New York: Pu~nam's Sons, 1965), 79. Curtis also examined the possibility of joining television in news coverage. I (Culligan) made up a complete dummy of the pro- jected CBS NEWS-POST, even using the CBS eye in the logo, and wrote scores of pages on operations, including marketing and financial information, to support the logic of the deal. . . . Paley (of CBS) listened carefully, even intently, when the CBS NEWS-POST was shown. I thought he was hooked. Not so. When I concluded my presentation, he took some time to talk quietly with Stanton; then he announced that he was not in favor of the idea because-~and these are his exact words-—"The magazine business is too hard." [sic] He went on to say that the same time and money—In- vested in broadcasting, Broadway shows, or "even sports" would return far greater dividends.31 31Matthew J. Culligan, The Curtis-Culligan Story (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1970), 124. While there appears to be no evidence that this competition from other media seriously hampered magazines in their search for material to print, it seems reasonable to assume that the addition of a wealthy competitor to the market would tend to drive up prices. At least two of the magazines under consideration in this study (the only two that regularly printed fiction), POST and COLLIER'S, for years had the reputation of paying modest fees to writers; the prestige of the magazines had been reckoned as part of 31 the writer's compensation. Now this was no longer neces- sarily true. Far more important than this kind of competition is the competition provided by the inherent nature of the media ~themselves. According to Marshall McLuhan, the media are parts of our environment, of our socio-economic-political climate. They are parts of the world to which we are forced to respond, often subconsciously, in.living our daily lives, and we respond most quickly to those stimuli which our systems ingest most readily. In McLuhan's View our environment has changed subtly but steadily in the last few decades; the spatial world has insinuated itself, un- noticed, into the world we once perceived as linear. McLuhan's is not a profound prediction for the world of communication; rather it is a statement of what is already true but unrecoqnized. We live already in a spatial environment which cultural lag deludes us into thinking of as linear. Thus McLuhan's "medium is the message," that is, the means by which a message is transmitted is more important than the message itself. His statement goes a long way in explaining the demise of the family magazines. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are ex- tensions of some human faculty—-psychic or physical.32 32Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Message (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), 26. 32 And again, ”The book is an extension of the eye."33 33McLuhan and Fiore, 34—37. If McLuhan is right, the influence of TV on the popular arts is far more subtle than anyone had formerly supposed. In television there occurs an extension of the sense of active, exploratory touch which involves all the senses simultaneously, rather than that of sight alone. You have to be "with" it. But in all electric phenomena,the visual is only one component in a complex interplay. Since, in the age of information, most transactions are managed electrically, the electric technology has meant for Western man a considerable drop in the visual component, in his experience, and a corresponding increase in the activity of his other senses. Television demands participation and involve- ment in depth of the whole being. It will not work as background. It engages you. Perhaps this is why so many peOple feel that their identity has been threatened. This charge of the light brigade has heightened our general awareness of the shape and meaning of lives and events to a level of ex- treme sensitivity. It was the funeral of President Kennedy that most strongly proved the power of television to invest an occasion with the character of corporate participation. It involves an entire population in a ritual process. (By comparison, press, movies, and radio are mere packaging devices for consumers.) [sic] In television, images are projected at you. Yafiflare the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point. This creates a sort of inwardness, a sort of reverse perSpective which has much in common with Oriental art. 4 34McLuhan and Fiore, 125. Of course, as we become increasingly accustomed to the TV environment, our engagement with it becomes less demanding. For example, in many homes today it is customary for the mother to use TV as a kind of babysitter while she works 33 around the house, sleeps, etc. TV, then, becomes a major part of her children's environment at a much earlier age than it did for someone who grew up in the 19408. TV is in the child's frame of reference; he does not have to think about how to handle it. By the time he is old enough for such thinking, TV will be an accomplished fact, a part of his perception of the world. His response to TV is instinctive. Well, what has happened? McLuhan's theory is that this is the first generation of the electronic age. He says they are different because the medium that controls their environment is not print—~one thing at a time, one thing after another-~as it has been for five hundred years. It is television, which is everything happening at once, instantaneously, and enveloping. 35 Gossage, 22. In content, television is inherently broader than the broadest in scope of the magazines. It has to be. The broadcast media in the United States reach and speak to vast numbers of the population. Because they cut across all lines of geography and social class, they must deal in universal and symbols rather than with those which are peculiar to any region (as newspapers do) or to any social group (as magazines do) [sip].36 36Bogart, 24. This breadth of scope causes television to take on an "official" character. Precisely because television and radio are uni- versal in their symbolism and penetration, they 34 have a sacrosanct and "official" aura, to an even greater extent than other mass media like magazines and newspapers.37 37Bogart, 25. If the linear media were the official spokesmen for earlier generations, spatial media are the official spokes- men for those born after about 1950. And the period follow— ing World War II, we should remember, was the largest "baby boom" in history. The effect this shift had on the family magazine was subtle and intangible. What it really affected was the choice-making mechanism of the prospective consumer. Because of TV's "environmentalization," the natural choice, the first choice for someone of the new generation is a spatial medium (TV) over a linear medium (magazines). By his very makeup, he is prone to favoring TV; the choice he makes is largely subconscious. With each additional generation, then, the magazine format becomes less attractive. A second, less important inducement for the con- sumer to opt for TV is its attendant glamour. Because the personalities of the broadcast media are universally known, they are thought of as famous, important, and powerful. This gives the entire industry a special aura of glamour in the eyes of the audience.38 38Bogart, 26. 35 This means that the cathartic experience via vicarious identification is made more accessible for a viewer than for a reader. McLuhan goes so far as to suggest that this leads to identity crises for some viewers (Cf. pp. 31-32 above). At any rate, with TV our association with famous people becomes more complete, more commonplace, as it cannot with print. Another clear advantage that TV has over magazines is its illusion of realism. The broadcast media carry a special illusion of reality. The viewer of a television program or the listener to a radio broadcast is hearing and seeing something which is actually taking place. At a dramatic spectacle, at the movies, or in reading, the audience is in some measure aware of the conventions of the craft. It knows that the film was made at some time in the past and that it was Spliced and put together under careful direction. It knows that the writer's words have been edited and set in print.39 39Bogart, 27. This, of course, is true to varying degrees. Some tele- vision programs carry with them a great sense of immediacy and truth, such as Sports events; others, however, demand great suspension of disbelief, such as situation comedies. And, of course, some things Simply do not broadcast well. I don't for a moment suggest that the networks Should stop showing film of men in combat-- although I can't say I completely agree with people who think that when battle scenes are brought into the living room the hazards of war are necessarily made "real" to the civilian audience. It seems to me that by the same 36 process they are also made leSS "rea1"-—diminished, in part, by the physical size of the television screen, which, for all the industry's advances, still shows one a picture of men three inches tall shooting at other men three inches tall, and trivialized, or at least tamed by the enveloping cozy alarums of the household."10 40Arlen, 8. With very few exceptions, films taken of actual war have remained distant and largely impersonal. No doubt, this is the result of the networks' attempts to keep certain minimum standards of taste.41 41When Walter Cronkite of CBS News showed film footage of dead North Vietnamese being carried off in a landing net by a helicopter, many viewers were enraged by the "bad taste" of Cronkite's move. But, of course, war is full of "bad taste," and this was one of the very few instances of genuine viewer participation in war films. There remains between the TV producer and the viewer a certain amount of insulation. A major reason for this distance is the neutral character of broadcast media in general. ‘ Compared with newspapers, magazines and books, broadcasting tends to be noncontroversial. There is less room for the expression of extreme or deviant opinion. Of course conflicting VieWpoints on political and other subjects are aired on dis- cussion and interview programs. But the over-all character of the medium encourages the adoption of conventional, conservative, or popular Views. 2Bogart, 36. 37 This too is a natural advantage most magazines hold over television. But it is not the case of the family maga- zine; because of its need for broad appeal, the family magazine was almost as limited in its choice of material as television. Television was better equipped, as a spatial medium, to overcome this handicap than were the family magazines. The reason for this is that television can create an illusion of intimacy. Because the audience projects itself and its wishes into what it hears and sees, the broadcast media can create the illusion that their performers or announcers communicate directly to the people on the receiving end.43 43Bogart, 29. TV has been able to accomplish this illusion even though most viewers know that the things they see are generally video—taped. Perhaps because of the "live" nature of most early programs, perhaps because TV is seen in the home rather than in a theater, TV maintains an immediacy that movies do not enjoy. Movies and plays are for most Ameri- cans more conscious art forms than television appears to be; that is, we are more aware of being entertained by movies and plays. A final, and very important advantage that tele- vision enjoys in reaching the average American derives from the attitude that the typical viewer brings to the set with 38 him. While TV viewing is far more engaging than reading (see above, pp. 31-32), it is essentially a passive activity. Listening and viewing are passive. To consider radio listening or television viewing a pastime is to imply that it requires little effort on the part of the audience, compared with reading. Its meanings are manifest and easily absorbed. This is reflected in the receptiveness with. which the audience takes in the broadcast message. Hadley Cantril and Gordon Allport note that "the listener seems as a rule to be friendly, uncritical and well—disposed toward what he hears. . . ." The plethora of platitudes reaching our ears during the day would be unbearable if we encountered them in print.44 44Bogart, 34. Comparatively, magazine readers bring with them to their medium far more critical attitudes than do TV viewers. This is due, in part, to the increased effort involved in magazine reading, and is partially due, no doubt, to the way we have been conditioned to behave toward linear media. As Shown earlier, this conditioning is especially true for those reared under the aegis of television. Why, one might ask, didn't radio go the same way as the family magazines? After all, radio is subject to many of the magazines' limitations. Radio is more engaging than magazines, but definitely less engaging than televi- sion is. There are at least two explanations for radio's continuing success. First, radio is an audial medium, 39 not a visual one. One can listen to radio and read maga— zines simultaneously.45 45For a more complete discussion, see Wylie, 82. Moreover, radio is a portable medium--much more so than television; we can listen as we drive our cars, sun our- selves at the beach, clean the house, etc. It is inconceivable that television should be permitted to be put in front of the driver in auto- mobiles; the car radio is probably permanently established. It accounted for at least half of the sets sold in 1955.46 46Elliott, 4. Some people did, in fact install television sets in their cars, although the market for auto-sets was never really large. Law required that the sets be installed in the back seat, away from the driver's line of vision; space limita- tions in the back seats of most cars make such installation impractical. And television, broadcasting on the Shorter, flatter FM waves, offered none of the entertainment value for long—distance travelers that the longer AM waves could offer. Secondly, and most importantly, radio changed its role to adapt to the new competition. The great popularity of television has been largely at the expense of radio. Radio listening has dropped off sharply since the television set became a fixture in American living rooms. In 1949 the typical American family had its radio on for an 40 average of about four and a half hours a day; now it is approximately two hours a day. In that same period-—when the TV set was becoming a fixture-— the family's television viewing jumped from almost nothing to more than four hours a day, a figure which has increased to about six hours. Since television came along, the circumstances under which peOple listen to radio and their pur- pose in listening to it seem to have changed. Out-of-home radio listening apparently has in- creased, to judge from the greater sale of auto- mobile and portable sets. Unlike television, which requires fairly close attention, radio can be heard with the so—called third ear. There is some evi- dence that people now use radio as a personal com— panion while driving to work or doing the housework or reading, whereas they watch television as a member of a family group. Having lost to televi- sion its preeminence as an entertainment medium, radio appears to have become somewhat more selective in seeking its audience. It now beams its programs at little publics within the population, as with its disc-jockey shows aimed at teen-agers. Despite its many losses to television, radio is still far from dead. Although listening has fallen off, manufacturers turned out more than one and a half times as many radio sets in 1957 as they did in 1949. By 1964, Americans owned more than 185 million radio sets. For most families, radio is a necessity, not the luxury that television is some— times considered. And even in the homes of avid television fans, radio continues to perform a use- ful role. When television fails to carry an event of great interest, people still rely on radio, as when 12,225,000 families tune in on a championship boxing match.47 47Peterson, et al., 127. The producers of radio Shows were quick to perceive that the market was ended for programs which demanded close attention. Programs such as "The Shadow," "One Man's Family," "The Fat Man" and "Gangbusters" all required alert listeners. Many of their plots were fairly complex, with reversals of the action and a kind of "audial 41 montage"——a Shifting back and forth between scenes happen— ing simultaneously in different places. Radio also leaned heavily on the audience's willing suspension of disbelief; it could in no way compete with the easy realism of TV, even in such simple matters as footfalls, a starting engine or a closing door. Producers saw radio's new function as a kind of "filler" for the times during or between listeners' other activities. Note that even the afternoon "soaps," the last close-attention programs to die (somewhere in the early 19605), have been replaced by rock music, capsulated news, and other brief communications. Some religious groups and organizations such as The Salvation Army still sponsor the old kind of plot-derived radio Show. Most of these shows are heard in "Bible—belt" areas, but northern stations occasionally carry them at odd times.48 48For example, a Lansing, Michigan station carries a spiritually based Show as a "public service." The Show is aired on Sunday mornings at 5:30 a.m.! Obviously, there is little demand for these Shows. What radio did, then, was to Shift its role. The transition period was sticky . . . and radio even carried advertisements for radio. Stan Freeburg did a series of comedy routines pointing out that radio, through sound effects, could do things that TV could not. Sarah Vaughn sang the question and answer: "Who listens to radio? Just a hundred and fifty million people, that's all." The 42 family magazines, as linear media with relatively fixed patronage, Simply were not in the position to make such a role shift. This chapter has been an examination of the threat TV brought the family magazines in competition for the mass audience. Most consumers were no doubt aware of the tremendous appeal of the new medium; most were probably coqnizant of the rapid rise in TV sales. Some members of the mass audience may even have noticed that television offered direct competition to the family magazines for the attention of the average consumer, although those who noticed were apparently few. Most of the people who turned their attention to the new medium never thought about the subtleties of the appeal of television. McLuhan's state- ment, "The medium is the message,‘ is basic in