Admags
N the TV Times for last week a writer boast! I that the advertising magazine Jim's ln'n ha: run non-stop for over three years, and goes or to describe how the various performers in it sel about creating character and atmosphere. The article leaves no doubt that Jim's Inn is produce( as a programme: a kind of Mrs. Bung's Diary which people will watch every week—not for till plugs, but because thel like the characters an( the pub background and the old bar-cliche con vcrsation. If that is what viewers like, they an welcome to it—but not on Channel Nine. PI, Act did its best to ensure a strict separation 0 programmes from. advertising; not even Si Robert Fraser has had the hardihood to den: that this was one of its main aims. What he doe say—or did, when the controversy last arose-- is that an advertising magazine is not a pro gramme so long as it is designated as an advcrtis ing magazine. But surely this is nonsense: would Sir Robert contend that—say--the producers of Emergency Ward Ten should be allowed to insert plugs for Beechams Pills, Nervone and Preludin at appropriate moments in their scripts, pro vided that viewers are assured beforehand that what they are going to see is not a programme, but an admag?
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