Show About Commercials on Commercial-Free TV

SHOW: ABC WORLD NEWS SATURDAY (6:30 pm ET)
AUGUST 7, 1999

Finally tonight -- public television is known for being commercial-free. But a new program is actually putting ads on the public airwaves. There's a twist, though. As ABC's JimWilliams reports, these ads are under attack.

DIRECTOR: Tapes rolling, count them down. Five, four.

JIM WILLIAMS, ABC News: (voice-over) It seems everything these days is critiqued on television. So perhaps it was inevitable that critics would examine the art and message.

JOHN FORDE, Host, "Mental Engineering": Let's take a look at our first commercial

JIM WILLIAMS, ABC News: (voice-over) .of the television commercial.

JOHN FORDE: You don't realize by the time a child goes from birth to adulthood, they have seen a half a million television commercials. It's hard to ignore that.

JIM WILLIAMS, ABC News: (voice-over) John Forde says he created the TV Show "Mental Engineering" because commercials have an enormous effect on our behavior and need to be analyzed.

JOHN FORDE: Commercials use psychology on us, and they work on us for an hour a day. And they get no rebuttal.

JIM WILLIAMS: (voice-over) It's a decidedly low-budget production. And there's nothing else like it on the air.

COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER: For more than 145 years, people across America have relied on Mass Mutual for life insurance.

TIM MITCHELL, Commercial Critic: This was a direct appeal to dad. "If you die, your kids are going to suffer!"

JIM WILLIAMS: (voice-over) The show's panelists take on some of Madison Avenue's biggest commercials.

ACTRESS: (Clip from commercial) What kind of man are you looking for?

JIM WILLIAMS: (voice-over) Like this soft drink ad featuring a young woman who realizes she doesn't need a dating service.

TIM MITCHELL: There are consumer items that can take the place of sexual relationship with a man. But I don't like to think that Diet Coke is one of them.

KRISTEN TILLOTSON, Commercial Critic: You don't find romance when you're looking for it. You have to trip over it. It wasn't about Diet Coke at all.

JIM WILLIAMS: (voice-over) After more than a year on cable television,

"Mental Engineering" will soon be seen on nearly 40 public broadcast stations across the country. But there is a potential problem for the show.

(on camera) Even many PBS stations have sponsors. And sponsors have commercials that the show might criticize.

LESLIE SAVAN, "Village Voice" Ad Columnist: I think there's just too many commercial interests. The whole system depends on making the ad and the companies look good, not on making them look foolish.

JOHN FORDE: What is the product?

JIM WILLIAMS: (voice-over) But for now, the show is taking its irreverent message to a wider audience, hoping even more stations will be willing to bite the hand that feeds them.

Jim Williams, ABC News, St. Paul, Minnesota.