ABSTRACT
Most television commercials are not bashful about their economicfunction. They exist to sell products and services. And they do so quite effectively. Huge corporations would not be spending half of their advertising dollars-roughly $62 billion per year-on U.S. television if their market research did not show that viewers are positively affected by this avalanche of ads.1 Corporations have come to depend heavily upon television networks and U.S. television networks have come to rely solely upon advertising for their economic sustenance-unlike many other countries where television is government or subscription supported. Just as with radio before it, U.S. television’s economic structure is undergirded by commercials.
