Classified Ads Get a New Look on Cable

“This classic Fiat 124 Spider is in excellent condition,” viewers are told as they watch a video image of an aging Italian roadster. “Everything on the car works. . . . It’s fun to drive and very good on gas,” the voice continues as that picture dissolves into another. “You can have it today for only $2,475.”

How about a boat?

“This 1988 20-footer has only 40 actual hours on the boat and motor. . . . You can fish all year around here. . . . Yours for only $8,500.”

All ads, all the time.

It might sound absurd, but many cable subscribers get such a channel already. And those who don’t may soon.

Until recently, advertising channels--seen on a cable system’s leased-access channels--have been focused on infomercials, those half-hour commercials cleverly veiled as full-length programs that hawk everything from real-estate investment and memory improvement courses to ginzu knives. These shows are produced and financed by the individual or company and aired during time purchased from the cable system.

Now, cable’s classified advertising is going higher tech.

It’s doing so thanks to a relatively new computer technology, Cable Ad Channel System (CACS), that adds sound and pictures to the classified ad format at a fraction of previous costs.

“We call it photoadvertising, one word,” says Tom Wheeler, former president of the National Cable Television Assn. and the person credited with developing the CACS technology in 1987. He now markets the system through NuCable Resources, a company he owns along with a consortium of nine cable companies, including Times Mirror Cable (a unit of Times Mirror Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times).

To Wheeler, it was simply fulfilling a need.

“They’ve always had classifieds on cable but it was little more than white letters on a blue background,” Wheeler says. “But people don’t read television--they watch it.”

His system essentially takes a camera, studio and editing bay and puts them in a computer box to create a video image, complete with the kind of special effects once reserved for high-priced editing equipment. Add sound effects, music or narration, and you have your own TV spot.

In its current classified ad applications, what CACS produces is a 15- or 30-second TV spot. The price to advertisers varies, but usually falls in the $25-to-$60 range, including production costs and 20 or more broadcasts in a week’s time. In the past, a similar spot on cable would have cost hundreds of dollars; a 30-second spot on a local station costs thousands.

Photoadvertising debuted in 1988 on Media General cable in Fairfax, Va. It worked so well that the system now offers three full-time classified channels.

“We were looking at the classified business even prior,” says Don Mathison, vice president of marketing and programming for the company, “but once the photos became available, it became an obvious and easy way to go.”

Others agree. CACS-generated classifieds now appear on an estimated 250 cable systems, and nearly half of Southern California’s cable companies already use them or plan to use them soon.

Prices for the equipment start at $25,000, depending on the options. NuCable is one of four companies marketing the technology in the U.S., along with Multi-Image Systems, Torontel and Nexus.

“In lowering the costs of creation, it allows cable operators to inexpensively produce programming,” says Wheeler. “As a result, you open doors for new products and services to television.”

Terry Hanson of Continental Cablevision can attest to that. “Several psychics found out about our channel all at once and started advertising,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not sure why.”

Continental, which serves Culver City and portions of the Westside, has been running classifieds for the past year.

“We rolled it out slowly with career opportunities, then jumped into used cars,” Hanson says. “We tell people to bring in a couple of snapshots and their ideas, and we can send them out of here in a half-hour with a commercial.”

“Some markets do very well with it, and some still are looking for their niche,” he says, “but, like classified sections of newspapers, it’s going to be a big business.”

Al Spievak hopes he’s right. He jumped into the business last year with “TV Deals on Wheels,” essentially an infomercial devoted to car sales that is a compilation of individual ads. He now has formed Cable Ad Network, a series of shows using the same format but featuring ads for jobs, home sales and rentals, restaurants and travel. Whatever doesn’t fit elsewhere is grouped into yet another show.

“I couldn’t believe no one was doing it,” Spievak says. “It’s so easy and so lucrative, and we put the thing together in two weeks.”

Clients provide descriptions and snapshots (or pay extra to have photos shot) and Cable Ad Network does the rest. For $25 for your car, or $35 to $50 for some of the other categories, your ad is showcased in a 30-second spot three times a day for a week, with your phone number plastered across the screen.

Photoadvertising is not without its detractors, however. Frank McNellis, president and general manager of Simmons Cable in Long Beach and former general manager of West Valley Cable, claims more success in using CACS ads as bonuses for regular advertisers than as an advertising vehicle unto itself.

Few see cable classifieds as a serious threat to newspaper classifieds, but they do see it as a definite part of cable’s future.

“People have been using it in newspapers for years,” says Robert Alter, president of the Cable Television Advertising Bureau. “Cable people first need to learn to pace and program and cluster products and services. They’re not quite there yet but they are learning the curve, and photoadvertising will became a standard offering of cable systems around the country in the next several years.”

Spievak professes amazement:

“Here’s a channel that is nothing but advertising and people watch it. That’s scary.”