Editing Television (section)

====Advertising====
{{main|Television advertisement}}

Television's broad reach makes it a powerful and attractive medium for advertisers. Many television networks and stations sell blocks of broadcast time to advertisers ("sponsors") to fund their programming.<ref name="Hornick">[http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/5/2006_5_50.shtml Karen Hornick] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100917000611/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/5/2006_5_50.shtml |date=17 September 2010 }} "That Was the Year That Was" ''American Heritage'', Oct. 2006.</ref> Television advertisements (variously called a television commercial, commercial, or ad in [[American English]], and known in [[British English]] as an advert) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization, which conveys a message, typically to market a product or service. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. The vast majority of television advertisements today consist of brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to several minutes (as well as program-length [[infomercial]]s). Advertisements of this sort have been used to promote a wide variety of goods, services, and ideas since the beginning of television.

[[File:Radio News Sep 1928 Cover.jpg|thumb|right|Television was still in its experimental phase in 1928, but the medium's potential to sell goods was already predicted.]]

The effects of television advertising upon the viewing public (and the effects of mass media in general) have been the subject of discourse by philosophers, including [[Marshall McLuhan]]. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as [[Nielsen Media Research]], is often used as a metric for television advertisement placement and, consequently, for the rates charged to advertisers to air within a given network, television program, or time of day (called a "daypart"). In many countries, including the United States, television [[Campaign advertising|campaign advertisements]] is considered indispensable for a [[political campaign]]. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted,<ref>Fritz Plasser, ''Global Political Campaigning'', p226</ref> while some countries, such as [[Norway]], completely ban political advertisements.

The first official, paid television advertisement was broadcast in the United States on 1 July 1941, over New York station WNBT (now [[WNBC]]) before a baseball game between the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]] and [[Philadelphia Phillies]]. The announcement for [[Bulova]] watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00 (reports vary), displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time," was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute.<ref>Stewart, R.W., "Imagery For Profit", ''The New York Times'', 6 July 1941.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/rca_bulova_ad-1.jpg|title=WNBT/Bulova test pattern}}</ref> The first TV ad broadcast in the U.K. was on [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] on 22 September 1955, advertising [[Gibbs SR]] toothpaste. The first TV ad broadcast in Asia was on [[Nippon Television]] in Tokyo on 28 August 1953, advertising [[Seikosha]] (now [[Seiko]]), which also displayed a clock with the current time.<ref>[[:ja:コマーシャルメッセージ|コマーシャルメッセージ (Commercial message)]]. Retrieved 24 November 2013{{Circular reference|date=September 2015}}</ref>