Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

324
THE PROGRAM ANGLE
have not been mentioned. When television began to expand these
were by far the most popular and the little twenty-second and ten-
second station breaks were not much respected. However, times
change and so do availabilities. As more and more sponsors began
to buy time the amount of space for one-minute spots in useful time
segments became less. On the other hand, certain time adjacencies
became very valuable by virtue of the preceding and succeeding pro-
grams. One-minute spot times are not generally fixed and inviolate,
and what may be a fine schedule for some months because
the time has not been sold in a block, may suddenly become unavailable
because someone has bought the segment containing the de-
sired time.
On the other hand, station breaks of ten and twenty seconds
are usually pretty stable and once obtained can generally be kept.
Many advertisers who invested a lot of capital in one-minute spots
are now regretting it strongly for they have no good availabilities
and less chance of using them all the time. It is not often that a one-
minute spot can be made into a successful ten- or twenty-second
break ;
the pace is too slow. It has not been stated in this connection
that almost 1 00 per cent of the station breaks and spots are on film,
but in addition to the advantages which were demonstrated for
film in Chapter 1 7 it is important to note that live breaks and spots
are almost always much dearer than film due to extra production
costs and the live talent factor. If repeats are involved the difference
becomes even greater. In other words, film corresponds to the electrical
transcription or ET.
It has been said that the short short spot is like the short short
story popular in so many magazines. This is quite true, for in each
case it is essential to begin as near the end as possible and build to a
climax, and good ones are just as hard to produce, for the shortness
of the story makes it imperative to make every fraction of a second
count. Spots can be produced cheaply, but if too cheap they will
look cheap and do a poor job for the sponsor. The ten- or twenty-
second spot is one place where penny pinching will ruin a good idea.
An argument that has not yet been settled concerns the problem
of producing a commercial which is equally effective in terms of