THE IMPACT OF ADVERTISING TO BROADCAST DEVELOPMENT

Before any concrete discussion, the word ‘Advertising’ has to be defined and exemplified for easy understanding of the topic-The impact of advertising to broadcast development.

There are many scholars with different definitions to the word ‘Advertising’ according to the angle they find it meaningful. But the definition of a scholar will be used which corroborate the believers of many other scholars and particularly this research project.

According to G.B Gills in some years back defines advertising as ‘a non personal form of communication directed at target audience through various communication in order to promote products, services, concepts or ideas and particularly the cost of media space or time being boned by the sponsors or advertisers.’

From Gills definition, only the words ‘paid-for’ is not included but ‘’the cost of media space or time which is bound by the sponsors or advertisers’’ make the definition acceptable for the scope of study.

Wola Awolowo and Gbade Akinteye  authors of ABC of advertising also explains that advertising is as old as mankind. This fact could be traced to the universal belief on how serpent deceived Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and Eve invariably re advertised the sweetness of the fruit to Adam which made couples the first victim of the overwhelming power of advertising. All happened In the garden of Eden.

 This scenario brings one to an un-thinking tendency to generalize about advertising as being bad for Adam and Eve against the will of God. But the case differs, advertising could however be according to mood, politics, outlooks and particularly according to one’s perception and reaction to the advertisement one sees. To some, advertising could be a good or bad thing, useful or wasteful, boring or entertainment, helping or deceptive, it all depends on which angle of perception the same is viewed.

Thus, without advertising, producers and distribution would be unable to sell, sponsors would not know there is  a time  to use a particular advert, if not commercial world would have collapse which media houses  are involved.

Base on the assertion above, media houses try to include a department among others which will seek to know how revenue will be generated, hence the birth of advertising department in media houses. This department is called  different names in different media, such as MARKETING DEPARTMENT in Murhi International Television, Lagos, the COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT in broadcasting corporation of Oyo state, Ibadan and many other.

Advertising has developed over the years. It has attained great dimension as a tool of business and as a professional discipline. Infact, it has become part and parcel of our social and economic being. Apparently, unlike the past generation of today, ‘’An average being is exposed to a lot of advertising messages between the time he opens his eyes in the morning and switches off his light at night{Malickson and Nason,1970}.

To give a recognition to the limitation of the scope this study, broadcast medium especially Television is my watch word. Taking the G.B Gills definition into consideration, it is obvious that the time being paid for serves as the major means of generating fund in television media.

So to speak, advertising also grew with the development broadcast media, in other words, stipulates that, without the media, advertising has not yet fully taken place so also broadcast media cannot survive without advertisement because the people who really pay for advertising messages are the  consumers or viewers so there is symbiotic relationship between media and advertising.