We'll Be Right Back...

That's right - another commercial break, which can mean only one thing: I can't think of anything else to post about today.  There are actually good reasons for this, which I might yet choose to share here.  But trust me, the last couple of days have turned my life upside down and I'm still struggling to get my bearings in the new reality I find myself inhabiting.  But to get back to the matter in hand, this particular commercial break is of interest to me for several reasons.  First up, it comes from Southern Television, the ITV regional franchise I grew up watching.  Their rather strange channel ident can be seen before the ads start.  Secondly, it was originally shown during an episode of Space: 1999, a series which Southern chose not to show until several months after it had premiered on other regions.  (They never actually screened series two, as I recall - for those of us in the South, it came as a revelation that there even had been a second series).  

This makes me think that this break must have been run on a Saturday morning, which is where Southern originally scheduled Space: 1999.  This would seem to be confirmed by the presence of an ad for confectionary (those were the days when advertisers were allowed to target kids with ads for sugar filled sweets, fast food and the like), and the PG Tips chimps ad.  However, the last ad is for a wine merchant (when was the last time you saw a TV ad for a wine merchant?), which would imply a later slot (that said, as noted before, there weren't so many restrictions on what type of ad you could run at particular times).  Of course, the ad for milk is pretty harmless, but seems somewhat adult-orientated for something shown during what Southern clearly considered to be a kid's TV programme.  Regardless of their scheduling, these ads encompass a range of products and techniques that you simply wouldn't see in a modern commercial break - the targeting of children with an ad for sweets, wine merchants (now seen as too niche a target audience and superseded by the rise of supermarkets selling wines).  Likewise, the commercial selling something as generic as milk, (only specialised milk like Cravendale or Arlo get their owns now), and, in the case of the PG Tips ad, animal cruelty (quite apart from the ethical considerations of forcing animals to perform.in the service of commerce, CGI animals are much easier to direct).  Once again, the seventies truly were another country.