Last month I posted a tongue-and-cheek piece thanking policymakers for taking steps to save us from loud TV ads and product placements. The whole thing just strikes me as the height of absurdity; it’s a stupid way for regulators to spend their time and it’s a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. Backers of such regulations assume that we in the public are little more than ignorant sheep whose minds will be subliminally programmed to want to drink certain colas or drive certain cars just because they saw them in a TV show. Absurd.

The other thing that kills me about this debate is how some people seem to imagine that product placement has somehow come out of nowhere recently and taken over broadcast TV and radio to an unprecedented extent. That’s either revisionist history or ignorance of it. The fact is, broadcasting has been filled with product placement for years. Media guru Jack Myers points this out in a good piece on the issue this week:

Those old enough to recall the early days of television news recall that Camel cigarettes and Timex sponsored the NBC News with John Cameron Swayze. On-set signage was prominent. Local radio personalities have always used their relationships with consumers to advance their sponsors’ interests.

But it goes way beyond that. For God’s sake, has everyone forgotten about the “Texaco Star Theater“? It was the top-rated show of the 1950s, pulling in a stunning 61.6 rating in 1950-51 alone. How did the show begin? Here’s how the Wikipedia entry describes it:

On television, continuing a practice long established in radio, Texaco included its brand name in the show title. When the television version launched, Texaco also made sure its employees were featured prominently throughout the hour, usually appearing as smiling “guardian angels” performing good deeds of one or another kind, and a quartet of Texaco singers opened each week’s show with the following theme song:

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