Television: The Boredom Factor

Television took a drubbing last week from one of its dearest friends: a TV adman. John P. Cunningham, head of Cunningham & Walsh, Inc., whose clients will funnel $20.8 million into TV this year, told 700 admen in Atlantic City that today's "pallid programing" is fast robbing even the best commercials of their power. Said he: "People will watch programs that bore them, but they tend to tune out their minds, which is bad for advertising."

Tedium seemed to be growing so fast in TV that Cunningham's outfit tried to measure "the Boredom Factor" by depth interviews, found that heavy percentages of ordinary viewers—not just the critics—yawning at such TV sacred cows as Arthur Godfrey (47%) and Red Skelton (38%). Cunningham feels that the Boredom Factor causes "dial-twitching, vacant-minded viewing, lower ratings" and, as far as the sponsor is concerned, "less penetration-per-skull per dollar."

The boredom is compounded by imitation within TV, and the industry's inability to look beyond "the ruthless law of the [rating] decimal point." Said Cunningham: "As advertising men we must be interested in all TV, not only in our own programs. We want it to be a strong, well-rounded medium. A multiplication of the same type of show, such as the present wave of singers, quizzes and westerns, can only narrow the base of TV, restrict its power and its value to the people. Anybody who buys another western, unless it is a marked creative departure from the pattern, ought to turn in his grey flannel suit and go to the eternal showers."