Going Far Beyond Product Placement

“Tonight’s junk, sure to poison the minds of your children, has been brought to you by ... click.”

Advertisers still rely on television to deliver their messages, but with viewers less apt to idly endure commercial breaks, sponsors feel increasingly compelled to think outside the box and get inside the programs--trying to trump technology by integrating their spiels into the shows themselves.

However insidious this trend may be, as long as advertisers fret about being zapped into oblivion, it is going to continue. The only question is how much further the scales can tip before someone decides to toss a brick on them.

As it is, sponsors have already squeezed into every lapse during sports (“And now the Maalox ‘Heartburn’ Moment”); fully sponsored series such as the WB’s “No Boundaries,” which took its title from Ford; incorporated clunky product tie-ins into shows such as CBS’ “Survivor” and Fox’s “American Idol”; and even found their way into plots, with ABC’s “All My Children” working Revlon into its narrative as a rival to Erica Kane’s fictional cosmetics line.

Networks say they are open to sponsor-supplied programs and elaborate product-placement schemes as long as the buyers don’t dictate content, but who are they kidding? Why would companies pony up cash without expecting some input over how it’s spent?

Although some sponsors push the limit with ads that are racier than the adjacent programs, many do covet a “safe environment” (that is, shows that won’t offend a single customer) for their spots--as evidenced by the Family Friendly Programming Forum, an advertiser consortium that not only underwrites script development but also has its own annual awards show that airs next month on ABC.

To be fair, zapping is a legitimate problem for media buyers, and new toys have only made matters worse. They fear people like me, who start watching “The West Wing” 15 minutes into the show so we can use our TiVo recorders to zip through the interminable commercial pods and be done in time for “Law & Order.”

Still, some of the solutions sound as if advertisers are trying to return TV to the 1950s, when they controlled programs and didn’t have to worry about Ozzie getting too frisky with Harriet, much less screaming obscenities at the kids.

“Advertisers have only one aim, which is to sell their product, and therefore the programming must conform to what will sell their product or be changed if they have control,” said Marshall Herskovitz, who with partner Ed Zwick has produced “thirtysomething” and “Once and Again.”

While acknowledging the economic pressures that networks face, Herskovitz noted that Hollywood’s creative voices need to consider what sort of resistance can be mounted if the practice goes much further. “I don’t want to depend on the goodwill or sophistication of the ad agencies to tell me what’s permissible,” he said.

Those remarks echo Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, the pioneering 1950s NBC executive who died in March. Weaver jettisoned the radio model and took production oversight away from advertisers, adopting a system in which various sponsors bought time but none of them possessed editorial control.

“I consciously said it would be better if we build a television service that was not agency-run, because there you must do what the client wants,” he later explained.

Because broadcasters depend on advertising, sponsors have long been perceived as the medium’s soft underbelly by outside forces seeking to eradicate certain shows--a weak link targeted by advocates like L. Brent Bozell III, who runs the Parents Television Council, a group dedicated to curbing TV’s smut level. Having made little headway with the networks, the organization shifted its attention a few years ago to sponsors, attempting to shame them away from programs such as “WWE Smackdown!,” “Boston Public” and “The Shield.”

“It is simply imperative that those people who are writing the checks ... take a certain responsibility for these shows,” Bozell said, accusing Hollywood of arrogance in dismissing cultural critics while urging advertisers to help “put the reins on these irresponsible people in the creative community.” (Parents don’t escape his wrath either, with Bozell calling them “equally blameworthy” for allowing standards to slide, pointing to a disconnect between polls in which a vast majority say sex and violence on television are excessive and surveys showing that more than 40% of kids have a TV in their bedrooms.)

Backed by the Media Research Center, the Parents Television Council can be a bit disingenuous in representing its moral outrage strictly as a crusade for children’s welfare when shows such as “The Shield” play after most kids have gone to bed. Bozell is right, however, when he argues that trying to hit the industry in its wallet is a fair means of protesting what’s on the air. “It’s not censorship,” he said. “It’s the exercise of free will.”

It’s also occasionally effective, for liberals and conservatives alike, because ad buyers aren’t exactly known for their courage when it comes to controversial material. The alarming difference is that in the past when sponsors backed out, others could be found to replace them, while having advertisers snake their way into the programs potentially alters that equation.

“If the sponsor owns the show, they aren’t going to pull out,” Herskovitz warned. “They’re just going to dictate what the content is.”

Admittedly, even if advertisers do begin throwing more weight around, it’s unlikely they’ll sanitize prime time. Champions of wholesomeness expressed delight, for example, when ABC said it would schedule family fare nightly at 8, but “family” these days is a relative term if ABC applies that label to the upcoming John Ritter sitcom “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” in which Ritter’s sexed-up high school brat makes Britney Spears look like Shirley Temple.

Nevertheless, it’s undeniable advertisers’ influence grows as they ooze deeper into content. Just consider radio, where--because listeners won’t be so quick to flip if they hear a familiar voice--Howard Stern chats about Heineken, Dr. Laura plugs a Toyota dealership, reporters on all-news stations read ad copy with their new laser-corrected vision, and talk-show hosts weave testimonials for a ubiquitous DUI defense attorney into their banter.

Whatever new forms TV advertising takes, given the chance agencies will grow bolder to ensure everybody knows their brand name--no longer content to passively hope viewers won’t begin channel-surfing each time a scene ends. Their more aggressive attitude brings to mind an old cartoon, where one vulture tells another, “To heck with patience. I’m gonna kill something.”

The industry has been shrewd enough to make these advances slowly, but producers and ad-saturated consumers had best be vigilant, because the hunger out there is palpable, and the vultures are circling.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.