Association for Consumer Research

ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Framing The'ideal'audience: Daytime Television and Gender Ideology in Postwar America lnger L. Stole, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [to cite]: lnger L. Stole (2000) ,"Framing The'ideal'audience: Daytime Television and Gender Ideology in Postwar America", in GCB - Gender and Consumer Behavior Volume 5, eds. Cele Otnes, Urbana, IL : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 141-156. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/15671/gender/v05/GCB-05 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. r4l Framingthe'Ideal'Audience: Daytime Television and GenderIdeology in PostwmAmerica lnger L. Stole,University of Illinois at Urbana-Champatgn ABSTRACT of beinghousewives" (Friedan 1983, p. 207). This study traces the emergenceof American daytime television in the 1940sand 1950s. Startingfrom Friedan'sby now famous Approaching the subjectfrom the television arguments,this studytraces the emergence industry's perspecttve, it discusseshow of daytimetelevision in the late 1940sand broadcasters tried, through programming early 1950s.It discusseshow the new and scheduling practices to develop o medium,through programmingand composite notion ofwhat it eonsidered to be schedulingpractices, hoped to appal to the "ideal" viewerfor the new medium. white, middle-classhomemakers and to Envisioning daytime viewers as white, influencetheir consumptionhabits. What middle-class, and shopping-obsessedmight emergesis a picture in which a sexist have elevated broadcasters' hopes of sell ing constructfused (and at times, collided) with this audience to advertisers, but it did little the overwhelmingcommercial logic of the in terms of attractingviewers to the medium. new medium'sattempt to developa This dilemmafor broadcasters is well compositenotion of the American womanat illustrated by Home, a daytime showfor mid-century. What is striking-and women thnt aired between1954 and 1957. somewhatin contrastto Friedan'sargument- is how diffrcultthis provedto be for the When Betty Friedan published her seminal early daytimetelevision industry. workThe Feminine fufiistiquein the early 1960s,she quickly dispelled someofthe Unlike early television soapoperas which, romantic,notions surrounding the immediate much like their radio counterparts,portrayed postwar gra. Specifically, Friedan identified women in a variety of roles and life advertising and the commercial mass media situations(Allen 1985;Cantor and Pingree among the leading social institutions holding 1983),daytime variety showshad their own on to an antiquated, but for them quite agenda.Addressing white, middle-class profitable, construct of gender. "Somehow, women in their roles as mothersand somewhere,"she speculated "someonemust homemakers,daytime variety showsalso have figured out that women will buy more hypedconsumption to new heights. Not things ifthey are kept in the underused, only did television practically bring the store nameless-yearnings easy-to-get-rid-of state to the audience'sliving room, it also 142 transformedtelevision studiosinto stages TELEVISION AND THE resemblingdomestic settings where selling POSTWARCONSUMER could take place. Even showsthat tried to answerviewers'calls for daytime When television was introducedto the entertainmentand relaxationwere eagerto Americanpublic in the late 1940s,few of exploitthemedium's commercial angles. So the concernsregarding advertising and eager,in fact, that the editorial content,in commercializationthat had surroundedradio manycases, served primarily to provide an sometwenty yearsearlier could be heard accommodatingbackdrop for showcasing (Boddy l99l;McChesney 1993). Whereas andpromoting sponsored products. Few in the 1920s,concerns about turning radio placesis this more evidentthan in the case into a purely commercialmedium could be of Home,a daytime showbroadcast by the detectedeven in advertisingcircles National BroadcastingCorporation (NBC) (Marchand1985), television's commercial everyweekday between 1954 and 1957. potential was celebratedenthusiastically, not Becauseit exemplifiesboth broadcasters' only amongadvertisers, but in government conceptualizationof their first daytime circlesas well. A commonlyexpressed viewersand their overwhelmingadherence postwarfear was that the economymight to commercialconsiderations, Home revert to its prewar depressionstandards providesa very interestingbehind-the- without the impetusof wartime spendingto screen-lookat the early daytimetelevision stimulateproduction (Lipsitz 1990). More industryand its motives. than a mere entertainmentmedium, America'smanufacturers therefore looked