Television Commercials

Lawrence and Columbia (Chris) Menkin have become a model couple in their golden years. Married for 46 years, their favorite words are now, "Lights, camera, action!" The Menkins have been to dozens of local auditions during the last year, and have landed jobs in television commercials for Kodak, Pacific Telephone, Monterey Vineyards and the Bay Pacific Health Plan. They've also played bit parts in feature films shot on location, including Francis Ford Coppola's "Peggy Sue Got Married."

In a nearly 30-year television career, Frank Crim has appeared in more than 150 commercials, pitching Honda SUVs, Jack in the Box hamburgers, Allstate insurance, and Capital One credit cards. The Oklahoma City native has played a plumber, a trash collector, a chef, a cab driver and a demon. But lately Crim is having to book more jobs to make the same money he did a decade ago. "I still don't make enough money to buy a house," said Crim, who makes about $60,000 a year and shares an apartment in the San Fernando Valley.

As the camera pans through a marble room, a statue of a flute player, carved from the same beige marble, sways in time to his own music. As if fulfilling King Midas' dream, the flutist and the other statues in the room turn to gold, glittering in the light. Suddenly, a white ball appears and fills the screen with the familiar brush-stroke logo of The Wave, KTWV-FM (94.7).

A sellout crowd of 72,000, with many paying more than $3,000 a ticket, will file into the Superdome in New Orleans for the Super Bowl. Another 160 million people, spread throughout 200 countries, are expected to watch the game on television, driving commercial rates as high as $4 million for a 30-second spot. And if you don't like the game or the commercials, there's always the halftime show featuring Beyonce, a 16-time Grammy Award winner who may be the biggest star scheduled to take the field on Super Bowl Sunday.

Television commercials are not usually considered educational fare, clever as may be the ways of hawking candy, potato chips and expensive running shoes. But that could change.

Students across the country got the news Monday along with a sales pitch for candy, razors and cheese snacks when the advertiser-supported classroom program Channel One went on the air. "I think it is a good idea," said Powell High School student Jim Addington, 17, one of the first to see the Channel One news program, beamed nationwide for the first time to 400 schools.

Easy Ride Into Advertising: Dennis Hopper is going commercial. After spending most of his Hollywood career as a rebel, Hopper has signed with a Los Angeles production company to direct television commercials. "I think that in a lot of aspects it's a more creative way of expressing yourself," Hopper told Advertising Age magazine. On Friday, Hopper will give the closing speech at Advertising Age's four-day marketing forum in Chicago.

Gillette Co., maker of top-selling Duracell batteries, sued Ralston Purina Co. to stop television commercials claiming its Energizer batteries last longer and showing the Energizer Bunny torching rival batteries. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in New York seeks damages of more than $75,000 and a halt to the commercials, which Gillette says are misleading and falsely smear its product, in violation of U.S. and New York law.

CHAUNCEY, THE COUGAR The Lincoln-Mercury big cat appeared in TV commercials from 1973 to 1981. Chauncey, who was owned by two California professional animal trainers, was the car's official mascot although other cougars sometimes appeared in the television commercials. Chauncey died in 1979 and the cougar campaign continued until 1982 when a youngster was mauled by a promotional cougar hired in the Pittsburgh area.

Miller Brewing Co. is laying to rest its long-running "Tastes great . . . less filling" advertising debate. In commercials that start next week, Miller will try to broaden Miller Lite's appeal beyond the low-calorie segment of the beer business. "It's It. And That's That" is the slogan of the new Miller Lite campaign. The new ads will also push the notion that light beer is well on its way toward displacing the full-calorie version as the drink that beer drinkers think of when they order a beer.

WASHINGTON -- No need to dive for the mute button today: A new federal law aimed at lowering the volume of TV commercials goes into effect. "This is clearly not the biggest thing happening in Washington. But it is one less nuisance," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a sponsor of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation, or CALM, Act, said at a Capitol Hill gathering to celebrate the law's implementation. Under the rule, commercials should have the same average volume as the programs they accompany.

TV viewers finally should get some relief from a major annoyance: excessively loud commercials. On Thursday, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect. The federal law, known as CALM, requires broadcasters to ensure that TV commercials maintain the same volume as the entertainment programming in which the ads are contained. Prompted by an outcry from irritated consumers, Congress more than a year ago passed the law, sponsored by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park)

A new federal law intended to keep TV commercials from bursting your eardrums won't take effect until Dec. 13. But the cable industry already is trying to water it down. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM Act, requires that TV commercials be no louder than the programs they accompany. It's up to the Federal Communications Commission to set and enforce the new rules. The broadcasting industry has long maintained that it doesn't really jack up the volume when ads come on, arguing that it only seems as if the decibel level has soared because certain attention-getting sounds are being used.

Excessively loud television commercials should be a thing of the past, thanks to the Federal Communications Commission. Responding to years of complaints that the volume on commercials was much louder than that of the programming that the ads accompany, the FCC on Tuesday passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act to make sure that the sound level is the same for commercials and news and entertainment programming. "Most of us have … experienced this ourselves: You're watching your favorite television program, or the news, and all of a sudden, a commercial comes on, and it sounds like someone turned up the volume — but no one did. Today, the FCC is quieting a persistent problem of the television age: loud commercials," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

Have food and beverage commercials aimed at kids gotten better since companies like Kellogg's, Nestle, Coca-Colo Co. and McDonald's Corp. pledged to cut back on ads featuring unhealthy fare? It depends on how you define “better,” a new study finds. Food and drink advertising on TV is big business, adding up to about $745 million each year, according to the study published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. More than half of those dollars are spent trying to reach kids under the age of 12. Those ads work: Other studies have shown that as kids are exposed to a greater number of enticing commercials for sugary drinks, salty snacks and meals cooked in deep fryers, the heavier they get. So a group of researchers from the University of Illinois in Chicago hunkered down with TV ratings data from Nielsen Media Research.

Corporate turnaround expert Sanford C. Sigoloff, credited with leading ailing companies such as Wickes Cos. out of bankruptcy but criticized by many as a tough-as-nails boss, has died. He was 80. Sigoloff died of complications from pneumonia Saturday with his family by his side at his Brentwood home. He also had Alzheimer's disease. Sigoloff, whose stern voice and lean figure were familiar to millions of Southern Californians from his "We got the message, Mr. Sigoloff" television commercials for Wickes' now-defunct Builders Emporium chain, was an ace at salvaging debt-laden companies.

Paramount Pictures, perhaps best known for making movies such as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the Star Trek films, said Tuesday that it will soon begin filming something else--television commercials. The Hollywood studio, which is a division of Gulf & Western Corp., has created a new unit, Paramount Images, that will exclusively produce commercials for television.

A military-type helicopter being used to make a TV commercial crashed Tuesday in the Mojave Desert, killing the co-pilot and slightly injuring two other men. The cause of the crash was not immediately known, authorities said. The co-pilot was identified as Mike Tamburro, believed to be in his 30s.

Go Daddy, known for racy TV commercials, plans to reveal something more in its Super Bowl ads Sunday. The registrar for Internet addresses will be promoting the Web domain extension .co, a short version of the popular and ubiquitous .com, during the most-watched sporting event of the year. "We believe it deserves some special promotion," said Bob Parsons, chief executive and founder of Go Daddy Group Inc. "People identify with .com, and .co is just one step less. It's like the other .com.