The more things change, the more they remain the same. Consider a page-four column I penned 10 years ago about Channel 6, the local West Valley, Calif., cable station with paid commercials that are largely a festival of diet infomercials, pitches for balding remedies, wonder acne treatments and other indispensable products. The quality of this fare is barely surpassed by Channel 6’s "programming," which consists of smiling realtors showing various properties.
Nonetheless, I wrote in 1993 that I tried to keep an eye on Channel 6 because, by default, it’s the sole station among my assorted cable channels that consistently shows some of our industry’s best public service messages.
Sadly, that remains the case today. The catalyst for my hearkening back to that column is an entry—"Rent or Food" for America’s Second Harvest—which recently helped Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood, earn his 13th nomination for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award as best commercial helmer of the year. A frame from that spot is the front-page photo in this week’s issue.
The spot simply and poignantly shows a woman unable to pay the full rent due her landlord, who has come to her modest abode to collect the money. "I’m sorry, I still don’t have it all," she tells him.
"I can’t keep coming back like this," he says.
"It’s just that I have three kids," she tries to explain.
Those children are revealed to us, including her daughter, Emily, who asks, "Who’s at the door, Mom?"
This painful slice of life gives way to a super against a neutral background that simply reads, "Rent." It is then joined by two more words to form the query, "Rent or food?"
The next supered sentence then hits home: "1 in 5 kids in America faces hunger because of decisions like this." The Ad Council spot then ends with a toll-free phone number (1-800-Feed Kids) and Web site address (feedingchildrenbetter.org).
The same phone number and Web site address concluded another spot, "Ketchup," which gained recognition at last year’s DGA Awards. Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA directed "Ketchup," one of the entries that in ’02 earned him his 13th nomination as best commercial director of the year. That child hunger spot showed a mom going from one fast food restaurant to another, pilfering packets of ketchup so that she could make ketchup soup at home for her kids.
These two wonderful, relevant commercials have been center stage at the last two DGA competitions. But the irony is that the only venues through which I can see them are the DGA Awards ceremony—and good old reliable Channel 6. In fact, Channel 6 is the only Los Angeles television station where I have seen "Ketchup" and "Rent or Food."
The fact is that for the most part, creatively rich, worthwhile public service messages still gain no airtime—or limited play at best, during dawn-of-the-dead insomniac hours. This lack of airtime underscores the fact that admakers need to bring more to the public service table than creative and filmmaking prowess—added clout needs to be brought to bear so that more PSAs reach the public at large.
Certainly, economic realities dictate that public service airtime is hard to come by, but those long odds can be improved. Otherwise, you’re reduced to watching Channel 6, where ironically, amidst a sea of huckster-like messages, you can find work that truly tries to do good and that is a source of inspiration—and pride for being in this business.