to In this article, I first look at the female the new medium of televisionas a meansof consumerin the period following the end of jumpstarting the economyand increasing the SecondWorld War. I then tum to an their sales(Schofield 1950, p. 13). explorationofthe emergenceof daytime television,including broadcasters'view on Judgingfrom consumers'interest in postwar their predominantlyfemale audienceand consumerdurables, however, manufactures their desireto sell this audienceto seemedto havelittle reasonto worry. advertisers.I concludewith a discussionof Wartime savingshad enabledmany how theseconcsms were playedout on Americansto participatein a postwar NBC's Home. I arguethat by graspingthe consumerboom and to enjoy a new, and underlyingnetwork principles behindthe higher, standardof living. Between1946 show,one can gain an understandingof the and 1950,for example,Americans mannerin which femaleaudiences were purchased21.4 million automobiles,more addressedin the 1950s(Stole 1997). than 20 million refrigerators,5.5 million Analysisof Home may also shedlight on electic stoves,and 11.6million television why someof the sameprinciples are still at sets(Harfinann 1982, p. 8). Althoughit was work whenmedia addressesconternporary consideredunfortunate for a wife to haveto women. work outsidethe home, arguesElaine Tyler May, it was consideredwen more unfornrnatefor a family not to be ableto afford items considerednecessary for the postwarhome (May 1988). Many couples found it difficult to fuIfil1 their dreamsof a higher standardof living on one income t43 alone,and by 1955more women held jobs 1950s,television broadcasters based much outsidethe homethan at any time in the of their strategieson suchtheories. nation'shistory (Douglas 1995,p. 55). DAYTIME TELEVISION Interestingly,however, advertisers tended to ignorethis fact, focusinginstead on The developmentof commercialtelevision, women'sroles as homemakers,mothers, and modeledto a large degreeon experiences consumers.America's consumer culture, with radio broadcastingtwo decadesearlier, "was saysSusan Douglas, predicatedon the was largely basedon widespreadsale of notion that womenwere the major television setsto private homes@aughman consumersof most goods-thatwas theirjob 1987),wherethe successof programming after all-and that, to sell to them,you had to supportedby direct advertisingwas seento "household emphasizetheir roles as wives and mothers, dependon the housewifeas the becauseit was in thesecapacities, not in purchasingagent" and the attentivetarget of their capacitiesas secretariesor nurses,that advertisingmessages. Those most involved womenbought" (Douglas 1995, p. 56). The in planningtelevision's commercial middle-classhomemaker, argues another development*theelectronic manufacturers scholar,became "an importiantbasis of the andthe commercialbroadcasters-defi ned social economy-somuch that it was television as both a consumerproduct for necessaryto define her in contradictions the homeand an "audio-visualshowroom which held her in her limited socialplace" for the advertise/sconsumer goods" (Boddy (Haralovich1989, p. 66). Her role as 1990,p. 20). It wastelevision executives' homemakerwas marginalizedin the sense hopethat daytimetelevision would follow that her labor within the homewas kept the pattem of previouslyintroduced outsidethe marketplacefor commodity entertainmentmedium. Both the production. Yet, at the sametime, her role phonographand radio had rapidly overcome and function in the homemade her the focus initial suspicionsregarding their disruptive of a larger consumerindustry (Haralovich presencein the work routine within the 1989).While the entireadvertising industry home. While radio had developed seemedgnpped by the notion that all programmingformats that served womenidentified themselvesprimarily as successfullyas "backgloundactivity* for the wivesand mothers @ouglas 1995), it was working homemaker,broadcasters feared also consciousof the fact that women did that television'svisual componentwould be not alwaysview themselvesin this role. quite a challenge. Early on, they warned "The manufacturerwants to intrigue her that daytimetelevision" in orderto avoid back into ttre kitchen-and we show him how interferencewith the efficient functioningof to do it thb right w&y," explainedan the household,had to avoid programming advertisingstrategist to Betty Friedanin the formulasthat demandedthe audience's "If early 1960s. he tells her that all shecan constantand undividedattention @oddy be is a wife and mother,she will spit in his 1990;Spigel 1992). face. But we show him how to tell her that it is creativeto be in the kitchen"

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