HISTORY's Moments in Media: America Runs on Bulova Time

Bulova paid 9 for the 10second spot That39s about 157 in today39s dollarsIn May 1941 the Federal Communications Commission issued licenses for the first 10 commercial television stations in the United States including WNBT the NBC affiliate in New York Since 1960 it39s been known as WNBC The first day of their new commercial authorization was July 1 and WNBT was both the first station to go on the air under that license and the first to broadcast a commercial Other stations had previously experimented with ads including reading messages from sponsors including Procter ampamp Gamble and General Mills But the Bulova spot was the first legit oneRay Forrest who in 1939 had become television39s first news anchor and announcer on that early NBC station read the ad In an interview with the Television Academy he recalled both the excitement of giving up quotexperimentalquot status and becoming WNBT but also the relative mundanity of the ad itself When the clock was shown he said quotI announced the time 39It39s 12 noon Bulova watch time39quotOf course there were only about 4000 television sets in the New York market at the time according to one estimate But TV was starting to take off In 1945 big marketers including Lever Brothers Gillette Pan Am Firestone Tire and Exxon precursor Esso were running TV advertising By the end of 1948 933 advertisers had purchased TV ad timeAnd the next decade was when TV exploded In 1950 only 9 percent of American households had television sets In 1960 nearly 90 percent did Through that decade of rapid growth the sponsoredprogram model was dominant things like Milton Berle39s Texaco Star Theater and the Colgate Comedy HourIn the 1960s the multisponsor model took hold with the kinds of commercial breaks we recognize today TV ad spend in the United States was 15 billion in 1959 By 1969 it had more than doubled to 35 billionBy last year even as the internet revolution has eaten into traditional media ad revenues more than 70 billion was spent on TV advertising in the United States The top 10 advertisers collectively spent 10 billion on TV advertising last yearAnd all these years later sports still drive a huge amount of TV advertising For Super Bowl LIII last year the average cost of a 30second spot was 525 million Adjusted back to 1941 dollars that39s about 300000 amp8212 an awful lot more than Bulova spent for an ad we still remember nearly 80 years laterClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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HISTORY's Moments in Media: America Runs on Bulova Time

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