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Public service announcements are disappearing like `rain in the desert,' Hundt says
Promos and commercials are eating away at prime time network programing, but public service announcements are getting only crumbs of the prime time pie.
Nonprogram material now accounts for one-fourth to one-third of all network TV time, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and Association of National Advertisers 1996 Television Commercial Monitoring Report shows. Over the past year, prime time commercial minuteswhich include PSAs, promos and local and network commercials-on the networks and stations increased by an average of 31 seconds per hour to an all-time high across all networks in November 1996.
But PSAs account for only a fraction of the overall commercial time in prime time. The study reveals that in November 1996, UPN aired no prime time PSAs; Fox-2 seconds per prime time hour; CBS-3 seconds; WB-6 seconds; ABC-9 seconds, and NBC-11 seconds.
Meanwhile, the networks aired between...