understand- ing the shift of popular culture media from linear to Spatial. AS a pOpular medium the family magazine was made obsolete by television, particularly in terms of the youth market. It is clear, however, that magazine readership remained high; subscription lists were not suddenly deci- mated; and that the "all or none" media theory remained valid even during the days when TV held the advantage of novelty. Other things being equal, the entry of a new competitor in the field of mass communication would not 43 necessarily have resulted in the failure of the family magazines. Other things were not equal, however. We must remember that, from the producers' and advertisers' points of View, the popular arts are commodities, and as the following chapters show, the real threat of television to the other media was in terms of its value as commodity. In order to understand that value, we need next to examine from an economic point of View the market for which the mass media were competing. II MEDIA FINANCING: ADVERTISING [The American brand of capitalism has traditionally been relatively free of restraints and subsidies, par— . ticularly in the domestic market. Our domestic economy has been a more or less open supply and demand Situation. To be successful, the producer of consumer goods must not only have on hand a supply of his goods (or the promise of supply); he must create the demand for them as well. Advertising is a chief tool in the creation of that demand. For many Americans, we have arrived at a point where suc- cess equals possessions. We sometimes see in LIFE or LOOK a double-page photograph of some family standing on the lawn among its possessions: station wagon, swimming pool, power cruiser, Sports car, tape recorder, television sets, radios, cameras, power lawn mower, garden tractor, lathe, barbecue set, sporting equipment, domestic appliances-~all the gleaming, grotesquely imaginative paraphernalia of its exist- ence. It was hard to get them on two pages, soon they will need four. It is like a dream, a child's dream before Christmas; yet if the members of the family doubt that they are awake, they have only to reach out and pinch something. The family seems pale and small, a negligible appendage, besides its possessions; only a human being would need to ask, "Which owns which?" We are fond of saying that 44 45 something-or-other is not just something-or-other but a "way of life"; this too is a way of life-- our way, the way.49 49Randall Jarrell, "A Sad Heart at the Super- market," in Jacobs, 101. Over the years Americans have invented various means by which to stimulate the sale of commodities-- sandwich boards, billboards, Space in newspapers and maga- zines, time on radio and television. And, over the years, the more successful of these means have become commodities in themselves. This chapter is an examination of both of these facets: the relative success of magazines, radio and television in promoting goods, and the media as producers' commodities. In other words, these media have two kinds of usefulness: usefulness to the consumer, and usefulness to the producer of consumer goods. To determine the advertis- ing success or failure of a medium, both kinds of utility must be considered. According to Roland Wolseley, Advertising is a sales tool intended to create immediate sales and a climate favorable to future sales. Before the advent of radio and television it was sufficient to Speak of printed selling, a definition still satisfactory for magaZine adver- tising, which differs from other forms in that it appears in a regularly issued bound pamphlet, gen— erally in more than one issue, and is representa- tional rather than functional. Readers are expected 46 only to examine the advertisement and possibly to clip a part of it, with a View to future purchase.5O 50Roland E. Wolseley, The Magazine World: An Introduction to Magazine Journalism (New York: Prentice— Hall, Inc., 1951), 150. With the exception of the words, "printed selling," the. definition applies to advertising in all three of the major media under consideration. A look at the development of these media Shows that each was once a leader in the adver- tising field; i.e., magazines dominated before radio; radio was first in the field before television; television eclipsed radio. Each still retains a large share of the money Spent by advertisers. Newspapers first occupied the central role in advertising, followed by magazines. The change from a class audience to a popular audience came to magazines about a half century later than it did to newspapers. The modern maga— zine of low price, popular appeal and large, national circulation emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century. By then such fruits of democracy as popular education had resulted in a potentially large reading audience which magazines could serve. Machines had freed man from many irk- some tasks and had given him the leisure time in which to read. The technological revolution had brought about the high-speed presses and other equipment which publishers needed to reach large audiences; a network of railroads had begun to permit distribution over a vast territory. But more than that, large-scale advertising was emerg- ing as manufacturers sought to sell their mass- produced products across the entire land, and the magazine became a national medium for reaching the 47 growing body of consumers with whom the producers wished to get in touch.51 51Peterson, et al., Mass Media, 45. As we know, magazine growth was steady in all areas, in- cluding advertising. This was true for the family maga- zines as well, reaching a peak in the late 19508 and early 1960s. In 1951, Wolseley noted, Except during wars and depressions, the magazine has not faltered financially in the past half cen- tury. Even in difficult times, this industry has suffered less than many others, for magazine reading becomes habitual and magazines can compete with more expensive activities as pastimes. Thus in the mid- twentieth century we find the magazine at its peak in number of publications and persons employed, cir- culation, distribution, and advertising revenue. 52Wolseley, 123. At the same time that magazine advertising was increasing in quantity, it was increasing in quality. The old, black and white advertisements on coarse stock were replaced first by Single—color, then by multi-color spreads on heavier and glossier stock. Use of photography increased, as well as the increased use of artists' reproductions of photographic quality. This progress followed technological developments, for example: A most dramatic piece of equipment for magazine printing is the giant Double X press used by the Curtis Publishing Company. It can produce five hundred thousand pages an hour in four or five 48 colors. Each hour it prints, dries, cuts, and folds twelve thousand five hundred forty-page sections.53 53Wolseley, 69. The family magazines, in particular, sought advertisements for high cost products, mostly durable goods such as major appliances, automobiles, clothing and farm equipment. They also wooed the producers of such perishables as softudrinks and razor blades (after about 1930, these perishables in— cluded liquor and tobacco). And they carried ads for services, too, such as insurance and the trucking industry. These were the advertisements of nationwide concerns; national magazines carried little local advertising. In similar fashion radio and television advertising grew as the media themselves grew. The growth of televi- sion advertising was so rapid that federally-set time limits were imposed in an effort to prevent saturation of broadcast time. There seems to be a correlation between the popularity of a medium and the amount of advertising it carries. Advertisers naturally want to reach the consumers of popular culture, for they are typically a group with money to spend. The popular media offer a natural avenue.} Temporarily setting aside the variations in advertising effectiveness of the various media, we note that the most popular medium would seem to be the best place for an advertiser to sell successfully. No doubt, this is true 49 in reverse: as a medium loses popularity, it loses advertising as well. (We Shall see the results of this kind of thinking later.) This approach is simplistic, however. Many items merit consideration in evaluating the utility of the reSpective media to advertisers and consumers. Some are quite obvious, some more subtle; each of them plays some role in determining the success of a medium in carrying the advertising message. The following paragraphs will deal with these considerations, offering comments on the position of the family magazine. A major consideration for the advertiser is the national distribution of an advertisement. All of the media are capable of such distribution, although the indi- vidual differences among them are worth noting. Magazines, eSpecially general magazines, are necessarily national in nature; that is, the same version of an issue reaches all parts of the country. It is possible to handle regional advertising by substituting pages, relevant to the area where the magazine is to be Shipped, but this is an ex- pensive practice and still provides only broad coverage. A clothier, for example, who wants to boost retail outlets in the midwest will have to list stores in Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, etc. Magazines cannot easily serve local advertisers, who gain little advantage from multi—million circulations. National magazines seek to offset 50 this disadvantage by printing names of local shops selling advertised merchandise and some- times distributing tie-in display racks or posters. But these are expensive palliatives. 54 54Wolseley, 154. Television, on the other hand, is capable of pro- viding advertising for either local or national consump- tion. This is due to the broad identity a channel derives from its network affiliation while, at the same time, it retains its local identity through independent programming. Certainly, networks provide broad coverage. AS television stations began to take form after World War II, their owners Scrambled to affiliate with the four national networks which dominated the industry. By the summer of 1955, there were 432 television stations, including 13 non-commercial educational stations. More than half of them were served by only three networks-~ABC, CBS, and NBC, And, in September of that year, control was further concentrated as the fourth major network, Du Mont, ceased Operations. . . . The three major networks in 1963 counted more than 600 TV stations among their affiliates.55 55Petersen, et al., Mass Media, 74. And, within that broad coverage, the advertiser can specific regions if he chooses. Similarly, radio is both local and national coverage. AS part of its role shift after the rise however, radio became increasingly local in nature. aim at in of TV, Anyone who listens to much radio can observe that, with the excep- tion of network news and special events, the bulk of radio 51 programming is done by individual stations. The major portion of radio advertising is made up of small spots for local businesses of all kinds-~pizzerias, auto-parts shops, dry cleaners, gas stations, etc. We can see, then, that magazines (especially of the general, family type) are at a disadvantage in all but national advertising. According to W. H. Mullen, director of the Magazine Advertising Bureau, (magazines) generate confidence and believability . . in the minds of their readers. Magazines were the first medium to guarantee certain products advertised in their pages. 56Wolseley, 152. In the past fifteen years, when many magazines, especially family magazines were failing or already gone from the scene, there was no real reason for the reader to believe that, because a product appeared in a magazine's pages, it was necessarily good. Originally, a part of the advantage of advertising a product in a magazine was that the maga- zine's good name and apparent solidarity served as an implicit recommendation of the product itself. Secondly, very seldom do we see the words "As advertised in LIFE" or similar Slogans any more. Nor do those words guarantee the product itself; they merely guarantee that the product will be the way the magazine represented it. The guarantee is on the part of the manufacturer of the product, not on the part of the magazine; the magazine does not assume 52 liability for broken toasters, bent egg-heaters or power- less vacuum cleaners. In some cases, a magazine issues a "Seal of Approval,’ but this does not constitute a guar- antee either; it means that the people from the magazine (who looked at the product and tested it found it to be satisfactory. Therefore, the magazine's "good name" is not an advantage to advertisers. Neither radio nor tele- vision offers any guarantees for the products it advertises. According to Wolseley, Magazines can provide a selective audience. An advertiser using newspaper, radio or television reaches a general audience. Through magazines he can reach the special group most likely to purchase his product or service. 57w61se1ey, 152. The family magazines, of course, were aimed at the general audience just as most evening television is. But the question here is one of selectivity: is the magazine better suited to reach specialized audiences than, say, TV? In most cases, the answer must be yes, as most modern magazines are fairly Specialized. Magazines such as HOT ROD or SPORTS CARS ILLUSTRATED appeal not to the general, car-buying public, but to auto hobbiests with Specialized knowledge and needs. It would hardly be economical to advertise racing carburetors or milled cam—shafts over television; the percentage of actual potential buyers in the audience would be extremely low at any time of day 53 (with the exception of Sponsoring Special, auto-oriented events, such as the Watkins Glen Grand Prix). Television does achieve some degree of selectivity through careful choice of time slots and program content. For example, producers of detergents have long known that their biggest customers are housewives--and that housewives favor after- noon serialized melodrama. Those shows, such as "Brighter Day" or "The Edge of Night," have become so closely iden- tified with their Sponsors that the entire genre is known widely as the Soap Opera," or merely, "The Soaps." Another argument in favor of magazine advertising is that Magazine advertising has greater permanence than any other form of advertising. Because the maga- zine is read at leisure, the reader accords longer attention to its message than that of advertising in the newspaper, which has a tone of urgency, change, and perishability. Radio and television rarely repeat their programs. Surveys made by magazine groups, such as MAB, show that magazines are still being read many weeks after publication.58 58Wolseley, 152. Much of this is still true. There is reason to believe that the reader of a magazine advertisement gives it longer attention than he does a TV commercial; he can look at it for as long as he wishes, while the TV commercial has an end. While that shows greater durability for magazine advertisements, it does not necessarily indicate greater "permanence."l Although TV Shows are not usually repeated 54 with their original sponsors, the Sponsors often use indie vidual commercials many times on a variety of shows. The "Man from Glad" (sandwich bags) may appear in identical form on such diverse shows as "Gunsmoke," "I Dream of Jeannie," "As the World Turns" and "The F.B.I." Therefore, magazine advertisements have no advantage on the basis of "permanence." In radio advertising, the same trend is evident. As radio has moved away from close-attention programs, the identification of a particular product with a particu- lar program has similarly waned. Radio no longer features "Paul LaValle and the Cities Service Band" or "Your Lucky Strike Hit Parade." Gone is the specific identification of a particular star with one product; for years Gene Autry was Sponsored by Wrigley's Gum; "Captain Midnight" was brought to us by Ovaltine, Jack Benny by Jell-O. Radio advertisements are now used much as TV'S are; the same, taped commercial is heard many times on a variety of Shows. Another advantage originally enjoyed by magazines over the other media was high quality. Advertising can be presented with greater crafts- manship by magazines than by other media, for they use better paper, color printing, and elaborate art work; and, having more time, they can achieve a greater degree of accuracy of presentation. About half the advertising in consumer magazines is in color.59 59Wolseley, 153. 55 These comparisons of magazines with other linear media are still valid. But they do not compare magazines with TV. Competition in the field of TV advertising has been fierce, and its technology has improved rapidly. Many of the best filming techniques are now used in TV commercials, such . 60 as montage and mov1ng cameras. 60Awards are given annually for the best advertise- ment technically, the most original idea, etc. For ' ' example, Mary Wells's agency won an award for the Alka , Seltzer "No matter what Shape (your stomach's in)" series.- Radio advertising, on the other hand, has not been pre- sented with the same kind of professionalism in presenta- tion. Most advertising is left in the hands of the station announcer or the disc-jockey, who is told to "be enthusias- tic." Only a comparatively few advertisers on radio go to the trouble of standardizing their advertisements. (One such is the Wrigley Co., with its oft-repeated "Refresh yourself, chew Wrigley's Spearmint Gum" jingle, a fairly inexpensive recording.) We need also to consider the situation of the small advertiser, the producer of small, low-cost items. Chances are that he does not need particularly elaborate advertise- ments, although he needs the benefits of advertising aS' much as the producer of larger goods. For him, television is not a viable option; the cost of a TV Spot is prohibi- tive, nor would current standards of taste allow airing of commercials for many small items which are highly personal 56 in nature. Radio, too, is unsuitable—-for his purposes for the same reason——it is hard to imagine a disc-jockey prais- ing a particular brand of contraceptive, for example. For years these advertisers turned to magazines. As late as 1960 POST still carried advertisements for "Futuro" abdomi- nal supports, "Gets«It"liquid corn remover and "Thum," a product to "discourage thumb sucking and nail biting. In 1964 and 1965 LOOK still featured a number of small ad- vertisements for products such as Lanacane, to "Break 'itch cycle' . . . stOp Skin itch, even membrane itch," "Listo" marking pencils, "Mosco" corn remover and "Preparation H" hemorrhoid treatment. The relative number of these tiny advertisements in LOOK did not change greatly between that time and the magazine's death, remaining at about one quarter of one page per issue. 