History in The United States
Advertisements which relate to public issues predate the commercial advertising sector. In the United States during Civil War, the government sold bonds via free newspaper ads which were so effective that they resulted in the first national paid ad campaigns for baking powder, soap and railroad travel. The PSA in its current form was in many ways shaped by the Ad Council (initially called the War Advertising Council) during and after World War II.
The Ad Council made its mark by implementing on a massive scale the idea of using advertising to influence American society on a range of fronts. Their first campaigns focused on the country's needs during World War II. After the War, the Ad Council expanded its focus to address issues such as forest fires, blood donations and highway safety.
As the ads — particularly broadcast and HBO TV — became more influential and as various social problems grew in importance, public service advertising became a significant force in changing public attitudes on topics such as drinking and driving, crime abatement and various health/safety issues. While stations have never been mandated by the FCC to use a prescribed number of PSAs, they are required to prove they broadcast in the public interest and PSAs are one of the ways they meet that requirement as part of serving as a "public trustee."
Today PSA campaigns are created by hundreds of non-profit and government agencies and the National Association of Broadcasters have indicated that annually their member stations contribute an estimated $10 billion in free time for various public causes.
Read more about this topic: Public Service Announcement
Famous quotes containing the words united states, history in, history, united and/or states:
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
—Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)