TV on Drugs

If you’ve been watching TV since b/f the late-90s I’m sure you’ve wondered at one time or another what unleashed all the advertising for drugs of the last decade. In 1997 lobbying by media companies (like Time-Warner) finessed some FDA rule changes by the handle of “Direct to the Consumer Advertising (DTC).” This opened TV to an avalanche of advertising dollars smothering consumers w/ medical fixes for everything from high cholesterol to depression. In the ‘90s drug companies were spending $55 million on DTC ads; by 2005 the number had skyrocketed to $7.5 billion. There is, apparently, credible evidence that as many as a third of consumers see an ad for a drug on TV and then talk to their doctor about it. Half of those end up w/ prescriptions. In short, a highly lucrative number of people who watch these ads believe them, even when the words addressing risks, read in a low-key rush, outnumber the sales pitch.

Harlots High and Low: A Foul Saga in The History of Network TV, By Alexander Cockburn

dope, money, & baseball

Gawd, at least A-Rod has confessed. It's the lying, denials, the prevaricating that drives me most mad. The ass covering of the league through this whole debacle stinks, of course. And the mock outrage of the media— A-Fraud’s a cheater, No!!!— is just grating. Why can’t we all just agree that between ’94 and ’04 a lot a lot of players were juicing? Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, Giambi, Clemens, Boone, Brady ‘fucking’ Anderson, et cetera. (The Onion.) One hundred and four players tested positive in ’03. If they tested the whole league that means about 14% were found juicing. Let’s just add an asterisk to those years and offer everybody amnesty. Form some sort of independent truth commission to clear the deck: you can come forward w/ the truth and you’re forgiven; you don’t and evidence is found that you were using and you’re Pete Rosed. For me, it’s the dribs and drabs, the mini media event dramas that are killing the sport, turning it into something more like wrestling: will Clemens’ ‘roid rage get the best of him? will A-Rod ever make it to the Hall of Fame now?! It’s almost as if Selig thought this were a way to make baseball fans out of folks who watch Bad Girls and Court TV.