1The only one of those advertisers to stay in that part of the magazine for those Six years was "Prepa— ration H." Competition for the advertising dollar among the media became increasingly fierce in the 19608. The answer of the big magazines to the threat of TV was to get as many readers as TV could Show in its Nielsen ratings: to fight numbers with numbers. As the numbers went up, so did the cost of paper and printing. Only very rich advertisers could afford to buy a page at $40,000. Smaller adver- tisers were closed out. The effects of the "numbers game" were synergistic and final.62 2Mooney, 8. 57 Production costs also continued to rise; this, too, affected the advertisers of small items. According to Wolseley, The most effective magazine advertising is too costly for advertisers who do not need elaborate presentation, as in multi-color. This particular drawback is intensified as production costs mount.63 63Wolseley, 153. Today, most of the small advertisers seem to have moved into newspapers (many of them were there all along) and into the kind of magazines offered by newspapers as Sunday supplements. Newspapers are far better able to handle many small advertisers at prices they can afford. A good advertisement must be able to attract atten- tion. Radio and especially TV have a marked advantage over magazines in this instance, as they are dynamic in nature, while magazines are static. Radio and TV adver- tisements unfold before the consumer; magazine advertise- ments do not. At Wolseley indicates, this is partially offset by magazines' advantage in tangibility: Magazine advertising is static, as any printed material must be. It does not have the ear appeal of radio or the eye appeal of video. As noted, radio and television are impermanent, but their advertising presentation is dramatic and alive.64 64Wolseley, 153. 58 This basic difference in the media also gives radio and television another bonus in terms of the number of demands made on the consumer's attention at any one time. A television or radio commercial stands alone; that is, during the commercial nothing else is being transmitted. A magazine advertisement, on the other hand, must compete for attention with all other items on the page, and with items on the opposite page. A small advertisement is apt to be buried by larger ads, a photograph, and perhaps a cartoon. The reader's eye takes in all of these things at once, and is drawn to the most attractive part of the page or the most colorful. Because of page size and wide use, the volume of advertising has become so great that it is dif- ficult to make any particular advertisement stand out. Attention value in thick magazines is les- sened. This handicap does not exist so much for specialized as for general periodicals, because readers of the former are more intensely interested in the advertising displayed, which can be called newsvertising. 65Wolseley, 154. The producer of a "hot" new item probably will advertise it in the broadcast media, not in magazines, because he knows that he can get his product before the public much faster over radio or television. Advertising copy and plates for magazines must be submitted so long in advance of publication that they sometimes lose accuracy or timeliness. 59 Magazine advertising cannot always be adjusted quickly to changing conditions.6 66WOlseley, 154. Moreover, the magazine takes time for printing, assembling and delivering. If the advertiser wants to use a printed medium, he is apt to choose a newspaper, as newspapers are the fastest printed medium to reach the public. Modern newspaper publishing techniques allow at least limited use of color; some newspapers, such as THE DETROIT FREE PRESS, even have large, sophisticated presses that permit glossy, multi—color pages of magazine quality while maintaining newspaper Speed. The ”fast close" in family magazine pub- lishing was used only for changes in content items; advertisers could not take advantage of it. An example of the ways the media treat a "hot" item can be seen every September or October, the opening of the new model year for automobiles. Certainly, there is always great demand for news of Detroit's latest offer- ings, as cars are among Americans' most prized possessions. For years before its death, LOOK offered its readers an annual feature on automobiles. The last of these appeared just a month before the magazine died; it was entitled, "U.S. Cars, 1972: LOOK'S 16th Annual Automotive Preview." It must have been expensive to produce--fourteen pages of photographs, many in full color, and an accompanying text tracing automotive trends. But by the time that issue was 60 on the newsstands on September 21, most Americans had already seen the new cars in color newspaper advertisements and on television. Ford Motor Company, for example, uses its prime time Sunday night Show, "The F.B.I.," to intro- duce its cars every year, long before they reach local dealers. And, although that LOOK issue would have seemed to be a "natural" for automotive advertising, it carried only two ads (for a total of three pages, one of which was in black and white) for new cars. The largest auto-makers, GM and Ford, were conspicuously absent. The differences in appeal of the three media were discussed earlier in this study. It should be remembered here, however, that Spatial media have considerably more appeal for today's audience (especially the youth market) than do linear media. The implication in a consideration of advertising advantages and diSadvantageS is obvious: the advantages Spatial media enjoy over linear media apply to the field of advertising as well. A TV commercial is superior in appeal to a magazine advertisement, simply because it is on television. Early TV advertising, for example, was carried over into newspaper and store adver- tising with the words, "as seen on TV." In a Similar vein, radio and television enjoy still another advantage over magazines. Because their commercial messages develop in terms of time, the advertiser is able to control, step by step, the response he wants from the 61 consumer. A radio commercial, for example, can only be heard one word at a time, perhaps with background music. And most television dramatizations have some plot, however slight.67 67Some are quite involved, such as the Phillips Milk of Magnesia commercial in which we see (1) Grandfather unhappy about the grandchildren coming for the weekend, (2) Grandmother using various techniques to find out why Grandfather is unhappy, (3) Grandfather finally admitting to being "irregular,“ (4) Grandmother recommending Phillips . . jump an hour or so in time . . . (5) Grandchildren arriving and being greeted by happy (regular) Grandfather. Some are very simple, such as the commercial featuring a cleaning contest between Mr. America, using an old fashioned cleaner, and Average Housewife, using Lestoil. The point here is that the television adman can control our emotions in sequence from vicarious identification to moti- vation to buy. Magazines cannot offer the advertiser such control, at least not to the same degree. A reader approaches a page of printed advertising in many ways, depending on his mood, interest or reading ability. In an automotive ad, for example, a reader may be drawn first to the pretty girl, to the car itself, or to the technical diagrams of body and frame. Granted, a skillful layout man can direct the reader's eye to some extent, but the reader is still faced with the entire advertisement at once. And, the bigger the page is, the more things there are apt to be 62 for the reader to sort out. The magazine reader's grea leisure does help, however, in this matter. The pretty girl does not have the place in a TV Spot She has in the magazine ad. The magazine reader can leisurely transfer his attention to the copy-~but the TV viewer may never get his mind off the pretty girl.68 ter 68 Harry Wayne McMahan, The Television Commercial (New York: Hastings House, 19573, 35. This was probably a lesson learned the hard way. Early TV commercials featured many beautiful women; today's feature many average housewives. And, although TV may attract advertising money away from magazines, those who still magazines give advertisements about the same amount of and attention as formerly. . . . regardless of television's effects on adver- tising appropriations for rival media, or on audiences for those media, there is not evidence that it has reduced the attention paid to other forms of advertising. An analysis of magazine ad observation figures, prepared by the Magazine Advertising Bureau, shows no perceptible trend during a five-year period of great TV growth. Both in 1947 and in 1951 full page ads in nine magazines measured by Daniel Sarch and Staff were noted b 28% of the men readers and by 33% of the women.6 read time 9Bogart, 177-178. The advertiser wants to be sure that his message reaches the right audience, both by interest and by income group. Of the three media, he is most apt to be sure with magazines. AS indicated above, many magazines cater to 63 Special interest groups, and it is fairly simple for the advertiser to choose the magazine that he thinks is right. Magazines can be ranked, too, according to their sub- scribers' incomes. THE NEW YORKER, for example, appeals to a wealthier clientele than does FAMILY CIRCLE. Politi- cally, EARTH is far more liberal than OUTDOOR LIFE. This kind of specialization in interest, income group and social thought placed the family magazine at a disadvantage. Because they were so broad in scope, aimed at the middle- middle class and maintained a balancedpoint of View socially, the family magazines were unsuitable for many advertisers. The products best suited for advertising in the family magazines were those that appealed to a very broad class of consumers. Certainly, there are dozens of such products, but there are perhaps even more products that are Specialized in some way. General advertisers soon learned that the new medium, television, served their needs more effectively than did the family magazines. So, without the general advertisers' demand of pre-TV days, and without the Specialized advertisers, the family maga— o I I I 7 0 Zines' advertiSin rov1nce became ever smaller. 9 70For a chart comparing the various groups reached by the family magazines, see Table 22, p. 189. As Marshall McLuhan and others have pointed out, one of the biggest effects TV has had on American culture is the increasing awareness of the global community and 64 developments within it. This, of course, is true of adver- tising as well. Television is making the consumer wiser far faster than radio ever did. In the last 50 years, the Spread of general knowledge to our mass population has accelerated through better newspapers, maga- zines, the movies and radio, in turn. Television throws it into overdrive.71 71McMahan, 37. What this probably means for advertisers is that consumers are becoming increasingly canny in their choice of goods. The old maxim, "Caveat emptor,‘ "let the buyer beware," is a reality; it might now be changed to read, "the buyer is aware.” Moreover, the buyer is aware of advertising qual- ity. Oddly enough, the medium that one would expect to insult the consumer's intelligence least frequently insults it most. Although TV has made considerable progress in this area, our credulity is constantly tested by women in evening gowns swabbing floors, librarians becoming new people after purchasing Mustangs, the new next-door- neighbor becoming friendly after taking the recommended laxative, ad nauseum. Radio is almost as guilty. Americans have been jingled and Sloganed past the point where they know that Coke is "the real thing," or that Doublemint Chewing Gum "doubles your pleasure, doubles your fun." But magazines in general have not fallen into the same Sins. It is, to be sure, common to see the same advertisement in a number of magazines issued at about the 65 same time; but it is seldom that an advertiser runs the same advertisement for weeks at a time in the same maga— zines. A fairly Simple generalization can be made: Americans will tolerate repetition of a broadcast adver- tisement but will read an advertisement once. In addition, because magazines are linear—-hence an active, not a pas- sive experience for the consumer-~they must carry a more intelligent brand of advertising. The family magazines, for example, were aimed at middle-middle class consumers; television advertisements are beamed at "the lowest common denominator," the least-educated consumer who could reasonably be expected to buy the product in question. There is a big difference between the two. The advertiser wants his message to be a memorable one. Small advertisers, such as the makers of soap pro- ducts and chewing gum, have jingles and slogans that stick in the consumer's mind, so that when he is faced with a whole rack of products to choose from he will turn almost instinctively to the cleanser that "floats the dirt right down the drain." Larger advertisers' problems are somewhat different; not only do they want the consumer to remember the names of their products, they want to steer him to the particular place where their products are sold. To do this they frequently try to make the consumer identify their product with a particular image. Ford was very successful with its use of the Mustang commercials featuring Plain 66 Jane who, Cinderella—like, became Queen of the Hop after buying a Mustang. The campaign was so successful, in fact, that perhaps half of the buyers of new Mustangs were single women in their twenties. Lincoln commercials boosted the car as "the final step up," attempting to make consumers identify Lincolns with success. This kind of identifica— tion is particularly important in encouraging recognition of brand names. Partly because of the control television gives the advertiser and partly because of the advantage TV has as a medium, its success in reducing brand name ignorance has been remarkable. We found that television cuts the brand ignorance area by more than half. Where 12.1% of the non- viewers said they had "never heard of" the average brand studied, only 5.7% of the owners who watched the program advertising the brand gave that answer.72 72NBC Television, Television Today (National Broadcasting Co. Inc., 1951), 42. This has had an effect on buying habits. In 1951 NBC Television promoters issued the following: For the average durable make advertised on tele- vision there were 19.3 buyers per thousand TV owners who watched the program on which the pro- duct was advertised; there were 15.6 buyers per thousand who did not watch the program. For 32 different makes of durable goods, television lifts sales, on the average, by 23.7%.73 73NBC, 46. One of the main reasons why television advertising is more memorable than advertising in the other media is 67 the face-to—face nature of television selling. A current Chrysler Corporation advertisement, for example, features Arthur Godfrey riding down the assembly line in a partially welded chassis. As he goes he tells us about the various things happening to the chassis, with an explanation of why these processes are superior to the processes of other manufacturers. We have the feeling that Arthur Godfrey is talking to each of us, personally; this is far more power— ful selling than a static picture of the same man with a printed caption. Changes are that we will remember that Chrysler cars are welded, not bolted together the next time we think about a new car. Magazines differ from the broadcast media in still another way important to advertisers. In order for the commercial message to be of any value, the consumer must have the physical advertisement before him. That is, the advertiser in LOOK magazine, for example, is dependent on the consumer's decision to buy that particular issue of LOOK; no other magazine will do. But the radio or tele- vision advertiser is dependent only on the consumer's having a receiver in operating condition, regardless of make. In addition, the radio or television receiver is always current, while magazines are dated. What this means is that magazines must build their own circulation, while radio and television circulation is made in advance by sales of receiving units. 68 In one sense, this gives magazines an advantage over the other media. The advertiser can make the correla- tion between his ad and increased sales fairly easily. He knows what his sales were before the ad, how many magazines were distributed and what sales were after the ad. It is far more difficult to make the correlation with radio and television. Granted, there have been many surveys (such as Nielsen's) to Show who is listening to/watching what/ when. But the advertiser does not get the guaranteed circulation that he does with magazines. Ordinarily, for example, "Bonanza" may be at the top of the Sunday night ratings, but one week an opposing network may run a “Spectacular" or an especially good movie and attract many regular "Bonanza" viewers. And that may be the one week our advertiser decided to use television for his message. Radio correlation is even harder. Many schemes have been tried, such as the promise of a free gift for mentioning the name of the station over which the ad was carried, or selling the product advertised on radio only by mail. Now that the day of the close-attention radio program is over, many listeners (especially those in their cars, with pre- set tuning buttons) are prone to changing stations often, perhaps whenever a commercial begins, which means that the advertiser cannot count on the reputation of a particular radio proqram to draw a guaranteed audience, as with TV pregramming or magazine subscription lists. 