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Wednesday, August 22, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
NEW YORK — The invaders first came late at night, in the desperate hours before dawn. They crept onto television screens on independent stations and cable networks across conferences. They were called . . . infamous.
The Associated Press
Program-length commercials are also known as advertorials, infontainment, selflovision and "the new tin men of television."
They offer something new to insomnia shift-workers tired of "Emergency!" returns and grade B classes. The commercials uninterrupted by programs.
The infomercials industry says it sells at least $1 billion worth of products a year and buys more than $400 million in TV time for "Amazing Discoveries" with Mike Levey, "Love Your Skin" or perl, plump Richard Simmons and his Deal-a-Meal weight-loss system.
'Infomercials' creep into TV land
"Television stations are now getting paid for the half-hours they used to pay for," said infomercial entrepreneur Greg Renker.
The year of destiny was 1848, when the deregulation frenzy prompted the Federal Communications Commission to drop its limits on the length of commercials. At the time, it seemed insufficient as deregulating savings and loans.
The man of destiny was promoter Ray Lindstrom, who booked hotel seminars for real estate guru Paul Simon.
"We were having trouble getting people to the hotels," Lindsay said in a 1985 interview. "So instead we invited them to watch on television."
Lindstrom put the seminar on tape,
advertised it and aired it on two cable
networks, all for about $100.000.
During its first weekend, it ran just four
times and sold $1 million in real
estate courses.
In 1985, Lindstrom and partner Nancy Marcum Langston bought 2,700 hours of cable time for $8 million. By year's end, they claimed $21 million in revenue from 70,000 sales of Simon's course.
The population of real estate millionaires hadn't noticeably increased, but Lindsay and Langston became the leading marketers of courses. Their success quickly brought imitators eager for the fast money.
It was what historians would call the industry's early, sleazier years. Second-tier celebrities hosted quasi-talk shows or bogus "investigative
reports" dealing with potions to raise sexual potency or lower hairlines.
The EuroTrym Diet Patch pitch was typical of the era. Touted by then-President Reagan's son Michael, the patch was supposed to send electrical impulses to your brain, and it less. The trouble was it didn't work.
Then there was the "talk show" with author Wayne Phillips, whose book said the federal government would give you a $25,000 grant to start a business. This was news to the government.
Some estimates or the Trump infomercial's gross are as high as $15 million. Eventually, though, the Federal Trade Commission forced the producers to pay $1.5 million to 'tissatisfied customers.'
Shoddy products, false advertising and fly-by-night retailers who didn't pay refunds put in commercials in disrepute. Complaints and calls for regulation of the industry led to congressional investigation.
Informeirals were seen as "image museers" by prestige broadcasters. But they flourished in the 80s; cable TV and independent stations were expanding rapidly, as were their appetites for programming.
And the fall of such well-heeled religious broadcasters as Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swagart — a traditional source of predawn revenue — may have prompted mainstream stations to reconsider.
"All of a sudden, cash programs become very attractive," said John Rohr, a programming analyst for the company. "It's its free money. It's an expedition."
Today, even New York City's stately WNBC, the NBC owned-and-operated flagship of the network, airs 10pm and 7pm daily, night and weekend daytime hours.
WWOR, a "superstation" seen on cable systems nationwide, airwires on 30 hours of infomercials a week, about 20 percent of its total air time.
Synchronal and Media Arts are "integrated vertical marketers," developing, acquiring and packaging products, producing commercials, marketing their own telemarket lines and shipping from their own warehouses.
Media Arts spends $41 million on TV ads a year. Its ubiquitous infomercial "Amazing Discoveries" is a slick, "Geraldal" home product line airs about 2,600 half-hours a month in the 150 television markets.
"We're on nine cable networks," Langton said. "We're on probably 400 broadcast stations. We're reach broadcast in all major markets."
Company president Richard E. Kaylor said that Synchronal had had its image problems. He quickly pointed out that its founder, Ira Smole, left the company this year after he was dismissed in 1984 and was hailed by a trade publication as "the walking personification of the mail-order felon."
Synchronical, like other infomercial producers, is launching its ventures in Europe this year, where 125 million television households wait.
Kaylor said his industry's potential was forcing it to mature. Dishonest marketers, he said, "are either being forced out, or are dropping out, or are being treated as if they are a scourge of the industry."
"If these guys want to play it clean, more power to them," said Graydon Forer. counsel to a subcommittee of the Committee. committee which investigated the
"The challenge that we face in government and as consumers is to have people beware." Forrer said. "You've got to educate people to be skeptical viewers and skeptical buyers."
"If the consumer becomes more skeptical, it will weed out those that are sailing snake oil," said Grep Crawford, president of the subcommittee hearings in May.
Renkner is meeting with Congress, other infomercial entrepreneurs and PTC Director Barry J. Cutter to lay groundwork for a trade association
"We're in business for the long term," he said.
His company, Guthy-Renker Associates, begins the first nationwide "entertainment" in informercial next month "The $2,000 Telephone Tervia Challenge" with Wink Martin's "Tie-Tace-Dough" game show host.
Viewers watch the show, learn to play and then dial a 900-number to compete against other viewers. Nothing is for sale; no real estate business exists. Each call costs $2, and that is how the producers will make their profit.
"It may feel like a lottery," Renker said, "but you can't win the $25,000 unless you answer the most questions in the quickest time."
Wink Martindale? Is nothing sacred?
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