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November 22, 1950
GET YOUR CHILD A TV SET ADVERTISEMENTS STIR UP A HORNET’S NEST
A tremendous amount of Indignation has arisen as a result of a series of newspaper and radio ads started last week by the American Television Dealers and Manufacturers, The first ad was headed: "There are some things a son or daughter won’t tell you,"
It featured a boy and a girl whose home has no television. The girl, her chin cupped in her hand, is crying over their plight. It con¬ tinues with details of "deep loneliness" because "the kids were mean and won’t play with mei" The advertisement urged the purchase oftelevision sets to save children from the "humiliation" of "begging those precious hours of television from a neighbor,"
Prior to the nex^spaper insertion a spot announcement that television has become a "must" for children had been sent to 250 radio stations throughout the country. It featured the heartbroken sobs of a little girl because there was no television set in her home.
The first repercussion came as a result of a letter of endorsement which appeared as part of both the newspaper and spot announcement ads written by Angelo Patri, well known authority on children and writer of a syndicated column on child psychology pub¬ lished by the Bell Syndicate, a portion of which read:
"Youngsters today need television for their morale as much as they need fresh air and sunshine for their health. . . It Is pract¬ ically impossible for boys and girls to ’hold their own* with friends and schoolmates unless television is available to them, ... To have television is to be ’cock o1 the walk.’ Not to have it, well, that is unthinkable,"
This aroused the ire of the Evening Journal of Providence,
R. I,, which immediately discontinued the column, after printing it for many years, saying letters from readers had protested the column¬ ist's endorsement of an "inferiority complex" theme among listeners.
The newspaper added:
"We will not permit supposedly independent and objective experts to pervert their positions for commercial purposes,"
The Associated Press reported that Mr, Patri had said he was withdrawing from the advertising arrangement. He was quoted as saying: "I will never advertise anything for anybody anymore."
Business Manager Joseph B. Agnelli of Bell Syndicate said Mr, Patri had given the endorsement but had not seen the entire ad copy beforehand and thus did not know the line It would take.
Tide, a news magazine of the advertising business, released the text of an editorial in its current (Nov, 24) issue in which the campaign is termed a "body blow (to advertising), the roughest it has had In a long, long time,"
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