69 By judicious choice of magazines, then, the advertiser can control to some degree the circulation his ad will receive. The wealthiest TV advertisers can get some measure of this control by identifying themselves with particular programs, as radio advertisers once did. Most Sponsors, however, prefer to have brief messages sprinkled throughout the advertising day, in hopes of eventually catching prospective buyers. But if an adver- tiser buys, say, ten spots a day, he has no real way of knowing which of those spots proved most effective, or if sheer repetition is the key to their effectiveness. A word Should be said here, too, about the amount of control the advertiser has over programming and edi- torial content in the magazines and in television. This matter of editorial and program control is probably much like an iceberg . . . we see only a very small part of it in any medium. Periodically some scandal or other comes to the surface and brings with it doubts about the entire medium; witness the fate of many quiz Shows after the manipulation of the '$64,000 Question" became public. There are more subtle kinds of influence: for example, all of the cars on Ford's program, "The F.B.I." are Ford products. Some, such as Leo Rosten, feel the influence of the sponsor is great: Advertisers seem to me to exercise their most pernicious influence in television. For in tele- vision, advertisers are permitted to decide what 70 shall or Shall not appear in the programs they Sponsor. This seems to be insupportable. An ad— vertiser in a newspaper or magazine buys a piece of Space in which to advertise his product. He does not buy a voice on the news desk or at the editorial table. But the television advertiser buys time both for his commercials and for the time between commercials; he becomes a producer and publisher himself. I am convinced that this is bad for the public, bad for television, and (ultimately) [Sig] bad for the sponsors.74 74Leo Rosten, "The Intellectual and the Mass in Jacobs, 81. Media,‘ The networks, of course, deny this. According to Frank Stanton, President of CBS, In the first place, I categorically assert that no news or public affairs program at CBS, however eXpensive to the Sponsor, has ever been subject to his control, influence, or approval. There is a total and absolute independence in this reSpect. An advertiser in magazines does have the power to associate his advertising with edi— torial content by his choice of a magazine. If he makes a household detergent, he can choose a magazine whose appeal is to housewives. In television, he can achieve this association only by seeking out kinds of programs, or, more preperly, the kinds of audience to which Spe- cific programs appeal. This is of course why a razor blade company wants to Sponsor Sports pro- grams. But this does not mean that the company75 is going to referee the game or coach the team. L‘ 7~)Frank Stanton, "Parallel Paths," in Jacobs, 90. The exact amount of influence wielded by an advertiser probably can never be accurately determined. Nor is it likely that either the advertiser or the media represen- tatives will ever be completely candid on the subject. 71 It does, however, seem likely that the possibilities for influencing medium content are greater with television than they are with magazines, partly because of the nature of the medium and partly because of the attitude the con- sumer brings with him to the medium (discussed earlier in this study). We can see by now that the media are big business, with incredibly large numbers of advertising dollars in— volved in their inception and Operation. Peterson and others, in their 1966 study, The Mass Media and Modern Spciety, noted the following costs for magazines and tele- vision. In the large-circulation field, costliness is as characteristic of magazine publishing as it is of newspaper publishing, broadcasting, and motion- picture production. Harlan LOgan, writing in MAGAZINE lNDUSTRY in 1949, estimated that a new publisher of a mass—circulation magazine needed between $7,500,000 and $15,000,000 to finance a general weekly, with the Odds three to one against success. A new general monthly, he calculated, would take from $4 million to $7 million, and the odds would be 10 to 1 against success. By the 19608, costs were perhaps 50 percent greater than when Logan made his estimates, and the Odds against success appreciably higher. As the conquest by air of the nation's mass markets brought television prOgramS into most American homes, the costs of broadcasting became enormous. To get even the smallest television station on the air, one needs to invest more than $250,000 in building and equipment. A medium-Size station might represent an investment of approximately $1 million. The costs of pro- gramming are also impressive. Each of the hour- long Ed Sullivan programs in the early Sixties was estimated to cost $232,800 for time, talent, and production. The Ford Motor Company once 72 *provided a CBS executive with $12 million for programming, $250,000 a year as salary, and residual interest in the thirty—nine Shows he was to produce.76 76Petersen, et al., Mass Media, 70, 74. Of course, a television station is not so apt to fail as a magazine is. For one thing, the number of competitors is apt to be small in any given area, with the possible excep- tions Of the largest cities. Secondly, network affiliation Offers considerable programming insurance. This situation may change with the rise Of Cable TV as it will be possible in some areas to have, for example, two channels in the same network competing with each other. At this writing, Iederal control of cable TV companies is nonexistent for two reasons: FCC authority extends only to those broad- casting, not to those in the business of receiving; the majority of cable hook—ups do not cross state lines. The giQspeCt of heavy competition brought about by CATV is intriguing. No doubt, serious studies will be made Of this subject. Just as TV'S costs are high in Operation and pro- gramming, SO advertising costs and revenue are huge. Although television required develOpment of new and costly advertising techniques, the growth of the TV advertising dollar has been spectacular from the outset. In 1946, no advertising was carried by the Six television stations then exist- ing. But despite the temporary FCC freeze on the processing of license applications in 1948, by January 1950 the number of stations had reached 98; 73 there were more than 4 million receiving sets in American homes; and the volume Of advertising ex— ceeded $170 million. The following year, TV's advertising volume nearly doubled. By 1954 it topped $800 million, or 10 percent of the money Spent in all media combined, and in 1955 it passed the $1 billion mark. In 1962 it was about $1.6 billion. Like the typical mass-circulation magazine and, to a lesser degree, the omnibus newspaper, radio and television are almost entirely dependent on the patronage Of advertisers for survival.77 7Petersen, et al., Mass Media, 75. We can readily appreciate the cost differential between radio and TV from the following figures. In March, 1951, the average cost for putting 60 seconds Of nighttime radio "commercial" into 1,000 American homes was $2.11. For the same amount of commercial into the same number of homes for night- time TV, 2.85. It will be seen that the differ- ential in these nighttime figures, while appreci- able, is not staggering. Look now at the average for daytime commercials: 60¢ for radio; $2.40 for TV! Not only that, but by network findings the average time—and-talent cost Of a half-hour night- time TV show on CBS or NBC was $38,884; the average time—and—talent cost Of a half-hour nighttime radio Show was $19,423.78 78Max Wylie, Clear Channels (New York: Funk & Wagnells Co., 1955), 71. The following table, taken from an NBC study, gives an indication of the relative advertising costs Of- three media. (Note: ”cost per M persons" means cost per 1000 persons.) 74 TABLE 4.—-Advertising costs of three media. _-d-. wq—_.._.~_ ._..-_... .._._._._ Persons Total Cost Per Reached Cost M Persons Average NBC-TV Half-hour evening program, 1951 8,031,000 $19,650 $2.45 Page, B & W, largest magazine 5,508,500 18,425 3.34 Largest newspapers in all 63 TV markets, 500 line Lu! 3,474,400 17,819 5.13 NBC boasts that in delivering, at audiences than combination of TV markets.79 1950 it was, competitive dollar costs, greater either the biggest magazine, or the the largest newspapers in all 63 79NBC, 63-64. In 1957, tunes in more than 360 commercials a week. Harry McMahan noted that, n80 "The average family 8OMcMahan, 23. These facts Show the tremendous impact of television on all magazines; we can probably multiply the effects on the family magazines, this chapter. due to the various factors discussed in 75 -_-l__-__-_-_____-__T ______________ _3ll3% lminutes I 16 E 11 per day : reading 9 : magazines e = I I -J L_____.J matched TV owners non—owners Figure l.——Te1evision cuts magazine reading 31.3%.* *Source: NBC, 14. 90 ; Minutes per day F—-‘————I 1 I 73 : . ' I ’ I I 49 : I I = . ’. ' I J I I 1 I r——————a I : : 13 : Radio Television Newspapers Magazines Figure 2.——Time Spent with four media.* *Source: NBC, 15. 76 TABLE 5.--Changes in advertising costs.* Rate Changes, Cost of Reaching 1945-1955 1000 Households Network Television (1950—55) +l96% -3l% ' Network Radio - 28 +10 Newspapers + 70 +28 Magazines + 96 +39 Source: McCann—Erickson, Inc. *Bogart, 186. We see here that as television's costs for reach- ing 1000 households dropped rapidly, magazines' increased equally rapidly. In five years the gap widened by 70%! And we must remember that these figures are for the entire magazine industry. Coupled with the figures included in the appendices to this study, these facts show family maga— zines' advertising advantages slipping away at a fast , 81 pace. 81Although the family magazines were probably the hardest hit by television, the new medium poses a threat to other magazines as well. Note the following advertise— ment placed by THE READER'S DIGEST, the largest—circulation publication of its kind (following page). By now, we can see that the family magazines were commodities in the advertising world. They happened to be remarkably successful commodities during most of their *Source: unoccu-u-n-u-an-o ole-colt.- Z a _ '-‘.'..’-“~z _ voluoococl no i!|iuvti“.‘0flv The Ad Tv has sold a lot for you, so don't knock it. (We use it ourselves, on oceaswn. But the fact is, tv doesn't reach everybody with the same clout. For instance, 16,000,000 of our readers. They're light tv viewers. So the chances that they‘ll see your tv messages are pretty slim. An you'll be sorry you missed them. Because people who go light on the tube tend to be affluent and well educated. And heavy buyers. To sew up the obvious holes in your tv reach, put part of your tv budget into a schedule in The Digest—that part you're now putting against more and more spots that reach fewer and fewer new Light Viewers: less than 4 hours of prime time tv viewmg weekly. (Simmons) (3€l(1(31fisfm Digeet . -.. ."“' n r "‘ ~2."'~‘£"‘~ ». -. ‘Nh... :.“ u ..‘ " 'lsu "'1 Couple people. (And while you’re reaching all those fresh faces, you'll a so rein orce your message with 26,000,000 Digest readers who (1) watch tv—an audience much bigger than that of the biggeit regularly scheduled tv show) move in with The Ad Couple. RD/tv. And sell happily ever after. mm mwms REACHED- . \ . ‘ Reade! sD‘gest lb 201 000 ed(l( I b we 11 597.000 D1895l TV Curde 10 1-14 000 “URI I)\IH\I \IIIIR RD/tv: They go together. Figure 3.——Cooperative media advertisement.* Newsweek, October 18, 1971, p. 15. 78 lives, and so long as they remained a popular form of entertainment for Americans, they remained a popular show- case for American advertisers. But as is the case with any of the popular media, the family magazines were largely dependent on the whims of Madison Avenue. Perhaps the most obvious problem, in the eyes of the advertising agencies, was the family magazines' failure to maintain their circulation position in relation to American population. In the years 1960—1968, for example, the POST not only failed to increase its subscription lists substantially, but its per capita advantage declined. The same is true for LOOK, whose subscription lists were comparable in size to POST'S. This would seem a typical symptom of any dying commodity, not a cause of death. But, as is the case with many illnesses, the symptoms themselves can become causes for further symptoms. Between 1960-1968 POST increased only .027 as much as U.S. popu- lation (584,343 compared to 41,080,000); the number of potential readers for each issue moved from l:28.2 to l:29.5. These factors combined to make the family magazines less attractive to advertising agencies. With fewer advertisers, the magazines had less advertising revenue. Less advertising revenue meant less Operating capital, which pointed the way to smaller production, particularly in a period of rising costs. 79 As advertising pages slipped away, the POST became thinner—"noticeable first only to the pro- fessionals, the media men in the advertising agencies. Then the drop began to snowball. Why? "We're a bunch of sheep," David Ogilvy, of Ogilvy, Benson and Mather, said candidly. "One agency leaves a magazine, we all wonder why and follow. The magazine thins again, and more of us leave. Suddenly there's nothing left. No one wants his c0py in-a thin book. "It's what is called the 'New York reflexive action,l found in people who go to Manhattan and think what people do and say there is indicative of the entire nation. Because they're from Denver or Dallas they have to be even more 'Manhattan' than the natives. They're like a flock of turkeys, running across the field after a bright attractive grasshopper, gobbling at the top of their voices and not thinking about whether what they're chas- ing is even good to eat. Everyone else is running and gobbling, so they must run and gobble, too, to prove they're real 'Manhattan.‘ The avant- garde on the cocktail party circuit says the JOURNAL and the POST are dated and unpopular, and Madison Avenue picks up the chant. The pressure is applied to the ad salesmen, the people who have the face-to—face contacts at the agencies. 'Why don't you brighten up your magazines and run more pictures, or more arty covers?‘ It's demoralizing to the salesmen, and they bring the stories back home. Because they are demoralized, they don't work as hard; they have a scapegoat--after all, they're trying to sell an 'outdated' magazine."82 82Joseph C. Goulden, The Curtis Caper (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1965), 95-96. Smaller production means, ultimately, a smaller readership. Smaller readership makes any magazine less attractive to advertisers. The result is a downward Spiral, demonstrat- ing the interlocking of these economic factors. At the same time, operating costs soared. Not every magazine was hit as hard as the family magazines, however. NEWSWEEK 80 almost doubled in circulation, improving its ratio to potential readers from l:l38.l to l:94.5. The odds seemed to be stacked against the losers. And advertisers, naturally, were more interested in the lower cost-per-page rates of the smaller, more specialized magazines. Business trends also hampered the family magazines' struggles to stay alive. Big business in America moved increasingly toward conglomerate structures. The effect of this move was to cut down the number of potential advertisers without diminishing greatly the number of pro- ducts to be advertised. As a matter of fact, what was good for General Motors would soon leave the Post on the beach. Many of those forty advertisers that had backed Lorimer in 1914 were now divisions of General Motors. By the fifties, competition by producers in the mass market had noticeably ebbed, and as the tide of the distributive society went out, so did potential advertisers.83 83Mooney, 20. In an attempt to change to a more profitable format, Martin Ackerman (last president of Curtis while POST lived) ordered mockups of what he called "A" issues-—alternatives to those already slated for production. The "A" issues were an express attempt to re-attract the big advertisers, notably the auto makers. Issue number 12A, for example, carried 36 full—page ads as compared to 25 in the regular number 12. But these “A" issues remained in the pilot stage and failed to achieve the desired effect on 81 advertisers. At about the same time, the courtship of the auto makers by the family magazines was an extremely tenuous thing; it could not be counted on as a source of regular revenue. American advertisers responded to these develop- ments in the lives of the family magazines in the same way the economic man would respond to similar changes in the economic situation of any commodity. Costs were up; quantity and quality were down; effectiveness was inferior to other media. In their last years the family magazines were, frankly, not a very good buy for advertisers. It is an obvious fact of American economic life that some- thing that is not a good buy does not last long in an open market. The aim of this chapter has been to show the real impact that television had on the family magazines. In almost every aspect of advertising TV is superior, espec- ially in relative costs and effectiveness. What this points to is the fact that popular media, as commodities, are controlled by the men who control the money in our society--not by the average consumer, as one would like to suppose. Certainly, the popular audience, taken as a whole, wields great influence in editorial policy. But the day-to-day decisions that ultimately shape the future of a popular medium are inextricably bound to the medium's 82 role as commodity. This chapter has examined this aspect of the family magazines as they were influenced by the chief outsiders, the advertisers. The next chapter will show the effects of business policies made by chief insiders, the magazine management and editorial boards. III CORPORATE DECISIONS A major fact of life under the American capital- istic system is that the value of the dollar in actual purchasing power grows smaller every year. The 1971 Economic Report of the President shows the following figures in the table, "Implicit price deflators for gross national product, 1929-1970,": the differential between 1958 and 1970 in durable goods is nine points; the dif- ferential for the same years for non-durable goods is 27.3 points; for services it is 40.3 points. At the same time, the gross national product more than doubled in un- A deflated dollars.8* 4Economic Report of the President Transmitted to the Congress February, 1971 Together with the Annual Re- port of the Council of Economic Advisors (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 200, 197. The implication for the average consumer is fairly obvious: he is forced to Spend more dollars in order to receive fewer goods and services. This is especially true for the producers of goods and services. The costs of magazine production climbed rapidly during the same period, compounded by increased 83 84 corporate taxes, higher postal rates and growing demands of labor unions. In 1956, Wood noted that, Second-class postal rates, accorded newspapers and magazines by the Postal Act of 1879, have been in— creased by Congressional legislation; rates are now almost one—third higher than in 1951; and there is pressure, fought by the magazine publishers, for further increases. Subscription and Single-copy prices of magazines and the rates charged for maga- zine advertising space have not increased in pro- portion to magazine publishing expenses or in ratio with the price advance of most other commodities. Magazine net profit, profit after taxes as a per- centage of sales, stood at about 6.7 percent in the middle 19305. This figure climbed during the war years, profitable years for magazines, to 8.3 per- cent in 1946. It has gradually declined since that time. Although a few publishers are earning more, magazine net profits averaged 2.8 percent in 1954. 