constant at about 60 million as the nation’s popula-
tion exploded, growing from more than 60 million
households to more than 90 million. As a result, by
1990, the percentage of households that purchased
a daily newspaper had fallen to a mere 68 percent.
Americans were no longer receiving their news
through newspapers, but rather through morning
talk and news shows. This development forced ad-
vertisers to invest less in print ads and to increase
their television budgets. Commercials mimicked the
format of news shows, similarly presenting informa-
tion in brief segments or catchphrases, rather than
scripted thirty- or sixty-second ads. Local advertisers
that could not afford television airtime or whose
messages leant themselves particularly to print me-
dia invested in direct-mail circulars and inserts and
advertised in local or suburban editions of newspa-
pers.
Technological advances in radio did not bode
well for advertising either. With the increase in pop-
ularity of the cassette, and later compact discs, com-
muters gained more listening options, and they often
preferred their own selection of commercial-free
music over radio’s repetitive play lists and commer-
cial breaks. Even those drivers who continued to lis-
ten to radio gained an increased ability to switch
channels at the touch of a button, as car stereos were
produced with “seek” or “scan” buttons. These but-
tons allowed drivers to seek the next available station
automatically, rather than be relegated to the few
stations assigned to their stereos’ preset buttons.
These factors diminished commercials’ listenership
and the opportunities for advertisers to reach their
demographic locally. As a result, advertisers began
to purchase airtime through national radio net-
works, allowing their messages to be heard multiple
times across all of those networks’ affiliates (even if
some affiliates were in regions that did not carry the
product). The quality of local radio commercials be-
gan to suffer.
Finally, technological changes also affected the
way in which people viewed television, the most lu-
crative advertising medium. The proliferating view-
ing options available to 1980’s Americans presented
incredible hurdles for advertisers. With the tradi-
tional Big Three television networks (ABC, CBS, and
NBC), advertisers basically had captive audiences.
Viewers had relatively little choice of what to watch,
and once they decided on a channel, they often
watched that network’s entire prime-time lineup
(commercials and all), because to change the chan-
nel required physically getting up and rotating a dial
on the television set. The 1980’s, however, intro-
duced two new devices that threatened the future of
television advertising: the remote control and the
videocassette recorder, or VCR.
With the remote control, people were able to
channel surf, changing channels every time a com-
mercial aired (or a program failed to retain their in-
terest) with the click of a button. The increase in
VCR ownership in America, moreover, presented
three new predicaments for advertisers. First, and
most threatening, people could record their favorite
shows and fast-forward through the commercials.
Second, VCRs destroyed commercial placement and
time-sensitive commercials. Finally, VCRs offered
viewers expanded choices in entertainment: Ameri-
cans no longer had to settle for what was on televi-
sion; they could rent or purchase movies from the
corner video store and completely avoid commer-
cials.
In addition to technological changes, television’s
very landscape was expanding with the advent of ca-
ble television and the previously unthinkable emer-
gence of a fourth, and eventually fifth and sixth,
broadcast network. Cable, whose subscription rate
increased from 28 percent in 1980 to 60 percent by
1990, suddenly offered consumers not only multiple
channels but also specialized channels. The concept
of “narrowcasting” (that is, broadcasting to a rela-
tively circumscribed, specific audience) took on new
importance in the 1980’s, when advertisers realized
that reaching 100,000 affluent, likely consumers of a
product was more valuable than reaching millions of
viewers in the wrong demographic. Cable channels
with specialized programming therefore developed
in tandem with more specialized, targeted com-
mercials.
Between the multitude of cable channels and the
ease of the remote control, however, a person could
watch television for twenty-four hours and never
view a commercial. When FOX emerged as a fourth
network, and with the later advent of the WB and
UPN, even non-cable subscribers gained more view-
ing options, depleting each network’s shares and rat-
ings. Equally important, the new networks took ad-
vantage of the narrowcasting model: They siphoned
specific, desirable demographics away from the tra-
ditional networks with shows that appealed to young
viewers, such as21 Jump Street,Married... with18 Advertising The Eighties in America