5 85James Playsted Wood, Magazines in the United States (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1956), 326. Curtis figures, for example, followed this trend closely. TABLE 6.--Curtis revenue: 1950-1960.* Year Revenue Profits (millions) (millions) 1950 149.5 5.3 1951 153.8 4.8 1952 163.0 4.4 1953 174.7 4.8 1954 173.3 4.5 1955 179.8 4.0 1956 186.5 6.2 1957 202.6 6.2 1958 197.1 2.7 1959 243.0 3.9 1960 248.6 1.0 *Goulden, 98. 85 Moreover, the Postal Reorganization Act (Public Law 91- 375), approved August 12, 1970 to take effect a year later, has increased rates still further. The only one of the family magazines included in this study to be affected by the latest increase is LOOK. Gardner Cowles, Editor in Chief, indicated a $6 million increase in mailing costs. $10 MILLION IN LOSSES Looki Magazine Folds F '.i“"‘ ’ ’~‘ ’9 NEW YORK-(UPD — hmkhhgume ‘ ' . will cease publication Oct. 19 as a result of more than $10 million in losses in, less than three years, it was announced Thursday. The demise of the 34-year-old magazine was announced by Gardner Cowles, who founded Look with his brother John. Gardner Oowles is editor—in-chief and chairman of Cowles Communications Inc., publisher of book. Cowies placed much 0! the blame for book's trouble on television’s lure for advertising, which, he said, “cut deeply into our advertis- ing volume. " He also said Look faced a 8. million increase in mailing costs“ a p 142 percent Increase in postal rates is approved. Referring to Look's chief rival 7‘Corwlesi said the future of Life Magazine is “very, very good.” He said, however, that the country “can only support one quality photo-journal- ism magazine"—leaving no room for book as well as Life. Look subscribers will be offered Life, Time, Sports illustrated, Fortune. Time-Life Books, American Home and ladies Home Journal as substitutes for the unexpired portion of their subscriptions. ,. » Look reached a peak circulation of 7.75 i ' ‘ million in 1969 and voluntarily reduced this Editor-in-chief Gardner COWICS Put to 6.5 million last year to concentrate on 60 much of the blame on television. major metropolitan markets. Figure 4.--Announcement of LOOK'S death.* *Source: Front page, Detroit Free Press, September 17, 1971. 86 Objectivity demands that we see the other side of the coin as well. First of all, we should note that there were no postal rate increases at all from 1934 through 1951, the years when the family magazines were rolling up great profits. This is despite the fact that the dollar became increasingly inflated during those years; that is to say, the magazines' mailing costs became lower each year in direct proportion to the amount of inflation. In fact the government, through failure to increase rates, was sub- sidizing the magazines. What this meant for the magazines was that they could afford to increase subscription lists in a proportion to advertising revenues far more than they could have had the rates increased as they should have. At least as POST and COLLIER'S viewed it, large subscription lists were needed to compete effectively for advertisers. And more advertising, in turn, pointed the way to still greater numbers of subscribers. In other words, the constancy of postal rates allowed the magazines to set a far higher point of diminishing returns than they otherwise could have. This does not appear to have been a very intelligent business decision, as the increase in postal rates was inevitable, and the magazines knew it. All of the major publishers had lobbyists in Washington to combat the increase. Large subscription lists thus became liabilities instead of assets overnight, when the right decision on the point of diminishing returns some 87 years earlier could have prevented it. The magazines were Spending money they should have saved in anticipation of the postal increases. The government's reasoning is explained in the following letter from Jerry L. Reynolds, Executive Assistant to the Postmaster General and Congres- sional Liaison Officer. It is included in the following pages in its entirety, as his letter makes the government's position especially clear . . . and the necessity of an authoritative statement here is obvious. A major complaint of the remaining magazines is that the Federal government is, they say, subsidizing television through the granting of territorial franchises. An editorial in the October 2, 1971 issue of SATURDAY REVIEW, written on the occasion of LOOK's death, points this out. The editorial does a good job of explaining the problem faced by magazines that rely on subscriptions rather that newsstand sales. We should note, however, that the author is protesting the nature of the medium itself, not the rate increases. On his terms, magazine postage would have to be virtually free, to guarantee a competitive position for them. The point, it seems, is that postage is an attendant cost of magazine publishing, just as is paper; it is one of the things taken into con- sideration at the magazine's conception, and it ought not to be forgotten (see p. 95). 88 PHILIP A. HART COMMITTEES MICHIGAN COMMERCE Qlfnifeb aglafez fienafe WASHINGTON. D.C. 20510 November 12, 1971 Mr. Stephen C. Holder 337 North Clemens Ave. Lansing, Michigan h8192 Dear Mr. Holder: Enclosed is the reply to ny inquiry in your behalf, which I have Just received and which I hope will be of assistance to you. If you have any questions, or if there is further inquiry I can make, be sure to let me know. With best wishes, Sincerely, Enclosure Figure 5.--Letter from Senator Hart. 89 WMITTEE CHARLES E. CHAMBERLAIN ""3 mo MEAL SIXTH DISTRICT. MICHIGAN disagrees at the Multan étatts 313mg: of Representatives Washington. Elli. 20515 November 2, l97l Mr. Stephen C. Holder Department of English Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 48823 Dear Mr. Holder: The enclosed letter has been received from the U. S. Postal Service in response to my inquiry, and it is hoped that this will be of some help in your doctoral study. I am also sending a copy of the Postal Reorganization Act, Public Law 9l-375, and if you feel I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to let me know. With kindest regards, I am ,» Sincerely yours), 4 c n ”U ‘ E -, . Charle's fléhamberlain CEC:jam Enclosures Figure 6.——Letter from Representative Chamberlain. 9O pJES Post" . 1» UNITED s, F 9’ p ,1: 11> SDI/“BS *wttit‘ EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE POSTMASTER GENERAL Washington. DC 20260 November 1, 1971 Dear Congressman Chamberlain: This is in reSponse to your letter of October 28, 1971 in behalf of Mr. Stephen C. Holder concerning prOposed second- class postage rates. We realize that our prOposal to the Postal Rate Commission calls for a very substantial increase in postage rates for second-class matter. Basically, this is due to the fact that Congress, in enacting the Postal Reorganization Act, required that second-class mail be put on a rate basis comparable to that for other classes of mail, thus discontinuing a preferred and, in effect, subsidized treatment for second class which has existed for many years. However, Congress also provided for a phasing of the increase in rates over a five-year period for regular second-class pub— lications with over 5,000 copies mailed outside the county of publication, and over a ten—year period for publications with circulation less than 5,000 out of county -— the preference pertains to the minimum rate -- and for those mailed within the county. This means that publications will not be faced with a "sudden" increase to the full rates, but rather will have periods of five and ten years in which to adjust. Our cost analysis results in a determination of the costs which are attributable to particular classes of mail and services. By definition, "attributable costs" are those costs which vary with volume in a particular class, or which are fixed but speci— fically related to a single class or subclass. The Postal Reorganization Act requires that each class or subclass of mail pay (as a minimum) those costs attributable to such sub- class and that in addition all except mailings by nonprofit organizations, in-county mailings, and certain other categories should be assigned a reasonable portion of the institutional costs of the system. We estimate that, in fiscal 1972, rev- enues from existing rates would cover only 57 percent of the Figure 7.——Letter from Executive Assistant to the Postmaster. 9l costs attributable to regular—rate second—class mail and 36 percent for mailings within the county of publication. It followed, therefore, that substantial increases were neceSsary to cover the mandatory minimum prescribed in the law. In addition to the substantial increase required to meet the minimum, we were obliged to increase rates further in order to make a "reasonable assignment of institutional costs." We met this requirement by prescribing rates which would cover 138 percent of attributable costs for second-class mail. In consideration of the large impact which we recog- nized would be felt by second—class users, this coverage is substantially smaller than that for other classes of mail. For example, we are preposing rates which would produce cov- erages of attributable costs as follows: first class, 199 percent; bulk-rate third class, 208 percent; and zone-rated fourth class, 163 percent. However, the revenues from the proposed rates for second~class within—county publications will not exceed the costs attributable to this service, as provided by statute. Thus, the cost coverage for these pub- lications will not exceed 100 percent. We are well aware of the impact that our prOposal will have on publications but believe nevertheless that it is apprOpriate and necessary. From the beginning of consideration of postal reform, we consistently told Congress and the public that sub- sidies to mail users were a matter of public policy. We said we would accept any decisions Congress wished to make with re— spect to subsidies if Congress apprOpriated money to reimburse us for the revenue foregone as a result of such subsidies. Con- gress determined to maintain subsidies for certain classes of mail users (notably nonprofit and in-county users) and declined to include others, particularly regular second-class publications mailed outside the county. We still have no objection if Con- gress wishes to prescribe a subsidy for publications, but under the existing Postal Reorganization Act, we have no choice but to prescribe normal postage rates. In doing so, we have, in our Opinion, reduced to a minimum the impact which must be absorbed by the publications. The Postal Rate Commission has concluded hearings on our rate proposal. Users of our second-class service were represented by many publishing firms and associations of publishers. 92 -3- ISnclosed is the postage increases for second-class mail for -the past twenty years. The selected indexes show an increase (sf 205 % over the base year of 1951. Mr. Holder may be in— txerested to note that there were no increases between 1934 and 1952. ifle trust this information will be helpful in replying to ynour constituent. If there is any further information you ciesire, please do not hesitate to contact me. [Vith.kind regards. S' cerely, a“ / 7 7) ) /%//7//“/24M?{:) Jerry L. Reynolds Congressional Liaison Officer Honorable Charles E. Chamberlain Ii<>Llse of Representatives Washington, D. C. 20515 93 .musuasoaumm mo oocoqom may ucwuoeoum ou cwuo>wp mcoflunoflanzm :0 canon won om.v um GoCflmumu munu monumom mafia .oumu woman umm E:Ewcde no venom maneoflammm on» up unmoumm ow >mQ mcodumowansm sooummMHUu .kumuwpcfi weapon oz» um>o pwmnzm momnwuocfl cummm .maoo pom mucmo mma.o uo Edsacae n :ua3 mounu vmma .H hand ecu pocamuou mEOOummnHo cfi om: u0w mco«umu«anamp .Nmma .oa mash mo and an pmucmuv hufluozusfipcfl 0H some uOu moon pcsom mcu um omMumoa HmCOAuwppuw>flaoc new coHHnE mcofiumofiacsa ounMIUOuuououm amouxo wcoaumufiacsa Adda --- moans you wm.o woman pom om.a o.5~ m.vH e.ms H.Ha m.m q.e s~.m v.m u05aH .H sumscmn nu- woman nod 95.o woman umd o~.H o.eH 5.ma m.~H m.oa m.m o.e ma.v ~.m m «wean .H sumscmn u-- mound umd oe.o woman umm 9H.H a.mH m.~H a.ma a.m m.5 5.m me.¢ o.m umemfi .5 sumscmn woman “on om5.o moose uwa om.o mouse pad oo.H o.vH o.~H ~.HH ~.m ~.5 ~.m ~.a m.~ a umema .H suascmn mound nod ome.o woman and om.o woman you om.o o.v~ a.ma m.oH m.m m.e m.a m.m 5.~ o gamma .H sumscmn woman nod omm.o mound uma om.o woman “on oe.o o.va .o.- a.o~ v.m v.e v.v e.m e.~ lumema .5 sumscmn u.. in- saou nod om.o o.va a.mfl o.o~ o.m o.e o.¢ o.m .m.~ -eaemfi .H suascan in- u.. sdou uoa om5m.o m.ma o.HH 5.m 0.5 ~.m m.m e.~ m.~ m comma .H sumscmn --- --- saoo “on om~.o o.aa N.a 5.5 o.m m.q o.m ~.~ H.~ - emmafi .H sumzcmn nu- --- smoo uoa omma.o H.m m.5 m.e ~.m a.m e.~ ma.H ma.H evmma .H Hausa -i- -l- smoo Mom omm~.o v.m «.5 o.e m.a e.m v.~ m.a m.H m emman .H Haua< -u- -i- saou uwa om-.o 5.5 o.o m.m v.a m.m ~.~ me.H mo.~ .,c~mma .H Hauaa ii- -u- a 5 e m a m m m.H m.~ oamafl .H sane in- .i. n OH O 5 e m m N m.~ NMaH .H sane --- -l- a 5 e m a m m m.H m.~ mmafl .H sass u.. -i- --- m a e e e m N m.H omen ca m>auomuuo mmume lllllllllllllllllll UCDOQ pom mucmoiilliillliliiilili madmauu02n< osmmH uoa menace m 5 e m e m m a H mmma no wm ooo.m cmcu mmoq unasmom COAuuom mecca ocamauum>o¢ puma m>auummem mounm EDEw:dz :coz :0auuom mcfimauum>c< lfll lit ll“: , Hull: . bxtdnnulnd. .llnlu..lll|t HM ..|hl..|..l ”until ll...l . NmH.HHunn...dulr-l.u:.u. uliuulH . .H nldll iln, .llill. . .[IE .suoumfl; when Haemoq a.mcoflbeoflaaza onmu-umfismeuunafies mmqfiouecooemuu.5 mqmf general appeal. The April 16, 1960 issue, for example carried three editorials in this order: "One Item Omitte from Tests for Drivers--Character1” “Can Red China's Crinvh ing Bureaucrats Hold On Forever?" and "An Educated Man Should Have the Dictionary Habit.” COLLIER'S was equally bland, with such editorials as "Entertainment is Here to Stay," in the July 2, 1949 issue. (Note: that editorial, dealing with the magazine's attitude toward television, is included earlier in this study.) LOOK carried no editor- .idls . Another function filled by the family magazines was escape for the reader from the problems of his every— day life. Mendelsohn indicates the need for this cathartic experience: Varied and numerous forces in society lead to dissatisfaction--often by raising our expectations and then dashing such hopes and expectations against the hard experience of failure; frequently, by forcing us to make choices between contradictory though equally powerful stimuli, in order to sus- tain socially required consistency; in many in— stances, by demanding that we be free and 140 unfettered and at the same time restricting and inhibiting our impulses. Man repairs the deficiencies in his life and experiences by creating and enjoying art, music, drama, poetry, and fiction--and contemporaneously-- mass entertainment.l32 132Mendelsohn, 90—91. As noted by Patricke Johns-Heine and Hans H. Gerth, the trend has been away from titans and superstars as heroes of magazine fiction. In their place are the small busi— nessman, the farmer, the industrial worker.133 133Patricke Johns-Heine and Hans H. Gerth, "Values in Mass Periodical Fiction, 1921—1940," in Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, ed. Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White (New York: MacMillan), 230-231. This is due to the magazines' recognition of the need for heroes with whom the reader can readily identify vicari— ously. . . . it is an attempt to perpetuate certain roots of American life, or the myth of them; and it is done by bringing the sc0pe of fantasy in mass fic- tion into greater harmony with readers made con- stantly aware of the "closing of the frontiers.” Hence it may be regarded as an attempt to give a compensating sense of independence and individual significance when power and prestige seem to have become firmly entrenched. The little man is, then, the familiar standard—bearer of democratic values. It is, perhaps, not accidental that this transform— ation began in the depression years, even if it did not end there. In those years traditional values were invoked with weary optimism; the ”good heart" was supposed to replace the "big money.”*3' 134Rosenberg, 231. 141 This is not to say, of course, that magazine fiction was made ”cheap' literarily; rather, it was made more accessitr to the reader. The adjustment was in the direction of reality, perhaps in the same sense that Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman can be regarded as legitimate tragedy. To be sure, the "happy ending" remained a feature of much magazine fiction--and readers wanted it in their magazines. But the plot resolution was much less apt to be in the £01m 135 of success via achievement, marriage or luck; it was likely to be the solving of some human problem. 135Rosenberg, 230. The most striking qualities of the stories-- euphemism, wish-thinking, a sentient nature, a hovering grace--revea1 the quality of the religion that the magazine preaches: it is a religion that must, above all, operate, and operate quickly, a religion in which God must work in totally un- mysterious ways. Like the adOptee hero, this religion is featureless--or rather dogmaless-—and permits each reader to substitute the faith of his choice; but the constant insistence on the relig- ious call is no less clear. From this we may assume not so much a radical new change in the tendencies of our popular culture as an attempt to to return to older forms, more specifically to the comforting religiosity of the 19th century, a significant indication of the direction in which the fantasies of at least some Americans are tend— ing .136 136Robert S. Brustein, "The New Faith of the SATURDAY EVENING POST," Commentary, 16 (1953), 367—369. 142 The following "Credo for a Magazine," by Norman Cousins of the SATURDAY REVIEW reflects one editor's appreciation of what magazine readers want. Fundamentally, to publish a magazine that people will read and respect; To believe, not as rote or strained slogan, but as rigid fact, that a magazine is by natural right the prOperty of its readers; That, because of this, editors are but temporary custodians, their tenure related to and dependent upon their confidence in the judgement and intelli- gence of the reader; That such confidence is best established by avoiding both the condescension of talking down and the presumption of talking up; That a magazine, like a person, requires, in order to be effective, certain qualities--readily identifiable and beyond obliteration; That high among these qualities is a response to values, the capacity to create values, and the passion to defend values; That other essential qualities include clarity, curiosity, insight, incisiveness, integrity, good taste, good will, conviction, responsibility; That what is written is believed by the writer and written to be believed by the reader; That the magazine should reflect a sense of adventure and excitement about life in general and about books and ideas in particular; That honest sentiments, honest passions, and honest indignations are among the highest expres- sions of conscience, that there is no need to feel shy or awkward or embarrassed in their presence, and that they are not to be waved aside by mock austerics; That cynicism at best is a waste of time; at worst, a dangerous and potentially fatal disease for individuals and civilizations both; That ideals are the main business of writers, and that people will respond to ideals far beyond the anticipations of their nominal leaders; That believing all this need neither limit nor inhibit a sense of fun and the enjoyment of laughter; That editing, finally, is not paring but creating.l37 137Wolseley, ll3. 143 Curtis took a similar position in the following "Curtis Commitment," published as part of an advertisement taken in the New York Times in November of 1962. The Curtis Publishing Company is committed to the goal of becoming the voice and conscience of the competitive free enterprise system, which is the foundation of a progressive economy and a democratic way of life. The editorial weight of the Curtis magazines will be applied to this undertaking and through text and photographic treatment we will present the voice and opinions of leaders of this country, this hemisphere and the entire Western World in speaking out on this subject. It is our conviction that the competitive- enterprise system represents one of man's great- est achievements, and that it provides the frame- work not only for our economic well-being but also for the preservation of individual rights and the protection of minorities. The pages of our magazines will provide a forum for all of the voices of the marketplace, including those of labor, business, politics, government and education, as well as those which 8 speak for social forces and for the family group. 138Goulden, 140. Not only did the editors of the family magazines conform to generally held convictions and moral values, they were careful to let the public know that they were conforming. They told us how good they were at reflecting the broad American scene. For instance, LOOK ran the following text Opposite a picture of their office build- ing in a two page spread on March 23, 1965. LOOK HEADQUARTERS. On its walls hang the scores of editorial awards and trOphies that set LOOK apart as America's most honored magazine. 144 Last year alone, LOOK received major awards from Sigma Delta Chi, National Education Association, National Conference of Christians and Jews, American Bar Association, Overseas Press Club, and New York Art Directors Club. Significantly, these awards cover the entire editorial spectrum—- from reporting to art direction, from photog- raphy to feature writing. They are a tribute not to a single phase of publishing but to the basic LOOK approach . . . the LOOK concept of personal journalism. Over 7,500,000 American families buy LOOK--more than any other magazine in its field. They re- spond to the LOOK concept of journalism. You can join them in enjoying a year-round program of rewarding reading for you and for every mem- ber of your family. This, of course, is only good business. The matter of editing raises still another problem for the family magazines. According to Phillips Wyman, Editorial content is a factor in circulation because it influences reader interest. If the staff is to arouse the interest of potential readers it must know their reading habits and attempt to gratify them. The narrower the reader's interests, the less the appeal of the general magazine. The narrower the content of the magazine, the less the appeal to the general reader. Through research departments or research firms hired to do the job, magazine publishers or editors constantly seek to understand reader psychology, so as not to offend it or fail to satisfy it.l39 139Wolseley, 165-l66. This results in a certain homogeneity of contents in the family magazines; not only were they limited in 145 choice of materials, they were limited in point of . 140 View. 140For a discussion of this limitation and an evaluation of magazines' progress in the face of it, see Wood, Magazines in the U.S., 368-369. In much the same way, the family magazine formula included the overall appearance of the magazine. The reader desires that, . . . his magazine appear on the newsstand or in the mailbox dependably, with the usual recogniz- able appearance plus freshness and newness that are appealing. Whether a magazine continues or ceases publi- cation may depend on the success of its editors in resolving this paradox. For, Wyman declares, ”The relation of reader and magazine is essentially emotional," a fundamental statement the truth of which is not realized by many professionals in circulation work. Many periodicals are read by habit, which is upset by issues that look un- friendly, odd, too much like some other magazine, or in some way unusual. Wyman also points out that in preparing sales letters or other copy for new-subscriber promotion material, a list of features generally is ineffective. A reader occasionally may buy a magazine because he sees an article listed in a leaflet or on the table of contents page, for the piece may be by his favorite author or on a subject of deep interest; but unless the magazine runs such material regu- larly he will not buy the book regularly. The effectiveness of this . . . factor is most clear when the magazine succeeds in building loyalty to itself. Once the reader becomes habituated to a certain magazine, which he does when he is confi- dent almost every issue will contain material suit- able, valuable, or pleasing to him, he will pro- cure it regularly.1 l lZlWolseley, l65-l66. 146 This problem of ready reader identification applies to all areas of the magazine, even to the physical size of the . 142 issue. 142Due to the recent postal rate increases for magazines, at least two (HOLIDAY, ESQUIRE) magazines have cut their page size substantially. It will be interesting to see what effect this decision has ultimately on reader- ship for it is extremely risky to bring out an old maga- zine in all new form. One of the devices used successfully by POST to insure continuity and regularity was the inclusion and repetition of special small features. One of these was "The Perfect Squelch," a short anecdote that generally ended with the "windbag" of the piece being deflated by one of his listeners. Another short feature was "You Be The Judge," a short civil suit drawn from everyday life. "What's Happening Here?" drew on great moments in history, asking readers to identify them from a picture. The re- sult was that, even if the reader didn't particularly like that issue's contents, at least three of his regular favorites would appear. In the same way, cartoons added regularity.143 I213THE NEW YORKER regularly collects "best" car- toons into bound volumes, which sell well. In fact, many readers of that magazine regularly read all the cartoons in a new issue before reading anything else--which shows the success of humor in providing continuity. POST car- toons were collected too, and POST stories. 147 Like POST, COLLIER'S recognized the need for regu— larity from one issue to the next. The magazine regularly included such features as "Why Don't They?" which featured reader participation. In fact, the reader whose idea was included in the feature was awarded $5 for his contribu- tion. Many of the ideas were of this type: "Why don't they 'indent telephone receivers so that women don't have to remove earrings to talk on the phone?" (Sharon Lee Swartwood, Cheektowaga, N.Y., 9/28/56, p. 20). Another regular feature was "Now they've done it!" which told readers about new products and gimmicks. A third COLLIER'S favorite was "It's the Law!" which listed humorous archaic laws such as "Roosters are not allowed inside the city limits of Mobile, Alabama." (1/4/57, p. 42). COLLIER'S editors were aware of reader appreciation of these features. When another of their publications, THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE, went under in August, 1956, the last issue car- ried the following page. Most of the family magazines were well aware of the need for maintaining a continuity of appearance from one issue to the next. One of the interesting differences in the circumstances of the deaths of LOOK and POST is that POST changed its overall appearance considerably but LOOK did not. Perhaps POST's change was an attempt to compete more effectively with the visual media. A comparison of any POST issue from 1960 with any issue from 1969, for 148 Announcement Publication of The American Magazine as a separate magazine ceases with this issue. Best features of The American will he continued in the exciting. growing Collier‘s and Woman‘s Home Companion. ('ollier‘s will publish these popular features: The Complete Mystery Novel It’s The Law! Why Dun‘! They." Now They've Done l(.' ('ompanion will publish: America's Interesting People The Open I)UUI' Help/or Your Home I'imui' Sir/e oft/1e Slreel Readers of [he American's novels of romance and short-short stories will find many of their favorite authors included in the expanded fiction content of (‘ompanioit Ior the best features of The American Maga/ine read Collier’s and GOMPANION I‘ln' ( rune/ll n/ln'r Pub/[Allin]: (hm/"my li-JU [ill/i .‘lu'mu', New Yin/i [9, N. 1'. Figure 9.—-Death of THE AMERICAN. 149 example, reveals a number of obvious visual changes. Cover illustrations by artists such as Norman Rockwell depicting traditional American experiences were replaced by cover photographs of more sensational nature. The issue of January 25, 1969, the penultimate issue, boasted on its cover that it would tell us "How Barney Rosset Publishes 'Dirty Books' for Fun and Profit." Inside we note that the traditional "The Cover,‘ a paragraph explaining the nuances of the cover experience, disappeared. The editor- ial occupies its place. The quality of paper, too, changed in favor of glossier stock. Photographs became larger and brighter, while illustrations became smaller and fewer. Type styles changed in favor of darker, bolder characters. The change was in favor of high visibility, at the expense of traditional appearance. By changing image and format, POST lost much of its value as ritual experience. . . . magazine publishing deals basically in in- tangibles. The product is a new one each week or month. Its effectiveness for advertising is a function of its reader acceptance and trust. Its character and reputation are as important as solvency to a bank. None of the dire conse- quences implicit in the rumor (death) have materialized, nor are any included in our plans for the future. The second major factor contributing to re- duced advertising linage has been the natural hesitation of advertising agencies and adver- tisers to place firm schedules in the face of dramatic and far reaching changes in THE SATUR- DAY EVENING POST.144 144Robert A. MacNeal, quoted in Wood, The Curtis Magazines, 250. 150 During the 19605 subscription numbers for POST and LOOK did not change greatly. It seems likely that a large percentage of subscribers were of the ritual variety. George Horace Lorimer, the man responsible for POST'S initial success, knew that subscriber loyalty was also dependent on the magazine's maintaining a friendly relation- ship with them. Clay Blair, Jr., one of the last editors, saw it differently. With six libel suits in the courts (two of which resulted in six-figure verdicts and settlement) Blair said, "We are hitting them where it hurts, with solid, meaningful journalism." The SEP, which Ben Hibbs once edited for the entire family, trumpeted exposes of vice and crime and sickening photographic layouts on Thalidomide babies (nine pages and the cover of a 96 page issue in 1962).145 145Goulden, 173. In the years that Lorimer reigned in the offices of Curtis Publishing Company, POST had a definite policy regarding its readers. That policy was a very simple one: readers are important. And the readers knew that they were important. Thousands of letters from concerned people all across the country arrived at the POST offices yearly. People responded to POST in much the same way that they respond to many other pOpular elements of American culture. They felt that they had personal stakes in POST management. Their letters were invariably answered, many by Lorimer himself. Lorimer's morning routines were rigid. After looking at some manuscripts, 151 . he attacked the mail. There were three formidable piles of it. The right—hand pile was personal mail, the usual potpurri of requests for everything from speeches to articles to money, and a batch of fan letters. These he read first and set aside to dictate the answers after lunch. The middle pile was addressed to the POST and he read those with care, because they helped him to keep his finger on the public pulse. .All varieties of communication were in this section. The third pile of letters were those written to staff members which they thought might interest him. He also glanced through the forwarding mail to discover which authors were getting letters from readers. 146Tebbel, 207. All this mail enabled Lorimer to make intelligent decisions about what to include in POST and what to leave out. His criterion for accepting or rejecting any article was simple: "Will the POST audience like it?" Just how great the readers' sense of participation was, and its importance, were not recognized by the regime that made the decision to cut subscriber lists in the last year of POST'S life. People all over, not just in the unwanted Nielsen C and D districts, felt that the relation- ship with the magazine had changed. . . perhaps because no such announcement had ever been made before, Ackerman's decision was greeted with a considerable amount of indignation. It was not just that the subscribers had a legal and moral right to their magazines but they seemed to believe they had a personal relationship with the POST. They thought that when they subscribed, the editor rejoiced, and when they canceled, he grieved. Now 152 they were learning that they were nothing but names on a computer tape.14 147Otto Friedrich, "I am Marty Ackerman," Harper's, December, 1969, 112. One fact seems to stand out about many forms of popular culture: constituent loyalty is a prerequisite to success. Readers' reaction to their cancellations was astounding. POST offices were swamped with letters. The office staff designated for correspondence was unable to handle the added volume of mail; many letters received absolutely no attention. Ackerman's attitude toward readers appears to have been more than callous: "So on about the first of August, we're going to send a form letter to one million A and B (Nielsen counties) saying, 'We can't send you POST any more, and unless you notify us within 30 days, you're going to get LIFE from now on.'" "What if they don't want LIFE?" somebody asked. Ackerman shrugged. "We're counting on the fact that a lot of people don't answer their mail." As for the C and D readers, who were unworthy of the POST and unwanted by LIFE, Ackerman laughed and said, "We haven't worked that level out yet. We'll give them some kind of magazines but we don't know which ones. If anybody has any ideas148 on what the letter should say, please speak up." 148Friedrich, 112. POST's subscription cancellations were greeted with widespread, although not very funny humor. Even Art Buchwald wrote a column on the subject. He created an 153 account of the troubles of a man named Feneker, of Hop- scotch, Nebraska. No one came right out and said they knew the SATURDAY EVENING POST had canceled his subscrip- tion, but the atmOSphere in the town changed. The bank refused him a loan for a new wing on his house. He had trouble cashing checks in the grocery.store. Ackerman's reaction was, "Stories like that are practically ads. They tell everybody that the POST is a class maga- zine, and that not everybody can get it. That's great."149 149Friedrich, 113. Even for a "class magazine" POST was not overly selective, often due to computer troubles, as to whom subscriptions were given. Two of those dropped from the list, ironically, were Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and Martin S. Ackerman. For perhaps the first time POST subscribers came to the stark realization that they were factors in a basic supply and demand situation. They were a commodity like other commodities; they were up for grabs by the highest bidder. And they resented it. The family magazines served still another function for the reader and, by extension, still serve the same function for the historian. Through magazine advertising readers became educated consumers. Without leaving the comfort of his living room, the reader could find out all 154 about the newest appliances, automobiles, insurance plans, etc. More important for the consumer in a material society, he could judge his own standard of living in terms of new items on the market. He could see, for example, that his bathroom fixtures were sadly dated. One advertisement in 1960 demonstrated with color pictures the off-the—floor toilet, the off-center design bathtub and the single—lever faucet. (POST, April 16, 1960, pp. 20- 21) In the same issue he could learn about no-defrost refrigerators, nylon tires, wide-track automobiles, polyester fiber, permanent auto radiator fill, new designs in telephones, "detergent-action" shoe polish, poison ivy pills, and a vaccuum cleaner that "dances out deep down dirt" . . . plus a lot more. The family magazines had an important function as "consumers' showcases." The real interest for the cultural historian and sociologist in family magazine advertising lies in what it reveals about changing trends in American taste. We can learn a great deal about American manufacturing history and American consumer tastes from back issues of family magazines. One can take almost any ad for a large durable good, put it in the context offered by the rest of the magazine (including other advertisements) and understand the forces operating on the consumer at that moment. For example, POST carried a double-page Spread in full color for the 1960 Chrysler (April 16, 1960, pp. 78-79) with the 155 car set in a family fishing scene. The car featured a pushbutton transmission, a trend for at least three auto makers (Chrysler, American Motors, Ford), but a gadget that never caught on. Influenced by the recent Space- craze, the car carried enormous tail-fins, ostensibly to promote high-speed stability (there was never any real evidence for this).150 150The car had huge expanses of glass fore and aft, another trend of the Sixties that has since died. Engineers now know that it is prohibitively expensive to produce wrap-around windows relatively free of distortion; and the large areas of glass had considerable effect on interior heating-cooling problems. Besides, the advent of impact-resistant glass demanded fewer curves. Large slabs of chrome covered rocker panels, light and window moldings. Now, of course, the cost of stainless steel is proportionately more reasonable; coupled with its superior durability, etc. it is the choice of auto makers. Family magazines are ideally suited for this kind of study because of their very broad range. Naturally, it is possible to see the role of the advertiser negatively. For instance, The critics of the mass media are in error when they condemn its products out of hand. These media can tolerate good as well as bad contents, high as well as low art. Euripides and Shakespeare can perfectly well follow the Western or quiz Show on TV, and the Slick magazine can easily sandwich in cathedrals and madonnas among the pictures of athletes and movie queens. What is significant, however, is that it does not matter. The mass media find space for politics and sports, for science and fiction, for art and 156 music, all presented on an identical plateau of irrelevance. And the audience which receives this complex variety of wares accepts them passively as an undifferentiated but recognizable series of good things among which it has little capacity for choice, and with which it cannot establish any meaningful, direct relationship. The way in which the contents of the mass media are communicated deprives the audience of any degree of selectivity, for those contents are marketed as any other commodities are. In our society it seems possible through the use of the proper marketing device to sell anybody anything, so that what is sold has very little relevance to the character of either the buyers or of the article sold. This is as true of culture as of refrigerators or fur coats. The contents of the magazine or the TV schedule or the newspaper have as little to do with their sales potential as the engine specifications with the marketability of an automobile. The popularity of quiz shows no more reflects the desires of the audience than the increase in circulation of AMERICAN HERITAGE or GOURMET reflects a growing knowledge of American history of the development of gastronomic taste, or, for that matter, than the efflorescence of tail fins in 1957 reflected a yearning for them on the part of automobile buyers. All these were rather examples of excellent selling jobS. 151Oscar Handlin in Jacobs, 69. We should remember, however, that the advertisements are just as much a part of the magazines as the articles or fiction. They become increasingly useful as history. Even if, as Mr. Handlin suggests, the commodities sold are not worth study (although it seems highly unlikely), the selling job itself is worth a close look. According to Peterson, the development of formulas for magazines was ultimately a product of the magazines' advertising function. Once again, we are struck by the 157 fact that the real manipulators of the popular media are those with financial interests. When magazines fervently embraced advertising in the late nineteenth century, they became in- extricably joined to the marketing system. Content was the bait with which the publisher coaxed an audience to his magazine-—an audience of consumers valuable to the advertiser for its Sheer size, its homogeneity, or both. After a publisher had struck upon a happy balance of content which attracted the desired readers, he was reluctant to change it. Hence every issue of a given magazine tended to be similar to every other. Such standardization of content was a natural outgrowth of the quest for a popular market and the mass production necessary if a magazine was to compete successfully for that market. Well into the nineteenth century, when magazines were still edited for just the elite few, an editor could re- main an aloof arbiter who chose what he liked from among the contributions of aspiring writers. How- ever, the editor of a mass-produced magazine tailored to the interests of a Specific pOpular audience could not count on filling it with stories and articles selected from chance contributions. The types of material he used and the distinctive handling his writers gave it determined the edi- torial personality of the magazine, and it was that personality which caused readers to buy. Thus an increasingly large proportion of magazine content came to be planned by the staff. Walter Hines Page of the FORUM demonstrated the feasibility of such planning during his tenure as editor from 1887 to 1895. He astounded his colleagues by jotting down a table of contents months in advance of publica— tion and then scouting out writers qualified to produce the articles he wanted. Today the major magazines have adopted Page's basic idea of edi— torial planning. On many publications the staff originates ideas for a high percentage of the features the magazine carries. Some of the ideas are assigned to established free-lance writers who research and write the articles. Others are developed by staff writers. In either instance, the net effect is standardization.152 152Peterson, 61-62. 158 The same study indicates that the same influences were operating in all of the popular media. A current issue of a given magazine is very much like the last issue; the editor has struck upon an editorial formula, a balance of content, which he repeats issue after issue. So it is with radio and television, in which the programming of one station is much like that of every other. 53 153Peterson, 60. The point is that the formulas worked for producers, adver- tisers and consumers. And, in the case of the consumer in an increasingly visual society, the habit factor was most important in keeping the family magazines alive. Role, habit, and custom . . . influence media choices . . . for it is easier to continue behavior patterns than to change them. Eliot Freidson has suggested that one selects media content from habit or under pressure from one's social groups. Com- munications behavior, in fact, becomes a part of social behavior, and some selection of media fare is really just a habitual social act. For example, only about one person in five in a movie audience may have made any conscious effort to choose that particular movie. A young man may take his date to the movies on Saturday night simply because going to a movie is what the young people in their group do on Saturday night. A midwestern couple may read the Sunday edition of THE NEW YORK TIMES because others in their social group do. A family may sub- scribe to a magazine out of habit long after keen interest in it has died.15 154Peterson, 137. We have seen the magazines' obligations to con- sumers under the formulas they adOpted to meet their roles. The formulas themselves were highly similar due to the 159 similarity of the consumers the magazines reached. One role has dominated all of the others: the reinforcement of moral values is an integral part of information, enter— tainment and escape in family magazine fiction. It is also readily apparent in the bland editorial sections of COLLIER'S and POST and is implicit in the magazines' function as "consumers' showcases." The fulfillment of all of these roles led to an increasingly ritual-oriented audience for the family maga- zines. We noted earlier that subscription lists remained relatively constant for all the family magazines, probably representing a large percentage of ritual readers. More— over, these readers felt a close relationship with the magazines and did not hestiate to voice approval or dis- approval. Had nothing else changed, these ritual readers might still be sitting down weekly or bi—weekly with their favorite magazines. Of course, many things did change, as shown in earlier chapters. This chapter showed the consequences of at least one magazine's alienation of its ritual readers. DeSpite all of the bad feelings surrounding the POST'S death, how- ever, the magazine has reappeared in quarterly form. From all indications it is once again prospering. The best explanation for this successful renascence is in terms of the ritual reader who, after a two year moratorium, 160 can once again have "his" magazine . . . even if less frequently. It was on the basis of the Six goals discussed in this section that the family magazine's peculiar relation- ship with the American people was built. None of these areas, by itself, could produce a love affair of such huge proportions-—and a love affair it was. The coldness of the newsmagazine does not invite the closeness Americans had with COLLIER'S, LOOK and POST. Our needs for short fiction of the family magazine type are now being met by television. The American people would hardly accept a magazine with nothing in it but editorials and advertisements for new products, much less for a magazine of morals. Escape, by itself, does not really offer sufficient base for a maga- zine, except of the very sensational variety. Yet all of these items in correct proportion, covered with a protec- tive moral shield, offered the American people an irresist- ible package for many years. The recent success of the POST is evidence that the package is still a sound one, if uneconomical on a weekly or bi—weekly scale. America still has no one popular medium that fills our multiple needs as well as the family magazine did. Television has now taken over the role-—but its success is due to a combination of technological and economic factors, not to a sudden shift in American mass values. CONCLUSIONS This study has offered examinations of the major problems that beset the family magazines, and the problems were many and overlapping. AS suggested throughout the paper, the problems were organic; that is, they accrued to the family magazine genre as a whole and to the obligations of the family magazines. None of the problems is alone sufficient explanation for the death of the genre; rather, the problems indicated were synergistic. Basically, the problems of the family magazines fall into the three broad Spheres of the magazines' obligation: (l) obligation to readers, (2) obligation to advertisers, and (3) obligation to themselves. The failure of the family magazines to meet reader needs was a result of failure to fulfill the six basic obligations upon which the magazines' formulas were based. Those obligations are: (1) information, (2) entertainment, (3) escape, (4) assistance in Opinion formation, (5) rein- forcement of moral values, and (6) provision of a "con- sumers' Showcase." In order to be successful, the family magazines needed to fill those roles in some way that the other media could not. Originally, family magazines 161 162 enjoyed a special place based on these roles; that is, they were virtually without competition from other media in their relationship with the American people. But the family magazine formula was unable to adapt to a number of things: the rapid acceleration of an increasingly technological society, the rise of the great youth market, the increas— ingly "throw-away" nature of American society, and severe inroads by other media on what had been family magazine territory. The nature of the magazine formula and the limita- tions of the magazine format were largely responsible for this failure to meet role obligations. Even with greatly improved presses and the use of the "fast close," the time between composition and consumption of the magazine was too great in the face of the increased demands for speed. The necessarily general, bland nature of family magazine contents was not suitable for adaptation to the needs of the under-25 reader, who represented an increasingly rich consumer group. The tangibility and comparative permanence of the magazine was a handicap compared with the intangi- bility and flexibility of the contents of radio and tele- vision in meeting consumer needs. Because of this fact, radio was able to make a shift in basic roles that has allowed it to survive and prosper, while the family maga- zines were left behind. Attempts to shift the magazines' image, such as Curtis's ill-fated "SOphisticated 163 muckraking" program, succeeded only in alienating the ritual readers who demanded that their magazines appear regularly with recognizable form and content. Secondly, the family magazines failed increasingly to meet the needs of advertisers. This failure shows the ireal impact that television has had. As Marshall McLuhan has pointed out, television brought us out of the linear age and into the spatial age of communications. Television has become the most natural form of mass communication in America; when two media compete for the same market, the one that is most attractive and most accessible will win. TV became the first choice of advertisers for several reasons: (1) it had the inherent advantage of a spatial medium; (2) it had tremendous flexibility in reaching specialized audiences, both geographically and by interest groups; (3) it gave the advertiser almost complete control over the reSponse of the consumer audience; and (4) it became increasingly inexpensive to use compared with maga- zines. Moreover, advertisers knew that television had attracted the family audience away from magazines. This was true because: (1) TV offered "whole-family" enter- tainment, solving the problems of "Where shall we go?" and "What shall we do?"; (2) TV offered greater "acces- sibility" for consumers than did magazines; (3) TV brought with it the illusions of "immediacy and truth"; (4) TV had absorbed the magazines' role of presenting various 164 kinds of short fiction; and (5) TV viewers brought with them far less critical attitudes than did the readers of family magazines. For all of these reasons, advertisers spent more and more on television commercials, less and less on magazine advertisements. The third major area of failure for the family magazines was in their responsibility to themselves. Many writers have pointed out that the slow corporate pace of the family magazines might be symbolized by the electric- powered trucks used by Curtis that moved about Philadelphia at a stodgy ten miles per hour. Repeatedly, the family magazine publishing corporations expanded vertically, fail— ing to seize the brass ring offered by the newer media. Poor economic planning forced the family magazines into the "numbers race" with other media and pushed them into unwise corporate decisions. The inevitable postal in- creases were ill—planned for; the magazines had set too high a point of diminishing returns in terms of subscriber lists. Payrolls were enormous, filled with the names of employees waiting for retirement, serving out their days at the leisurely pace of the magazines. Corporate infight- ing of almost epic proportions brought further chaos into management. POST, for example, went through at least three major changes in image within the last eight or nine years of its life. All of these factors, coupled with rising 165 costs, interest rates and inflation, added considerably to the pattern of failure presented in this study. The paper also shows the unique value that the family magazines have for the cultural historian. In their pages we can find out practically anything we need to know about the American cultural situation at a given time. Technology, literary tastes, moral standards, fads and current interests all are there. Most important, however, the magazines show us the tempo of American society. They show us how we were in other, simpler days; nostalgia has a certain value, too. Ben Hibbs, the last truly successful editor of the SATURDAY EVENING POST, put it this way: Yet, after all, the world is not entirely com- posed of hydrogen bombs, juvenile delinquency, race riots, mental institutions, heart disease and cancer . . . I can remember the time when people thought it fun to read. Why shouldn't we provide our readers with a bit of ”escape” to use a dirty word-—from the cares of daily life through the vehicle of a buoyant human_interest article or an absorbing story. It is one of our functions, and a highly worthwhile function, I think. There is nothing incompatible in intellectuality and the love of entertainment--in a man or a magazine. 155Goulden, 90-91. In sum, this is a study of the popular media, or the ways by which the popular arts get into the hands of the consumer. It analyses forces which drove one medium from the marketplace. It shows the tremendous influence of media trends on the popular arts, and shows the 166 tremendous influence of business interests in the control of the media. Those interests emerge as having been the decisive factors in the burial of the family magazines. America still has no one medium that fills Americans' needs as well as did the family magazines. Television now has taken over the role--but its success is due to a com- bination of technological and economic factors, not to a sudden shift in American mass values. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Advertising Research Foundation, Inc. National Survey of Television Sets in U.S. Households--January, 1969. New York: Advertising Research Foundation, Inc., 1969. Association of National Advertisers, Inc. Television Circulation and Rate Trends (1962-1967). New York: Association of National AdvertiSers, Inc., 1967. Arlen, Michael J. Living Room War. New York: The Viking Press, 1966. Bach, Robert 0., ed. Communication. New York: Hastings House, 1963. Bainbridge, John. Little Wonder and How it Grew. ‘New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1946. Barrett, William. "American Fiction and American Values." Partisan Review, 18 (1951), 681-90. Bauer, Alice, and Bauer, R. A. "America: Mass Society and Mass Media." Journal of Social Issues, 16 (1960), 3—50. Berelson, Bernard, and Lazarsfeld, Paul F. The Analysis of Communication Content (Preliminary Draft), March, 1948. Berelson, Bernard. Content Analysis. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1952. Blair, Clay, Jr. The Board Room. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1969. Bogart, Leo. The Age of Television: A Study of Viewing Habits and the Impact of Television on American Life. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1956. Brustein, Robert S. "The New Faith of the Saturday Evening Post." Commentary, 16 (1953), 367-69. 168 169 Carruth, Hayden. "The Phenomenon of the Paperback." Perspectives U.S.A., 15 (1956), 192-204. Cooney, Thomas. "Good News on Paper-backs." Saturday Review, 11 June 1969, pp. 20-37. Cowley, Malcolm. "The Bid Change in Publishing." Esquire, December 1960, pp. 309-15. . The Literary Situation. New York: Viking Press, 1946. Crosby, Harry H., and Bond, George R. The McLuhan Explosion. New York: American Book Co., 1968. Culligan, Matthew J. The Curtis-Culligan Story. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1970. Deer, Irving, and Deer, Harriet. The Popular Arts: A Critical Reader. New York: Scribner, 1967. Dembner, S. Arthur, and Massee, William E., eds. Modern Circulation Methods. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968. Dempsey, David. "The Revolution in Books.” Atlantic, 191 (1953), 75—79. Dexter, Lewis Anthony, and White, David Manning, eds. People, Society and Mass Communications. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1964. DeVoto, Bernard. "Culture at Two Bits." Harper's, October 1954, pp. 8-13. Diamant, Lincoln, ed. The Anatomy of a Television Com- mercial. New York: Hastings House, 1970. Economic Report of the President Transmitted to the Congress February, 1971 Together with the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisors. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971. Elliott, William Y. Television's Impact on American Culture. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1956. Frase, R. W. "Books and the Mass Media." New Republic, 133 (1955), pp. 30-31. 170 Friedrich, Otto. Decline and Fall. New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1970. Fuller, Walter D. The Life and Times of Cyrus H. K. Curtis (Newcomen address). Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1948. Goulden, Joseph C. The Curtis Caper. New York: Putnam's Sons, 1965. ' Jacobs, Lewis. The Movies as Medium. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970. Jacobs, Norman, ed. Culture for the Millions?: Mass Media in Modern Society. Toronto: D. Van Nostrand Co. Inc., 1959. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Kendall, Patricia L. Radio Listen- ing in America. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1948. Lee, Robert E. Television: The Revolution. New York: Essential Books, 1944. Lippincott, J. P. York: J. Co. The Author and His Audience. New P. Lippincott Co., 1967. Lowenthal, Leo, ed. Literature, Popular Culture, and Society. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrentiCe-Hall, Inc., 1961. Mehling, Harold. The Great Time-Killer. New York: The World Publishing Co., 1962. Mendelsohn, Harold. Mass Entertainment. New Haven: College and University Press Services, Inc., 1966. McMahan, Harry Wayne. The Television Commercial. New York: Hastings House, 1957. McLuhan, Marshall. Counterblast. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1969. . Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Signet Books, 1964. McLuhan, Marshall, and Fiore, Quentin. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Bantam Books, 1967. . War and Peace in the Global Village. New York: Bantam Books, 1964. 171 Miller, Jonathon. Marshall McLuhan. New York: Viking Press, 1971. Mott, Frank L. A History of American Magazines 1741-1885 (3 Vols.). New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1930; and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938-1939. NBC Television. Television Today. New York: National Broadcasting Company, Inc., 1951. Nye, Russel B. The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America. New York: The Dial Press, 1970. Peterson, Theodore. Magazines in the Twentieth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. Peterson, Jensen, Rivers. The Mass Media and Modern Society. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1966. Rissover, Frederic, and Birch, David C. Mass Media and the Popular Arts. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1971. Robinson, Edward J., and White, David Manning. An 7 Exploratory Study of the Attitudes of More Highly Educated People Toward the Comic Stripg. Report No. 1, Communications Research Center, September, 1960. Rosenberg, Bernard, and White, David Manning. Mass Cul- ture: The Popular Arts in America. New York: MacMillan Free Press, 1957. Schramm, Wilbur, ed. Mass Communications: A Book of Readings. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1960. . The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1954. Shulman, Arthur, and Youman, Roger. How Sweet it Was. New York: Shorecrest, Inc., 1966. Stearn, Gerald Emanuel, ed. McLuhan: Hot and Cool. New York: Sginet Books, 1967. Tebbel, John. George Horace Lorimer and the Saturday Evening Post. Garden City: Doubleday, 1948. 172 Tebbel, John. Paperback Books: A Pocket History. New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1964. Thomey, Tedd. The Glorious Decade. New York: Ace Books, 1971. Time, Inc. Continuing Study of Magazine Audiences. Report No. 8, Time, Inc., August 15, 1946. Television Bureau of Advertising, Inc. How to Reach. New York: Television Bureau of Advertising, Inc., 1959. Uhlan, Edward. The Rogue of Publisher's Row. New York: Exposition Press, 1956. White, Theodore H. The View from the Fortieth Floor. New York: William Sloan Associates, 1960. Williams, Raymond. Communications. London: Chatoo and Windus, 1966. Wilson, David. The Communicators and Society. Oxford: Pergamon Press, Ltd., 1968. Wolfe, Charles Hull. Modern Radio Advertising. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1949. Wood, James Playsted. The Curtis Magazines. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1971. Magazines in the United States. New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1956. Wolseley, Roland E. The Magazine World: An Introduction to Magazine Journalism. New York: PrentiCe- Hall, Inc., 1951. Wylie, Max. Clear Channels. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1955. APPENDICES 173 174 TABLE ll.--Te1evision in the United States, January, 1969. January June August August 1969 1967 1966 1965 Per Cent with Color Sets All TV Households 32.0% 19.3% 13.0% 7.4% One-set Households 22.2 12.9 8.7 4.8 Multi-set Households 54.0 37.2 26.4 17.0 Per Cent with UHF Sets* All TV Households 54.9 42.1 33.8 22.8 One-set Households 46.6 35.3 28.3 19.3 Multi-set Households 73.2 60.9 51.3 35.7 Source: Advertising Research Foundation. *More than half of all television households have sets capable of receiving UHF programs. Multi—set households continue to lead in UHF penetration. 175 C .ammatomaa .meaonmmson :oamu>mamu ca nuzouoii.oa magmas $2 5. m 9.2 at: «X. ~02 f!— 32 an: of... .39. on: .15 an: emo— flfi 1. . n ..a ....(i ... ... (ea .- W. .. t. J ..u . ...J... M Q 02. . we.“ 35¢ 1‘01 .. 4.1“: ..uoyldv-.l.qini. i :IIIIM‘IS (140%.. ‘1.in «‘MI' VII 9 q J“... ...:4 9:4“: 1 ‘l innit; . v _ i .L _. . . . L a film mi... T... ...i i. r . V v . . w w 4* - . i _ L i w! wYL 2 Z, w L . _ (toll n . . . , L . :24 F t _ . . . : » . v v14... .. ~. L e_-£Dfi..oz . u .- ~mm.£..).... V II: .3 .7042... . .w -.L i H J..." . iu.l I s L . _ ri. an. ”it v ...; ,. ... 71.-.; .. .i . liL l.llL fan“... a: e . :iL c: s: ,. 3 l a; it . Na- .: mil. ‘~u rift ‘ a. «. . 4 , lpi..it _ .... rli l MI I . .1 5k . .. “nu _C _« . ill a x. . "u. #4...” . .c t... ,m. r“: “.R...J r! IL . .a . ...l .mmmfliomma .qoaumnumnmm coama>mamu ca auzonoii.aa museum 0.. a! ~8- 3 a. g a. «I. ~8. a. a. .8— 32 38 $2 a. n8— 32 .3. 8S l— 176 mm. 66. a 0 ma 0:3 g=< as. A d: — . ..."! i_,. 177 l elem sion Households (in millions) Color Penetration All '_ ' . .... m g: ivm4 I l “'” ' ”9° ”Him" k\\\&\\\ 7“ ,rxzt .Vfi’f.) 1,1 txryf'x" f“ Mll'l' 3918'"- r13) ("r > 36" ”:5”- ‘~.V \A,{\<‘-N<\~:$’; >3 54 0 . \ ~ 7 ii ' ‘.",Q\-.’)".'\ \' "J‘x‘x‘v‘, V'.’\/‘.,'. ' 3‘4. .56)" ' ‘\ \\\\‘ l a, AIL-15A. $13-1.) ugh-gt ”(3.; :X'XA , ' / I //4//’/ // / L cific é/ / I/Q I'/:—' /// ' 4/ j, 1,.-. I 1’ / I ‘ ~ ' , , / ‘ / I l ,/ - r x .7 :«/// . , I // / I / / ““F‘? / /. 4 / 1 // «p—v .- ‘r'i‘ —— 'SI‘U ‘ \ KYV". . \\ \ I \\ \\ \ \\\ ~, \ \ \- . ' \\\\\.\\§\1 \ \\ \ \ “\ "\\ L"\ \\.\ ‘ \ . .\ \‘\ .. ‘ \‘ ‘\ \ . ; k \ \\\\l \".\ “ V \ V \. f / x// I // / / I 1 / / f" x //' / UHF Penetration A" ' 54.91). lV NH ...,t‘n‘ .\ V1; \ ‘ wfilk\\\<<§§§§§g\fi\WG ........ . w o.\ .......... ’32 ------- ' ‘ I ccccc .... m 3.; ; ; : :: m: .......... .~.g; ...... ;g"vxmua;.nx.. ....... ........ ........ ...... ....... ........ . . ------ ........ .‘.§..‘-". ....... -------- ......... ...... ------- IIIIII ‘ uuuuuuuuuuu ........ uuuuuuuu I_I - IIIII nnnnnnn Figure 12.——Television in the United States, January 1969.* *Source: Advertising Research Foundation. 178 Television Households Total lnsule Outsme (in millions) I I 5‘ t a i n I‘- I I I I 0 I‘ l .I \ U I l I‘ I ' l n i .1 l K I ‘. -\\;I g l >\ ‘- xC- - «i --------- ,. . -\ u I \ i - b .-\-\\,( v . ‘ I» . ’I; t I --------- \\\\\\ Multi-Set, Color and UHF Penetration TV Households with Multi-Sets Inside 36.0% 00000 Outside . ‘ ‘4 21.1 TV Households with Color Sets i 3333: EX \ 31W, \Csi\xs§s\x\\\\\ \§\ \ :13 I - ~/ xiv ;' x UlliSlfi‘.‘ jig-Q ing~<i Inside TV Households with UHF Sets lnSidc \ 58.81: is --- -\ be \> .................................... \‘ \.\‘ 01.115108 -.a(t','.’v....,“,/ ,I/ ‘ l; '.A.‘I"/.v.-.‘\.\K‘.r\\m- 47-3 141-1' 3' - - L/‘Ir'i‘i‘i‘e’i‘-’ Figure 13.--Inside and outside standard metropolitan statistical areas, January, 1969.* *Source: Advertising Research Foundation. Total Stitillt WCSl Television Households (in millions) *' I', -' 1va) \’\ iiiiiiiiiii L . 179 Multi-Sct, Color and UHF Penetration TV Households with Multi-Sets NE \\\\\\\\\\\‘\\\\ 35.7% NC .sf"fi'lflffli":"nip;"3I;j21:3}13332C'Z:Z:Z:.:::I:I;I;.:T:Iiii;‘ 31 2 ............................ ................................. 5 {3.7: f-‘f remain 7590 w l l 31 7 TV Households with Color Sets NE W292 NC "iii-329?}?TI-Z-I-I'I-Z’l-‘SI;-‘-L-.-.-.’-I- ------- iii-35:; 33.6 ......................................... ....... vvvvvvv it ”39.5 ’I‘V Households with UllF Sets “5 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ . “5% ..................................... ............................................ .'L'.'.';’,’.*.* "- ? -‘ . ' - - I ' ' ' ." ......... 7,. u . I (R ‘4‘ ,{\@ S :‘.\:-.<'-, ‘.-\".‘.......‘, ‘ ' .f’;/’:"'\' ./:{V I % 450.8 \ W I 56.9 Figure l4.—-Census geographic regions, January, 1969.* *Source: Advertising Research Foundation. 180 TABLE 12.--Growth of homes owning radio and television (in millions). Tgtjg} Radio TV Pii $3“ P3552? Homes Homes Homes Coverage . Area Radio TV 1925 27.4 2.7 - - 10% - 1930 30.0 13.8 - - 46 - 1935 31.9 21.5 - - 67 - 1940 34.8 28.5 - - 82 - 1945 37.6 33.1 - - 88 - 1950 42.9 40.8 3.1 56% 95 7% 1951 44.2 41.9 10.0 60 95 23 1952 44.7 43.3 16.0 62 97 37 1953 45.6 45.2 21.2 67 99 46 1954 47.6 46.6 27.7 95 98 58 1955 47.8 47.0 32.0 97 98 67 1956 48.0 47.0 35.1 97 98 73 Source: A. C. Nielsen Co., NBC, CBS. 181 coflcmmeou oEom m.:mEoz msmo> accuson S308 muucsoo can G309 mafia umom mcflcm>m mmeunumm ocflnmmmz xoonemm manusoz wocmflom Hmasmom omen Hooeuso meuo» 3oz xemBmBmz mcHNmmmz w.HHmuoz mHHmmAOEmemz xooq mumxmsweom masow MOM mcfl>flq owed Hmcuson mEom .mmflemq eaocmmsom nephew a mmsom Homepsmom mmzom HmmNem m.nmmumm mnemoexomsom coow Hsoamao mcsuuom mnflswmm ceuHHOQOEmOO m.umflaaou msweumo w mmEom Hmuumm wsflnmmmz CMUHHmE¢ meow Sweenmfid .mmmum ceuflaomouuofiicoc one cmuflaomoupma Ce 08mm ecu aaoueEonummm some mm: cuzonm :oHumHsmom mo open m£9«« "momenmmme Homes mcHBOHHow esp muo>oo new commusm msflmfluno>©< mcwummmz may ma emflammsm even no women mayhem we magma mH£B« aaa as WHH as.oea mm.mmH sm.mma «icoHumHsmom amaaa>flo .m.s mm a ma 44.He Ha.am ma.mq aaeoe mm a mm ea.os mk.km no.0m mmomHm umguo was as as ms.sm ea.ma mk.ka ooo.ooa nm>o mmauao emieaafi smimmma mmievma smaa mmma mama mmemuosH ucmu Hem AmSOHHHHE may .coflpmfioomflu msmmH mamcflm .vmmaiovma «mocflmemee Hobosom om men we soeuean,nwi a” COADMHSUHHU mcflwmmmz mmmccroii.ma mammB 182 ma ma m mane» m swap ouoz an «a m mumms mid OH Ha m new» a cane mama mnmczo oooew oooem Hw>o moEOUcH mecca mmEOocH >9 Ham nuns mumczo >9 gua3 mumczo >9 woo Mom COmHmm Hem mousse: .mflcmuoczo >9 mo cumcoa wn mocfluemea msflemou ucemm msfleii.va mamas 183 TABLE 15.--Changes in circulation of different magazine categories.* % Increase % Increase % Increase .1940-1946 1940-1954 1946-1954 General Weeklies (and Bi-Weeklies + 26% + 67% + 33% News Weeklies + 99 +176 + 39 Other Weeklies-- Small Town - 23 + 37 + 77 Other Weeklies—- Big Town + 64 +132 + 41 Women's Service + 19 + 39 + 17 Grocery Store Women's + 61 +278 +135 General Women's Monthlies + 46 + 69 .+ 16 Men's Monthlies +136 +324 + 80 General Monthlies + 18 + 61 + 36 Fraternal Monthlies + 60 +138 + 49 Class Monthlies + 32 +153 + 91 Literary—Political Reviews + 97 +392 +150 Home + 37 +116 + 58 Fashion +194 +320 + 43 Business + 37 +106 + 51 Youth + 82 +186 + 57 Outdoor and Sports + 32 +133 + 76 Mechanics and Science + 62 +141 + 49 Farm + l + 31 + 29 Negro Magazines - - +281 Romance + 66 + 48 - ll Screen-Radio-TV +146 +249 + 42 Picture Magazines +170 + 65 - 39 TOTAL +40% +101% 'l' 44% *Based on A.B.C. circulation data. NOTE: Figures represent December 30th, ABC reports on all magazines published each year. 184 TABLE l6.--Average production costs of TV programs. Production Costs 90 Minute "Spectaculars" $200,000 One Hour Variety Shows 66,000 One Hour Dramas 36,000 Half-hour Dramas 28,000 Situation Comedies (per % hour) 30,000 Quiz, Audience Participation (per 8 hour) 14,000 Daytime Quarter-hour 2,750 Source: Sponsor Magazine, June 27, 1955 TABLE l7.--How advertising expenditures are divided among five major media. 1935 1940 1948 1952 1955 Television -% -% -% 11% 18% Radio 11 18 21 15 10 Newspapers 73 63 58 56 56 Magazines 13 15 17 14 13 Outdoor A __2_ __4 4 __4 __4 TOTAL for Five Media 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Source: McCann—Erickson, Inc. 185 mmmH mm o.moo.H o.omm o.mem 0.0mm mm o.mem 0.0mm o.mma 0.0m mm e.mom m.omH a.mom m.sHv om m.vom o.mHm a.mma m.vaa vmma mm a.mmv s.moH a.mm v.omm Hm H.4mo H.Hmm m.aea m.HoH mmma wmm m.osa o.mm m.om o.mm me a.moo m.msm m.mma m.ema omma oq o.amm a.mmm H.H~H o.oam mama em v.4mv e.ema a.mm a.mma mama mm e.mHm m.oe a.me m.maa ovma aam o.maa a.mm m.va o.me mmma Hmuoe «0 poem xnosumz Hmuoe mo poem xuo3umz ucou Hem Hmuoe Hmooq ucou Hem Hmuoe Hmooq mm Hmooq Hmsofiumz mm Hmooq HmQOflumz meow coflmfl>maoe oflpmm .mmmu Use Edfleos >3 .mousuflocomxo mcflmfluuo>om unmopmoun an mecoueii.ma mqmHm MOM A¢BOB 4 Mil wit mMI Mil .MII nooeuso 4H mm mm SH om mm mmcaummmz am am as mm ea mm mnmdmmmzmz NH . Ha m CH a ma caemm ass New wow sea was Nam nonma>mame m>HuOEousa HflO can mmocmflammm boom mcaHOmmw muomaune>e4 . mummfluum>©¢ HedOHsz Had . HH< xupmsecH .Avmmav memos Hedge ocean mnwmfluuo>em mo mpcflx ucwummwfle 30mii.om mqmfle 188 TABLE 21.--Sources of network television revenues by major industry classifications. Per Cent Share of Total Food and food products 19% Toiletries and toilet goods 18 Automotive, automotive accessories and equipment 12 Soaps, cleansers and polishes 11 Smoking materials 10 Household equipment and supplies 8 Drugs and remedies 6 Industrial materials 2 Beer, wine and liquor 2 Confectionery and soft drinks 2 Radios, television sets, phonographs, musical instruments and accessories 2 Apparel, footwear and accessories 1 Office equipment, stationery and writing supplies 1 Jewelry, optical goods and cameras 1 Household furnishings l Gasoline, lubricants and other fuels 1 Miscellaneous __2 TOTAL 100% TOTAL $ $406,899,059 Source: Based on Publishers' Information Bureau Data, 1955. 1539 TABLE 22.--Distribution of each magazine's audience on the economic scale. Report No. 8 No. 7 No. 6 No. 5 No. 4 No. 3 No. 2 No. l (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) 17% are in the top 10% of 16 15 15 15 17 15 14 a the scale 3 16% are in the next 10% of 16 13 15 14 13 14 14 8 the scale m E 33% are in the top 20% of 32 28 30 29 3O 29 28 8 the scale s 25% are in the upper 25 25 27 26 26 25 25 m middle 20% g 21% are in the middle 21 2O 20 21 21 21 21 -H 20% 3 14% are in the lower 16 17 14 15 15 16 16 8 middle 2% w 7% are in the bottom 6 10 9 9 8 9 10 O 20% ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ .___ .___ 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 20% are in the top 10% 20 19 18 2O 20 20 20 m of the scale 3 15% are in the next 10% 15 14 15 14 15 16 17 g of the scale m j 35% are in the top 20% 35 33 38 34 35 36 37 3 of the scale 3 25% are in the upper 25 25 25 23 24 24 24 m middle 20% b 19% are in the middle 17 18 19 2O 2O 20 20 f: 20% 4 14% are in the lower 15 l4 14 15 14 l4 14 8 middle 20% 7% are in the bottom 8 10 9 8 7 6 5 ____ 20% ____ ___ ____ ____ ____ ___ ___ 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 19% are in the top 10% 22 l9 19 20 2O 21 22 m of the scale a 17% are in the next 10% 16 15 15 15 17 17 16 g of the scale g H 36% are in the top 20% 38 34 34 35 37 38 38 3 of the scale 3 24% are in the upper 23 24 26 23 23 24 24 m middle 20% L 18% are in the middle l9 19 18 19 18 19 19 8 20% m 14% are in the lower 13 l4 13 14 14 12 12 8 middle 20% 8% are in the bottom 7 9 9 9 8 7 7 ____ 20% ___ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Source: Time-Life. Inc. 190 TABLE 23.--Audiences by economic level. Percentage - of the . Group Magazine People Audience Reached (tOp 4%) Collier's 19.3 850,000 Life 44.5 1,950,000 Post 22.8 1,000,000 (next 11%) Collier's 15.7 1,900,000 Life 38.5 4.600,000 Post 21.9 2,600,000 (next 33%) Collier's 13.0 4,600,000 Life 25.2 8,950,000 Post 13.9 4,950,000 (next 34%) Collier's 7.9 2,900,000 Life 15.7 5.750,000 Post 9.0 3,300,000 (bottom Collier's 650,000 18%) Life 1,300,000 Post 850,000 Source: Time—Life, Inc. "mull":11411111111311111171111'